our awesome brain 0/6

I apologize in advance if I was able to disappoint some of you but this post is the first episode of a series that requires a small introduction, and it will be dedicated exclusively to the preface to avoid publish an article too long.

Introduction:

First of all there is a widely held idea (largely by our friends the filmmakers) that claims we only use 10, 15% or 20% of our brain (our sources depend on our favorite movie, Lucy, limitless ...). This idea is of course absurd, we use of course 100% of our brain, pay attention to the nuance, not at the same time! And yes, when we are slouched on a couch, busy contemplating Ned Stark beheaded on TV, we do not try to remember what we ate the day before!

To say that we only use 15% of our brain is to say that we only use 15% of our house because we do not find ourselves in every room at the same time. Simultaneously stimulating all the functionalities of our brain would be more likely to provoke an epileptic fit than the discovery of a new innate talent for finance!

Then, memory, it works in three different ways:

• The sensory memory, the immediate memory that is responsible for our awareness of the present (allows us to not forget the beginning of a word when we are listening to the end)

• working memory / short-term memory, allows us to immediately store information in the brain to make it accessible immediately after, the short-term memory allows us to store between 5 and 9 elements at the same time, it is this memory that is lacking Doris (in Nemo) for example and that serves among other things to hold a conversation.

• Long-term memory, the sustainable storage of information in our brain, is our "hard drive", there are two kinds of long-term memory:

1. Declarative / explicit memory - consciously calls for information that we have stored, for example knowledge, if we learned one day that 6x3 = 18 is stored in long-term memory. It can also be sensory information, such as the smell of a perfume, the taste of an apple or the noise produce by Justin Bieber (for example) – by the way, thinking of an active song in your brain the same areas than the one that is activated when we really listen to one!

2. non-declarative / procedural memory - it is a so-called "unconscious" memory that is exploited for the accomplishment of tasks such as making laces, cycling, swimming ... this memory does not need to be used consciously that's what he does that we are able to get home from the office, the college, or any other place we attend daily in a totally unconscious way, did you ever come home at night after work and when you leave your car, you realize that you did not realize you had made the whole trip?
   It is the training and repetition of a gesture that makes you physically make connections in your brain so that you can repeat these actions without thinking, this process aims to reduce the amount of energy spent on perform them.

That will be all for today, I hope that you like it, do not hesitate to share your impressions in your comments!