What is the memory capacity of the human brain? Is there a physical limit to the amount of information it can store?
—J. Hawes, Huntington Beach, Calif.
Paul Reber, professor of psychology at Northwestern University, replies:
“Mr. Osborne, may I be excused? My brain is full,” a student with a particularly tiny head asks his classroom teacher in a classic Far Side comic by Gary Larson. The deadpan answer to this question would be, “No, your brain is almost certainly not full.” Although there must be a physical limit to how many memories we can store, it is extremely large. We don’t have to worry about running out of space in our lifetime.
The human brain consists of about one billion neurons. Each neuron forms about 1,000 connections to other neurons, amounting to more than a trillion connections. If each neuron could only help store a single memory, running out of space would be a problem. You might have only a few gigabytes of storage space, similar to the space in an iPod or a USB flash drive. Yet neurons combine so that each one helps with many memories at a time, exponentially increasing the brain’s memory storage capacity to something closer to around 2.5 petabytes (or a million gigabytes). For comparison, if your brain worked like a digital video recorder in a television, 2.5 petabytes would be enough to hold three million hours of TV shows. You would have to leave the TV running continuously for more than 300 years to use up all that storage.
The brain’s exact storage capacity for memories is difficult to calculate. First, we do not know how to measure the size of a memory. Second, certain memories involve more details and thus take up more space; other memories are forgotten and thus free up space. Additionally, some information is just not worth remembering in the first place.
This is good news because our brain can keep up as we seek new experiences over our lifetime. If the human life span were significantly extended, could we fill our brains? I’m not sure. Ask me again in 100 years.
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54 Comments
Add CommentDr. Reber,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou write: "The human brain consists of about one billion neurons. Each neuron forms about 1,000 connections to other neurons, amounting to more than a trillion connections. If each neuron could only help store a single memory, running out of space would be a problem."
While I recognize that there are a number of estimations of the number of neurons within the brain as well as the total number of connections between the neurons, your estimates are orders of magnitude below the accepted numbers. I'm sure this is just a mistake in editing; after all, even Neuroscience for Kids gets the number of neurons right: 100 billion neurons and a quadrillion synapses. Since your estimates here are magnitudes of order wrong, though, and if they were used for further calculations, doesn't that make the rest of your calculations in error as well?
It's disappointing that this error managed to make it all the way through and into print. Surely someone should have noticed it at some point?
Thanks,
Kim Wombles
Adjunct Instructor of psychology
Dear Kim,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou are correct, thanks for pointing out the misstatement. Once I wrote the simple "The human brain consists..." I should have gone with the commonly held estimate of ~100 billion. However, in terms of the numbers of neurons in the brain likely to participate in long-term memory of facts, events and episodes, 1 billion neurons is not a bad estimate. That might be surprising, but if you look into the details, e.g. a report trying to estimate the number of neurons, http://www.frontiersin.org/neuroscience/humanneuroscience/paper/10.3389/neuro.09/031.2009/, you'll see that the 85 billion total brain neurons (by their estimate) includes 65 billion in the cerebellum and only around 17 billion in the cerebral cortex. Fact memory is probably a function largely of the cerebral cortex and not the cerebellum. There are also a lot of different types of neurons in the cerebral cortex besides the pyramidal cells that are the focus of many studies of cognition (e.g., granule cells, interneurons). Finally, the brain is fairly modular meaning that there are probably large populations of neurons that don't support fact memory (amusingly in this context, my own research is focused on the role of many of these other neurons in memory for things like skills, which are learned differently than facts).
But it would have been much better for that sentence to continue on "likely to participate in memory for facts, events and episodes." Curiously, you'll notice that the main point I am making about it being unlikely to use up the memory capacity of the brain is even stronger if you assume the brain can hold more information. The actual capacity in number of memories is still extremely difficult to calculate because we don't have precise estimates on the number of neurons needed to store a single memory nor how effectively they combine exponentially (via distributed representations). But odds still are, the limiting factor on information in your brain is your learning rate (bandwidth) not the amount the brain can hold.
Regards,
Paul J. Reber, Ph.D.
Department of Psychology
Northwestern University
Dr. Reber,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm curious how you got to the 2.5 petabyte estimate. I realize these things are very fuzzy, but coming from a pure information science background, it seems like more than can be explained purly by the connections.
