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Chimpanzees` short-term memory surpasses human beings one.

It has been possible to prove that primates that reach seven years of age have a better

short-term memory than university students. The corresponding study and its assertion have been published in Current Biology magazine, and they contribute to the fact that we should seriously consider our belief that all the cognitive functions are superior to the rest of the animals ones in the mind brain unit.

The investigation put forward by scientists from the University of Kyoto who have specialized in primates strongly confirms that we have underestimated our nearest cousins` –chimpanzees- intellectual capacities.

Never before have scientists proved that these animals have got a great numeric memory which is better than adult human beings one, since the same evaluation tests have been done with both chimpanzees and human adults.

The research consisted in exposing undergraduates and three mothers with their seven-year-old offspring which have learnt to recognize numbers from one to nine to a competition dealing with numeric memory exercises.

The test consisted in showing these numbers placed in different spaces on a touch screen and replacing them with a white square. Then all the participants had to remember the order in which the numbers had appeared. It was unbelievable that one of the offspring had memorized and ordered the numbers 80% of the cases, whereas the most retentive memory human beings` brains were 40% of the occasions effective.

The author of the study, Tetsuro Matsuzawa, attributes this great difference to the so called “eidetic imagery”, a special capacity to remember things seen and heard in a complex scene with a great level of perfection. We must bear in mind that some human beings have naturally got this capacity too, and it is found in healthy people and those with brain deficits like the Savants or the wise autistic people, and those who have improved their ability to memorize after long training.

All this means that humans must be an exception, or we must go through a harsh training period in order to resemble chimpanzees, at least compared to their ability to memorize numbers. Replay`s favourite phrase used to be “Believe it or not”.

Our BMU makes us forget old events to be able to remember more important ones.

Our memory is adaptable that’s why one of its most important characteristics is to fortify some memories, while weaking or omitting others.

A study published in Nature Neuroscience released by Anthony Wagner, Brice Kuhl, Nicole Dudukovic and Itamar Kahn, at Stanford University in USA, is the first one to register with visual images the brains of some persons while they were eliminating disturbing or upsetting memories.

To forget is a significant function that helps our brain in future situations, as it contributes to save energy and time to evoke memories that are relevant to survival, weakening those that are irrelevant.

This is called neuronal pruning of the memory system, it can either fortify or weaken memories.

The neurologists that took part in this study used a memory test to determine how well the studied people remembered learnt words of a total of several similar words presented to them.

The volunteers were 20 undergraduates that should see a list of 240 pair words, 40 of them were in capital letters and each of them were together with other six words in small letters. For instance: ATTIC-dirt, ATTIC-rubbish, ATTIC- floor.

Alter the students studied the lists, they were asked to memorize three pairs of words in capital letters.
Then scientists measured the brain responses and observed that while they erased in an effective way the irrelevant words during the memory test, they observed how the brain activity in the areas involved with memory diminished remarkably.

Our BMU is in charge of predicting what concepts of all we learn will probably be relevant to our life in the future. It is an automatic prediction action that is very benefical for the neuronal process of information.
If we need to use the information stored in our memory in case of danger of survival, or in case of intentionally select a subject to recall, our neuronal mechanisms should lead us to that memory without delay.

For this to happen without facing or dealing with irrelevant memories, the competition between these and the relevant ones has to be successful in favour of the second ones to demand less effort to the PFL to recall the most adequate memories.

Nowadays we live demanding our brain each time more and it has to adjust itself to what we learn and not only in topics that have to do with our work or career.


Everybody operating with banks, credit cards, e mails, and other modern technology, for instance, has to change their passwords for the systems to be safer.

Imagine yourself operating an automatic cashier in a bank and respecting the rule that the password number should have nothing to do with our real life events (date of birth, ID number) to avoid possible fraud, this is something that contributes to safety but makes it difficult to recall the password easily.

At first our BMU, will make an effort to remember the number and be able to use it automatically, but when the time comes to change it, the competition between the previous password, useless but automatized and the new one necessary but still weak will show.

Our PFL will have to make an effort to determine which one to use.

After some time, neurons joined with the old password will tend to weaken their union and we will have to make no effort to remember the new one. From a neuronal point of view to forget the old password makes the brain more efficient-explained Dr. Anthony Wagner.

It is obvious that this competition of information is not unique of bank passwords but turns up every time a new concept has to be learnt and replace another one.

The way the mind-brain-body unit handles hierarchy.

The brain-mind unit and the solution of problems. Second part.

The Monty Hall’s Dilemma.

