Conscious Memorability

How is the ability to remember, affected by conscious thought?

Humans seem to have an exceptional ability to remember recent events and experiences. Comparatively, studies have shown animals seem to have a minimal capability of remembering particular experiences in general. Animals’ short memory likely makes sense based on the subconscious’s basic developed purpose of function; to make a relevant connection between memory of a factor and the reinforcement to cause avoidance or pursuance of that factor. As I explained in my last post; Terms of Short-Term Memory, the short memory span can allow for focus on fewer recent factors before the individual receives neurochemical reinforcement, which increases the probability of those factors being relevant to the cause of experience which triggers the reinforcement. But how does conscious thought affect this short memory ability? 

By “conscious thought” or “consciousness” I’m referring to my understanding of the concept, being; memory access of multiple factors and how the factors interact through cause and effect, causing awareness and comprehension. More detail here; Conscious Comprehension. Assuming humans have this ability, and other animals generally do not, there should be a likely explanation for why the function of conscious thought allows much better recall of recent experiences. 

It’s perhaps a bit unintuitive for humans to understand that animals don't remember experiences which occurred even just a few hours ago. For eg, just a couple hrs ago, my 2 dogs came for a run, while I rollerbladed. While I can remember a lot of particular aspects of the experience, my dogs likely have no clue that they had that experience today. At this moment, they may feel tired and content as a result of the neurochemical reinforcement they received from effective exercise, but they likely don't know from what, don't question why, and couldn't recall what they experienced, even if they had incentive (such as studies have tested). 

The reason conscious thought allows more distinct memory of recent events, likely comes down to the method of memory access and the connections between factors within memory. Since conscious thought makes a neural connection between factors saved in memory, this allows an ease of flow to various neural combinations which represent different factors saved in memory. I explained more of the relevance of neuron combinations, and how they are linked and involved in conscious thought, here; Conscious Neural Combo. Considering any particular thing (factor) which someone perceives in an experience, to be a separate combination of neurons being saved as memory, a connection between that factor and other factors (as a larger neural combo) allows an easier method to access any particular factor in the future. 

Consciousness allows the capability to make the connection of interaction between any object (or individual) and that object existing in its environment. This concept in itself allows a person to be aware of their own existence in this world, giving a reliable connection to remember their own experiences, and how they as an individual interacted with other factors within an experience. 

Without the connection in memory between factors and their interactions, there is no way to access memory of a particular experience, since any experience involves specific factors and their interaction. For eg, I can remember rollerblading quickly down a specific paved pathway hill beside a certain road, and remember the dogs running even faster than me. There are many connections in my memory between factors and their interactions, which my brain saved as a result of being aware and conscious in this scenario. Connections such as; myself moving quickly relative to my surroundings, my rollerblades interacting with the smooth pavement, gravity of the hill causing me to accelerate, the dogs interacting with the ground by way of running, them running faster in relation to me, etc. 

At that time, the dogs were using subconsciousness, without connections between factors and the interactions. Their brains did not have the function or pre-saved neural combinations required to access memories of how these various factors interact, or the factors’ causes and effects relative to 1 another. Since they couldn't make those neural connections at the time of experience, 2 hrs later they have no ability to mentaly access memories of any particular factors, since there are no connections between factors. The dogs subconscious mind function simply saved various vague factors as separate neural combinations. They might be able to recall certain factors within the experience, if recognition is triggered by again perceiving the same or a similar factor, but there will be no connection of that factor to that particular experience. 

The key to exceptional conscious memory of recent experiences, seems to be the nature of the function of conscious thought itself. Making the connection in memory, of a large neural combination of multiple factors (each a smaller neural combination), through their interaction, allows future memory to access different aspects of the experience, through those connections. Without these connections, a subconsciously functioning mind has no connection between factors (which is what describes something to be an experience), and therein no ability to allow such; Conscious Memorability.