Memory is a funny old thing. It acts as our brain's magic portal to the past with something as simple as the smell of Impulse body spray/Lynx Africa (delete as appropriate) transporting us back to a cramped PE changing room circa 1999, foggy with the offending mist, and the eternal odour of rubber mats. But memory also plays tricks on us, forcing us to hunt for important documents we put down only a few hours ago, whose mysterious location we have inexplicably forgotten, when you're already running late (hint: try the fridge - that's where mine were.) Last year, to aid me in my understanding of memory, I completed an experiment with my form group, the very obliging 7R (now 8R). In this experiment, I asked them to name as many of the 50 states of America as they could. We made it to (a not unimpressive!) 17 states. This is information they pulled from their Long Term Memory which they had absorbed in to their brains through prior learning and cultural osmosis. I then put a...
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