In the previous issue we presented The Monty Hall’s Dilemma, and now we will show the correct answer to it.

As a reminder let’s say that we had asked you to imagine that you were a participant at the contest, and you chose door number one.

We had also informed you that there was a prize of a hundred thousand dollars (a car) behind one of the three doors, and only a female goat in the other two.

Then remember the presenter at the contest opened door number three with only a female goat, and afterwards, he asked:

-“Would you like to change this choice for door number two?”

Now we ask you: “Would it be an advantage to make such a change?”

Today we will see which the correct answer is.

The solution is that if it is good to change the originally chosen door, then the chances to win are larger.

Let’s see a chart with the six possibilities that could hypothetically occur in order to be aware of the benefits of the change.

The first three if the initial choice stands:

Door 1	Dorr2	Door 3
Car	Female goat	Female goat	If you change it, you lose.
Female goat	Car	Female goat	If you change it, you win.
Female goat	Female goat	Car	If you change it, you win.

In the third line the presenter would have opened door number 2.

We can see that as we change the first choice, there are 2/3 chances to win, and only 1/3 to lose.

Let us see what happens if such choice remains the same without any variations.

Door 1	Dorr2	Door 3
Car	Female goat	Female goat	If you change it, you win.
Female goat	Car	Female goat	If you change it, you lose.
Female goat	Female goat	Car	If you change it, you lose.

In contrast, the possibilities change completely in this case. There are 1/3 chances to win, whereas 2/3 to lose.

If you still have doubts or controversies, you can have your own experience. So you need three boxes, and then place a red token to represent the car and two black ones for the female goats. Afterwards you must follow as the presenter has done at the hypothetical contest.

The test must be repeated a hundred times so that it is statistically valuable.

As you can imagine, the presentation of this dilemma has another goal, since it clearly allows us all to see the emotional state it generates, and observe the innate difficulty the-brain-mind unit has to solve this type of problems which are posed in two stages.

This type of enigmas is characteristic of the logic of laws of probabilities which are against our intuition.

As we have already read in other articles, human beings are not objective processors of information. Consequently, at times our intuition is not really certain although we do believe it is.

Another good example of this fault is what is known as the birthday problem, in which a person is asked to calculate the minimum number of people who should go to a birthday party for two of the guests to share the same birthday date.

Against all intuition, the answer is only twenty-three, but in fact, the great majority of the people enquired had thought of many more, an average of a hundred and eighty-four. There is a great tendency in everyone –except for mathematicians or experts in statistics- to make big mistakes when facing dilemmas that include a conditional probability as it occurs in the problem presented in this article.

It is confirmed that we all automatically tend to keep the initial impulse, but it would be logical to test the advantage of such behavior.

This point of view was also confirmed when this dilemma had been carried out by undergraduates in Missouri, who had kept to their first choice although 90% of the cases were mistaken.

The same happens when Monty Hall’s counter problem is presented, which is known as the Russian roulette. In this case people had also to choose one of three doors, but there are two cars and only one female goat behind them.

In this case, the presenter opens one of the doors which he knows there is one of the cars hidden once the participant has made his choice. The presenter then asks the participant: “Would you change the door you have chosen at the beginning?”

In this case, we should not change because there are 2/3 possibilities to lose according to mathematics. What is curious is that out of both dilemmas, all the people prefer to keep the same original decision instead of changing, even when they do not have reasons to hold this choice although it is beneficial in one of the cases, but not in the other.

Statistics showed almost identical numbers in both cases, since only 15% of the interviewed people changed their choice in the Monty Hall’s Dilemma, and 16% in the Russian roulette.

This study confirms the great emotional commitment we all have as regards our first choices, making us feel that what is rational seems illogical.

That is why we must pay attention in life so as not to fall into these traps to frequently. If not, irrational thinking will dominate our actions. As usual, only by correcting ignorance with respect to the limitations our body-brain-mind unit has, we are capable to overcome difficulties and grow up as true human beings.

ILLUSIONS.

Geometric Illusions

In the graph below we can clearly see how the ellipses influence our perception.

Although the points are perfectly aligned due to the fact that the surrounding ellipses are inclined, we seem to see them at different heights.

The development of this image was possible as it followed Zollner`s illusion, which is one of the called geometric illusions. He presented them in 1860. We can observe in it that a group of vertical lines apparently see their parallelism changed because of the influence of short straight oblique lines. The effect of the angles makes our brain see something which is not real.

But if we want to prove that the lines are parallel, we can observe the image without any difficulties if we look at it from the top border of the screen.