The next time someone asks you to stop sharing your fun facts about rare coins, or teases you about your love for Norse mythology(北欧神话), tell them you’re working on your brain health.
According to a new study that examined memory in expert birdwatchers, having expert knowledge in a subject helps us memorize new information.
This is because, while forgetting often happens when similar memories interfere(干扰) with each other, expert knowledge provides a mental organizational structure that helps us keep new items that we want to learn distinct from each other.
“Unlike memory functions that tend to decrease with age, expert knowledge often continues to accumulate as we get older. This makes it an area of strength in older adults that we may be able to control and use to mitigate age-related memory decline and improve quality of life for this group,” says Dr. Erik Wing, a postdoctoral fellow at Baycrest’s Rotman Research Institute.
To study the effects of expert knowledge on memory, Dr. Wing and his team took in local bird experts from community organizations such as the Toronto Ornithological Club and Toronto Field Naturalists.
To identify how knowledge changes mental organization, participants were shown sets of bird images and asked to arrange them visually on the screen according to perceived similarity.
Most experts tended to group birds based on specific features, such as the structure of the beak(喙) or the shape of the tail, even for bird species that they had never seen before. In contrast, some of the experts based their grouping on more superficial(粗浅的) features like color.
Next, the researchers tested participants’ memory. The researchers found that those who grouped birds based on specific features performed better in the memory task than those who grouped birds based on color.
While we can’t all be birdwatching experts, we are all experts in something—whether it’s sports, the Lord of the Rings trilogy or our own family and social network. In other words, we may all be able to benefit from the memory boost that expert knowledge can provide, regardless of our age.
12. Why does having expert knowledge enable us to memorize new information better?
A.It reminds people to share hobbies. |
B.It records the influence of fun facts. |
C.It helps reduce confusion between new items. |
D.It prevents the change of a mental structure. |
13. What does the underlined word “mitigate” mean in Paragraph 4?
A.Confirm. | B.Delay. | C.Preserve. | D.Follow. |
14. What did Dr. Wing and his team do in their research?
A.They conducted interviews with local bird experts. |
B.They carefully grouped birds based on different features. |
C.They made an experiment in the Toronto Ornithological Club. |
D.They compared participants’ performances in the memory task. |
15. What’s the author’s attitude towards the possibility of getting memory boost?
A.Positive. | B.Doubtful. | C.Unclear. | D.Cautious. |