Take the system you descirbed--10^12 synapses, each connecting two of 10^9 neurons. On top of that, assume that each synapse carries some amount of internal information--the "strength of the connection" or some such. Each synapse can be completely described in about 100 bits: 30 bits to identify Neuron A, 30 bits for Neuron B, and 40 bits for the internal information in the synapse.
So, the entire structure can be described in about 10^14 bits, or 11 terabytes. Since the amount of information a system can hold can be no more than the amount it takes to fully describe the system, this is the limit of the amount of information that can be stored "in the connections."
Is there a lot of internal state to a neuron or synapse beond the connections? To get to the 2.5 petabytes you mention, each synapse would need internal storage of around 10^4 bits, or each neuron something like 10^7th.
The structural specificity of the neural architecture ads tremendously to the total information capacity of the brain. So we may actually be able to store more than an exabyte of information.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs merely a retired information systems analyst, I think that computer systems have naturally developed applying similar methods to efficiently meet similar operational requirements.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHigh volume storage requirements are most effectively met using high performance storage methods, while relatively inactive information can be compressed and stored in lower cost, high capacity devices.
Migration between short term and long term storage usually occurs during otherwise idle periods.
Perhaps the most efficient use of storage capacity could be achieved by decomposing information into lists of pointers to unique items. As an example, in this sentence the word 'example' could be stored in one location, pointed to by all its referencers. Information recall would require reconstruction of the original's facsimile.
Perhaps the brain uses similar methods...
Interesting article. I especially enjoyed the comments.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBTW, the amount of data stored on even fixed capacity devices depends on data content when the data is compressed and encoded for storage efficiency. The brain capacity question likely has no definitively quantifiable solution...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJeff Hawkins, in his book On Intelligence, states the following:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Let's say the cortex has 32 trillion synapses. If we represented each synapse using only two bits (giving us four possible values per synapse) and each byte has eight bits (so one byte could represent four synapses), then we would need roughly 8 trillion bytes of memory."
According to Google, 8 trillion bytes is equal too 7.2 terabytes. That's far less than 2.5 petabytes.
Of course, Hawkins recognizes that 32 trillion synapses is a rough estimate. But the point is that one byte could represent four synapses (rather than one byte per synapse).
What makes anyone think the brain encodes information digitally? Is it in binary octal or hex encoded? 7-bit ASCII? I strongly suspect the brain stores information in unknown analog formats...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPlease, put away your calculators - the question is nonsensical!
The number stated by John von Neumann was estimated around the brain having 2.8 * 10^20 bits of 'memory space'. This was 50 or 60 years ago, but no one understood computational systems like Neumann. Without him, we might not have the common pc as we know it. He has interesting paper and lectures on the nervous system, and how he relates to it as a computing system.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHis final lectures for Harvard before he passed away were compiled into a great read entitled "The Computer and the Brain".
Some notes I have from the time of reading it:
Computer has hierarchy of memories, ram rom, brain has short, long, maybe even instant.
Interesting theory, we never “forget”. We can be reminded or randomly remember things, he goes into theories on how much memory we have, but it requires a lot of math so I will skip it. But he estimates the brain having 2.8 * 10^20 bits of memory.
Talks about the various places memory can reside in the brain, in the stimulation level, like muscle memory, and that nerves can “learn” meaning, the threshold of stimulation can be raised if not used frequently, or lowered if used often….learning.
High or Low precision?
For the speeds required for calculations (especially ones repeated over and over again) it is believed we would need low accuracy so we can go faster.
In order to do complex arithmetical calculations (which the brain must) a high level of precision is required (for the fact that errors build up and magnify each other), around 12 decimal places
The average signal is between 50 and 200 pulses per second. With these quantities, precisions that we just mentioned are a near impossibility, it turns out to be more like 3 decimal places (try dividing 3 by 2, then 100 by 17, you only get to the 3rd place)
How does the brain have such a low level of precision but is so reliable…the nervous system can work with a fraction of the signal received.
Memory at the genetic level, DNA, keeps going with theories.
