How to remember where things are or where did I leave my IPhone?
Where would we be without all the new gadgets. Names, phone numbers, directions, appointments we use digital devices to remember them. But were did I leave my iPhone, GPS, telephone? Before the gadgets we used to be looking for our keys, wallet, glasses. So Object–location memory is now even more vitally important for many daily-life activities.
How does the brain automatically process where important things are?
Characteristics of object–location memory:
- Object location is an important ability for evolution of mankind. Where did I leave my food, ax and so on. The use of tools and private material possessions has increased the need of this ability. Given its evolutionary relevance, it has been argued that spatial memory in general and object–location memory in particular would operate mainly in an automatic fashion
- It is influenced by age, with increasing age a decrease in object location becomes eminent and sex hormones also influence object location. Women excel on a test of location memory for objects
- Object–location memory directly connects to episodic memory, i.e. memory for personal events
Object–location memory consists of three main components: object processing, spatial-location processing, and object–location binding.
Object processing or Object identity memory might mainly depend on temporal-lobe structures, specifically in the right hemisphere. Object processing starts with the recognition of the object. The next step in object processing is keeping the recognized objects in memory. Object memory is less sensitive to brain damage in the hippocampal formation. Possibly, ventral cortical areas and prefrontal dorsolateral areas are important in remembering the target objects.
Spatial-location processing has been argued to be further broken down into an exact, metric position sense and a more relative, categorical sense of location. The former appears to include the right posterior parietal cortex. The latter seems to show a preference for the analogous part of the left hemisphere. It should be noted that there are also contributions from the prefrontal and hippocampal areas to spatial-location processing.
Object–location memory can be considered as a special class of episodic memory, reflecting a form of contextual memory in which object (identity) information has to be bound to location information. Episodic memory is often regarded as the highest form of human memory, allowing conscious recollection of events from one’s personal past.
For this the hippocampal formation is most critical.
Regarding the question how the relevant object location information enters the memory system, both attentional effort and automatic routines play a role, but we don’t know how yet.
Conclusion
Finding your IPhone is an important although complex procedure in which three steps for remembering the object location are important. Age and sex influences this ability, with increasing age retrieving important objects can become more difficult. Women excel in finding objects so ask your wife.
Nice to know all this but how to find your items?
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A POSTMA, R KESSELS, M VANASSELEN (2008). How the brain remembers and forgets where things are: The neurocognition of object–location memory Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 32 (8), 1339-1345 DOI: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2008.05.001