大腦需要大掃除：記不住是因爲記太多

If you struggle to remember names and numbers or frequently fail to follow the plot of a film, help could be at hand。

Scientists say the problem is that you know too much - and you need to declutter, or spring-clean your mind。

Experiments show that the memory lapses that come with age are not simply due to brain slowing down. Instead, they can be blamed on the well-used brain finding it more and more difficult to stop irrelevant information interfering with the task in hand。

The first step in the study was to compare the working memory of the young and old。

In the context of the study, it involved giving the volunteers groups of sentences and asking them to work out whether each line made sense - and to remember the last word of each sentence。

Overall, the younger people, who had an average age of 23, did better。

Researchers then did a second experiment to see what was hindering the older volunteers, who had an average age of 67. This involved being shown pictures of eight animals and being asked to memorize the order in which the creatures appeared。

The volunteers were then shown dozens of the pictures and asked to click on their computer mouse when the first animal in their memorized sequence occurred, then the second and so on. The older adults found it more difficult to progress, suggesting the previous picture was stuck in their mind。

Mervin Blair, of Montreal's Concordia University, said: "We found that the older adults had more difficulty in getting rid of previous information, which accounted for a lot of the working memory problems seen in the study."

A third study confirmed that the memory problems were not simply due to a simple slowing down of the mind。

Mr Blair, a PhD candidate, says that the older mind appears to have trouble suppressing irrelevant information. This makes it more difficult to concentrate on the here and now. For those who have trouble remembering, he suggests relaxation exercises to declutter the mind。

"Reduce clutter, if you don't, you may not get anything done."

Keeping the mind young, through learning a language or musical instrument can also help。如果你覺得自己平日裏很難記住人名和數字，或者電影看着看着就忘了前面的故事情節，下面這篇文章就能幫你解決這個煩惱。

科學家稱記不住東西是因爲你記住太多東西。你需要對你的大腦進行一次大掃除，刪除多餘的記憶。

實驗顯示，年紀大的人記憶力差並不是因爲腦子不夠用，恰恰相反，正是因爲他們頭腦運轉靈活，處理手頭工作時，不相干的記憶會不停地冒出來干擾他們。

第一項實驗是對比年輕人和老年人的短期記憶能力。具體的試驗內容包括給實驗對象一組句子，讓他們判斷這些句子是否有意義，並且記住每句話的最後一個單詞。

結果顯示平均年齡爲23歲的年輕實驗對象做的更好。

研究人員進行了第二項實驗，目的在於找到影響這羣平均年齡爲67歲的老年實驗對象的原因。實驗內容包括給他們看八幅動物圖片，並記住圖片出現的先後次序。

實驗結束後，研究人員要求這些老年人根據自己的記憶在電腦屏幕上按圖片出現順序點擊動物圖片。這些老年人表示這個實驗很難，因爲上一幅圖片在他們腦子裏揮之不去。

蒙特利爾肯考迪亞大學的馬文•布萊爾說：“我們發現老年人不太容易忘掉過去的事情，正是這個原因導致了短期記憶障礙。”

第三項實驗證明記不住東西並不是因爲思維速度減緩。

即將獲得博士學位的布萊爾稱老年人似乎很難摒除無關信息，這讓他們很難集中精力處理眼前的工作。他建議那些記不住東西的人放鬆身心，忘掉那些不重要的事情。

他說道：“忘掉不重要的記憶，才能做好當前的事情。”

通過學習語言或樂器都能保持大腦年輕態。