Sorry, Yale, not Harvard
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is very interesting information, but I am more interested in the mechanisms of memory retrieval. For instance, how does someone with photographic memory index and access these memories? On the other hand, why does it feel like a memory is hidden when it is there all of the time but inaccessible no matter how hard you try until suddenly it comes to you?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisnonsensical is a bit (no pun intended) too far, no?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFirst off, I want to say that trying to understand computational theory as it applies to the brain is surely not nonsensical. Both the computer and the brain have been better understood together (from a theoretical standpoint) when relating the two. And no further progress will be made to simulate a real brain if this topic isn't being thought about.
We have come to a point in technology that this has become a good question, because there is a possibility of imitation. Where do you think the idea of RAM and ROM came from? Short and Long term memory, something that early adopters of computer engineering could relate to from the real world, and engineer it in a mechanical sense.
A PC (or Mac) and the brain are both computers, in the most raw definition.
I highly suggest a read of Neumann's lectures, they are condensed and provide a great outlook on computation theory.
doesn't encoded memory RNA play a role in this estimate?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAlso, an electric signal is an analog signal, much like the level of a chemical in our brain. However, the computer INTERPRETS this signal at a binary level, because the signal is well controlled. Not much is known on how the brain interprets it's signals, but you cannot rule out the possibility of a well controlled analog signal, that our brain encodes in some other format. Perhaps base 16?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is fascinating to realise how quickly animals brains resolve complex problems, such as cheetas calculating the intersection of the trajectories of itself and its prey, when you realise that nervous impulses are so slow that dinasaurs needed several brains along their spines to be able to move effectively.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe brain is powerful compared to robots circuits because of the high level of feedback integration at all scales.
I think it should be possible to find out max memory capacity of single and/or groups of neurons w/ experiments today.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI don't think anybody done that before.
I mean they should try to train the neurons using digital inputs of random numbers etc and re-test until when the neurons cannot learn any more inputs
(just like testing an artificial neural network simulated on a computer).
@ jtdwyer - "What makes anyone think the brain encodes information digitally?" - The brain stores information in both a digital and analog format. When a neuron reaches a certain threshold or activation level it fires in a sort of on/off digital manner; however there is also analog like fine tuning which makes it a digital analog hybrid.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@dbtinc - good point, and in fact there has been recent evidence that even the code it self is recombined; so not just reading different segments, but genetic recombination for long term potentiation and changes in neural architectures.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisProfessor Reber, Why do some people seem to lose memories as they age while the memories of other elderly people become ever more rich and vivid? - BodhiRobin
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisProfessor Reber, Why do some aging people seem to lose memories while the memories of other elderly people seem to grow more extensive, rich, and vivid? - BodhiRobin
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI don't see my comment, so I will re-enter it: Dr. Reber, why is it that some aging people seem to lose memories, while the memories of other elderly people appear to grow ever more extensive, rich, and vivid? - BodhiRobin
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn fact, digital is partly analog. A square wave is not truly square. It would require an infinite number of harmonics to make a perfect square wave. Both the brain and computers are hybrids. Therefore, digital v. analog is not a useful distinction between the two types of computation.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHowever, here's the rub: if brains operated like computers - specifically, binary state logic machines - then we would understand them a lot better than we do now, because we understand computers really very well. We made them. But, as Jeff Hawkins asserts, we have a mountain of data about the brain, but no encompassing theory or framework for how it works.
The reason is deceivingly simple; deceiving not because its especially mysteries, but because we hold on so tightly to our mechanistic models. Essentially, any one neuron is not a fixed model; in other words, there is no fixed function to model its behavior like a logic gate. This is because a neuron's behavior is both a result of synaptic inputs AND surrounding environmental factors such as, but not limited to: chemical ionic gradients, neurotransmitters, protein moderated genetic expression of ion gate density, and local field potential (LFP).
All of these mitigating factors are in addition to and SIMULTANEOUS with synaptic activity. Furthermore, the majority of these environmental influences are the superimposed result of many surrounding cells, both neural and glial, which are themselves subject to all the open system dynamics listed above. Our functional models of such open systems must be evaluated step wise. This is the limiting restraint on numerical analysis. The brain, however, does not have this restraint. The neuron is physically sensitive to numerous environmental influences, instantly. This is the true meaning of real-time and a necessity for evolutionary fitness.
