UC researchers look into how the brain remembers
Click for big version.
University of Canterbury (UC) research has shown that search and rescue workers could suffer cognitive overload if their
rescue involves high risk climbing.
Psychology lecturer Professor Deak Helton and honours student Kathryn Darling have been working on research looking at
how we communicate and what we remember when rock climbing.
The findings, which will appear in the journalExperimental Brain Research,looks at dual-task interference between climbing and simulated communication tasks and builds on other research being
undertaken by Professor Helton and colleagues to help emergency responders and others who need to work under extreme
conditions.
“Disasters and emergencies are not convenient, they can occur at sea, on the side of a mountain, pretty much anywhere,”
Professor Helton says.
Emergency response personnel who have to perform physically demanding tasks while communicating with team members could
have problems remembering information later.
“Climbing is an extreme sport that is fun and physically demanding but the loss of half the information you recall after
climbing demonstrates just how cognitively demanding climbing is,” Professor Helton says.
Climbers taking part in the study were asked to recall as many words they heard and words they replied to during the
climb after finishing. The research team assessed how quickly the climbers made free association responses and how
quickly and efficiently the climbers were able to climb.
“Comparing the number of words recalled in a similar free association task while not climbing enabled the team to assess
memory impairment. The climbers could only recall about half as many words after climbing as they could when not
climbing.”
These findings replicate the memory loss seen in similar previous research by Professor Helton.
“The research improved on the earlier findings by ensuring the climbers really heard the words and by allowing the team
to measure more aspects of performance during the climbing task.
“Our brains have the tendency to fill gaps and make coherent, even inaccurate memories. The technology to capture and
replace information is getting better and better. Properly designed technological aides could provide climbers or rescue
workers with accurate external memory aids.”
ENDS