Prediction, perception and how we shape memory

How do we remember? In Per Sederberg's view, the brain is a prediction machine: It carries around representations of the world, stores associations between those representations and then dynamically changes them with experience. The stored context developed through experience informs the predictions we continue to make as we move through life; these predictions shape our perception, learning and subsequent memories and may even create our personality. This model enables Sederberg to study "memory in the real world," rather than asking subjects to simply recall word lists, and to look for clues to Alzheimer's disease and the broader dynamics of cognitive decline. ScienceWriters2014 attendees will have a chance to participate in, and learn early results of, an on-the-spot study of cognition by Sederberg's Computational Memory Lab.

For supplemental information about this New Horizons in Science briefing, see the CASW website. To participate in the on-the-spot study, see the OSU website.