Bits, are in essence, a state function. They are knowable at any instant and this certitude does not depend on how that state was achieved. It just “is” and is ready to be plugged into the next known function. Neurons, however, have no stable and precisely knowable state. Their morphology, and therefore their behavior, is in constant flux. Functional computation, like “digital”, and self-organizing computation, like the neuronal activity, are distinct types of computation. They each have their strengths and weaknesses, but until we recognize these fundamental distinctions, we will continue to use the wrong analogy to even begin understanding the nature of neuronal computation.
Cheers.
All - The analog electrical signals of computers are digitally interpreted by simple threshold as 0 or 1. The configuration of circuits in memory or logic is fixed.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn the brain each neuron forms networks with perhaps thousands of others. Their synapses fire electrically depending on variable voltage thresholds set by multiple chemical levels.
Any semblance of these systems lies only within our minds, not our brains. What is the point of making calculations when we have no mathematical model of elementary memory or storage? What can be gained by pretending we understand - quantification of nonsense?
Anyone who can determine what percentage of human memory capacity is consumed by the storage of a single letter, color or smell, please continue calculating - perhaps you can arrive at some meaningful answer. All others, please cease these mathematical delusions.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI appreciate your clarification in response to Kim's challenge, but it is worth noting (I almost said remembering) that those 65 billion cerebellar neurons are likely to be involved in procedural learning, at least for those skills in which motor behaviour is involved. As we considered the full range of cognitive abilities, we should leave no neuron unturned.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRead "Funes el memorioso" by Jorge Luis Borges, and have some fun! Salut +
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCalming down a bit now, for those who would determine a number of bits represented by synapse states and multiply by neurons, etc.:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this1) the state of a synapse is determinable by innumerable combinations of local neurotransmitters levels
2) the interpretive state of a single synapse may depend on as many as all other states of the neuron's synapses - effectively providing perhaps 1000**2 actual states for each synapse (ignoring the analog signals of local neurotransmitters)
Memories are not stored in encoded text: recall your experience reading this comment; now describe that memory it in any language. There are two separate processes involved: recall and language encoding. How many bits are required to store a memory? We don't even understand the question...
I heard somewhere that we only use 10% of our brain. Wait, who's that tromping on my bridge?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisVery interesting article but I wonder why I evolved a 300 year memory brain for an 80 year body? That's like the 200,000 mile slant-6 engine Chrysler used to put in the 100,000 mile Valiant body - over sized engines or brains are too expensive. Maybe our brains need more space than a TV recording because we remember in 5 modes - sight, sound, feel, taste and smell?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHermit
Dr Reber, I simply wanted to share that I enjoyed your reply to Kim almost more than the article. :-)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd jtdwyer, as an IT'er going back to school to transition into a neuroscience career right now, I enjoyed your input as well.
crankspl - Thanks. I hope I didn't PO too many with my over-exuberance. The best of luck in your new endeavors!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisInteresting article but incomplete without answering the question, "How many memories can we recall?" It's like measuring the capacity of the gas tank without also looking at the usage rate or demand generated by the engine consuming from that tank. It may be that human's brain capacity far exceeds the demand exerted by the human user?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTo expand on the posts by jtdwyer:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA computer has seperate chips for memory and processing. Sure the CPU has some caching on board but it gets it's content from the RAM, ROM or long term storage. The CPU processes in chunks of 8, 16, 32, 64 or 128 bits.
In contrast the brain is all onboard caching. It processes in the millions of bits instead of the miniscule sizes of a CPU. The numbers used in the article are affective bits rather than discrete bits. It has also been shown that memories are frequently enhanced by on the fly creation of logical textures to provide richer detail.
The point is that we are decades if not centuries away from an artificial brain that comes even close to a natural human brain. The human brain is so efficient that the silly math challenges really are not particularly relevent to the meaning of the article.
The slant six was an amazingly indestructable engine. Too bad that Chrysler just could not make it achieve higher emissions standards.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have always suspected that Isaac Asimov had the best wired brain humanity has known. Many people have eidetic or memories that are nearly so, but Asimov was able to not just word-search exceptionally well, he could relate his memories in efficient intellectual processing so that he could explain anything that he knew.
Writing most of his 250 or so books before the age of the PC he had a roll of typewriter paper that fed through his typewriter. He wrote at 80 words per minute and never needed spell check or fact check, very rarely any corrections at all before printing by his publisher.
Asimov wrote about everything. His forte was biochemistry because he effortlessly remembered countless compounds and reactions, but he never forgot a joke so he wrote a joke book, he had read the Bible when he was a young man and later wrote his own guide to the Bible, wrote about every science.
I wish I could find if Asimov ever was prone to synesthesia or if his huge verbal library was basically just a verbal library.
I also wish that we could develop a way to find out how "old" a memory really is in the brain, as this might help in lie detection. When a person remembers an incident from a year ago, but his story if full of detail memories that only date from last week, that indicates he has been working on his story since the incident. Also, is a "made up" detail somehow different than a detail that is actually experienced with all the senses at the scene, like a bang, the smell of gunpowder, muscle power being exerted, etc?
Maybe a little off topic,but a very interesting question is what is the limit of the human mind?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAre there any limits?
What is the speed of a thought,in miles per hour?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt's nice to see the discussion here in the comments digging around and wrestling with some of the very hard elements of trying to answer the original question. I just wanted to add another quick note for those who are looking at the computer analogy, that is, how are neurons firing/not like computer bits being on/off.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA computer byte has 8 on/off bits. But note it is not limited to only store 8 different numbers, it can store numbers from zero to 256. In general, with carefully designed coding, you can get exponential capacity out of a group of bits. Now you might be tempted to think that with around a billion neurons, you could store 2**1,000,000,000 memories (which is a very big number). But you have to scale way back because neurons aren't quite as reliable as silicon bits (and they die), so you tend to have "population coding" of many information sources in the brain. However, the brain likely uses "distributed representations" which are ways of getting some of that exponential explosion in capacity back. These distributed representations probably also get you some information compression as a bonus.
Figuring out the exact math isn't really possible yet given what we don't know about neurons and memory in the brain. But it is most likely so large that the important questions have to do with how fast you can get things in (learn) or out (retrieve).
Imagine you had an mp3 music player with a Terabyte of storage. You'd never worry about running out of space. How many songs you had on it would be based on how many you could find or afford to buy (storage). And you might quickly run into the problem of figuring out how to find something you wanted to listen to right now among all those songs (retrieval). Actually, I only have 16G on my music player and I run into both of these problems already.
The problem with this kind of analisys is that it asumes that the brain is like other devices (physical or virtual). The brain is an organ that "grows" in a organic way, the number of synapses and, even, the number of the neurons increase with the experience and education, etc The memory is associated with "feelings" (pain, pleasure, love...) more than with the details. The details are lost and this is the principal reason for the invention of "mechanical" things that keep the record of this. This is another capacity that the brain has: the creation of novelties... and the two resides in its "organic plasticity"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSorry von Neumann and Turing but the brain is not a machine (computer)
Wouldn't it make since that the brain is efficient in storing data? For example, let's say you could create a storage system in which the English letter "A" is stored once but is connected to thousands of other data bits. The same could be true for every common bit of information. It would be like being able to store the complete data of a book using only 26 tiny storage spaces. The genius would be in the thousands of strategic connections that make words possible. If something like this were an even slightly accurate way to describe brain capacity, it's easy to see that the volume would be practically inexhaustible because it would be exponential rather than one-to-one per data bit.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this(DISCLAIMER: I'm simply an enthusiast and have no formal knowledge or training, so forgive me if my comments are naive.)
Read an interesting article about how memory on a quantum level may be stored in an altogether different dimension or brane. Our minds may be just used as translators. Considering the strange world of the quantum, this would mean infinite capacity. Theoretically we could access to others memories as well.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIs Brain really a storage device or a Tuner to the memory stored elsewhere? I am raising this as we see born genius and accidental genius too? If it is a mere storage device with memory capacity etc, how come things which are not input be there? If it is acting as a tuner, then there wont be a need to measure the capacity in power of bytes.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Perhaps the brain uses similar methods..."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is impossible for the brain to mimic process of a computer as computers are invented by the brains.
My ideology is that "Brain implements the concept of how it functions in whatever it creates". For example, Not only in memory. If you consider the CPU, it does only arithmetic operations all other input & output operations are delegated, just like in humans spinal card takes care of IO systems and passes the signal to brain and receives the response signals from brain and redistributes them accordingly. My point is that not only computers, if consider buildings there would surely be some relation to the function of the human body. Simply put when we look to arrive at a solution for a problem brain can only at the function just as it looks at our internal functions and come to a solutions that best fits and implements this idea to the external problem function.
I'm not a science or medical student, I arrived at this "thinking about how my brain thinks", a recursive process triggered this concept.
"Perhaps the brain uses similar methods..."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is impossible for the brain to mimic process of a computer as computers are invented by the brains.
My ideology is that "Brain implements the concept of how it functions in whatever it creates". For example, Not only in memory. If you consider the CPU, it does only arithmetic operations all other input & output operations are delegated, just like in humans spinal card takes care of IO systems and passes the signal to brain and receives the response signals from brain and redistributes them accordingly. My point is that not only computers, if consider buildings there would surely be some relation to the function of the human body. Simply put when we look to arrive at a solution for a problem brain can only at the function just as it looks at our internal functions and come to a solutions that best fits and implements this idea to the external problem function.
I'm not a science or medical student, I arrived at this "thinking about how my brain thinks", a recursive process triggered this concept.
"Although there must be a physical limit to how many memories we can store, it is extremely large. We don’t have to worry about running out of space in our lifetime."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOk, call me naive, but doesn't this contradict evolutionary principles? If we don't have a hope of filling our brain's capacity, then it wouldn't have evolved, would it?
Is it possible for memory contained within our DNA to be passed down from generation to generation?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe calculation used in the answer is simplistic and severely underestimated. We might guess that a memory consists of a combination or permutation of similarly excited neurons, probably a permutation, rather than a combination. This because memories fade or become jumbled probably because the excitation sequence loses its integrity. The thing is that the number of permutations possible in even a billion neurons is virtually infinite, and furthermore, the more neurons involved in a single memory the MORE permutations would be possible, not less. So I would guess that the answer to the question would be more like, virtually never!!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEvolution theory depends on accidental mutations which are either marginally functional, severely dysfunctional,or functionally superior. These mean that a functionally superior mutation, even if infinitely superior, would be a lucky accident. As an accident its functional potential would not have to be exhausted in order for it to survive.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA good example of this would be our ability to see stars in the night sky. Certainly primitive man would have had the capacity to see stars billions of light years away. However it was hundreds of centuries before enough knowledge was accumulated so that we could find some useful application for this capacity.
The reason I discovered this article is because I've been wondering the answer to this question for a few years now. A few times I've moved to new places, new jobs, new industry sectors at once and had to learn an incredible amount very quickly. I've also spent my life trying to learn as much as possible. I'm self taught too if that makes a difference and have used computers for over 30 years since 8. It feels to me like my brain is like a certain capacity hard drive and I've totally maxed it out on a number of occasions. When I'm processing such a large volume of new information, it does feel like some memories are just falling away to make way for new ones. I've also learnt I seem to store a lot of memories emotionally, which may take up a lot more space. I certainly hope there isn't a upper limit I've reached, but thought I would share my own findings with you.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt certainly exciting to know the awesome capacity of the human brain - yet at the same time I am having trouble reconciling the fact that so many people I know can't seem to remember anything, especially important things I tell them. It couldn't be me, could it, that is the problem?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDr. Reber
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRegarding your last lines, there's a novel: "Icehenge", fron Kim Stanley Robinson. KSR deals with the fact that extending human life could lead to some issues in memory. The premise on this matter is that people forget his first one or two centuries of life, they 'know' they have done this or that, and they know who their relatives are, but that is just meaningless.
Thank you Ph.D. Paul J. Reber for this research or artical and for the information that you gave .
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisi'm an Egyptian Man .. And This beneficial knowledge is not a specialty field of my study .. But I as human beings like the rest of the people .. there's some questions pass on my mind .. but as you know we are in Egypt do not have the easy way to seek knowledge like you in America and the rest of the scientifically advance nations ..
Sorry for the long introduction and my bad language ..
And the most pressing question on my mind is :
( " I know that the age difference may cause differences in the ability of human memory storage ..
- 'The child is meant by the upcoming words.'
But, Are these strong ability in children on storage may pose a burden on academic progress with age of this child?
While what studied by that child is full of stuffing and unimportant .. And the way it learns dominated nature conservation and not understanding what was taught.
And thank you for reading this nd i'll be so happy after repalying my request .
*Sorry for the silly english it's my second language ^^*
Highly vigorous blog, I liked that much.
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