IdN presents the Street Art Issue and Projection Mapping issue for May-June 2011. The IdN Video v18n2: Projection Mapping issue includes a DVD with 17 leading international studios and designers who play with optical perceptions, create imaginative illusions in real time. Take a look at the video below:
We look beyond the object itself, Inside and out // We focus on the ethos that defines the meaning of a product and its function and purpose. Using our unique approach, we are able to create products that move you, that challenge conventional wisdom, that embrace positive and meaningful experiences.
OUR FOCUS IS NOT JUST THE PERFECT DESIGN SOLUTION BUT THE CHARGED SPACE BETWEEN THE USER AND THE PRODUCT. THE INTANGIBLE SPACE THAT DEFINES THE EXPERIENCE AND ENABLES DEEPER CONNECTIONS
Cultural Memory: Forgetting to Remember/ Remembering to Forget
Cultural memory - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Because memory is not just an individual, private experience but is also part of the collective domain, cultural memory has become a topic in both historiography (Pierre Nora, Richard Terdiman) and cultural studies (e.g., Susan Stewart). These emphasize cultural memory’s process (historiography) and its implications and objects (cultural studies), respectively. Memory is a phenomenon that is directly related to the present; our perception of the past is always influenced by the present, which means that it is always changing.
Stewart, for example, claims that our culture has changed from a culture of production to a culture of consumption.
These specific objects can refer to either a distant time (an antique) or a distant (exotic) place. Stewart explains how our souvenirs authenticate our experiences and how they are a survival sign of events that exist only through the invention of narrative.
Catherine Keenan explains how the act of taking a picture can underline the importance of remembering, both individually and collectively. Also she states that pictures cannot only stimulate or help memory, but can rather eclipse the actual memory – when we remember in terms of the photograph – or they can serve as a reminder of our propensity to forget. Others have argued that photographs can be incorporated in memory and therefore supplement it.
Nora pioneered connecting memory to physical, tangible locations, nowadays globally known and incorporated as lieux de mémoire
lieux de mémoire - The memorial site is a historical concept put forward by the book Places of Memory, published under the direction of Pierre Nora between 1984 and 1992. Nora is equally well known for having directed Les Lieux de Mémoire, three volumes which gave as their point the work of enumerating the places and the objects in which are the incarnate national memory of the French. According to Pierre Nora , "a place of memory in every sense of the word is going to be the most tangible and concrete, possibly geographically located at the object more abstract and intellectually constructed. " It may therefore be a monument , a prominent figure, a museum , the archives , as well as a symbol of a currency , an event orinstitution .
"An object becomes a place of memory when he escaped oblivion, for example with the display of commemorative plaques, and when a community reinvestment of its emotionand its emotions . "
Individuals remember events and experiences some of which they share with a collective. Through mutual reconstruction and recounting collective memory is reconstructed. Individuals are born into familial discourse which already provides a backdrop of communal memories against which individual memories are shaped.A group's communal memory becomes its common knowledge which creates a social bond, a sense of belonging and identity. Memory work - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
it is perception driven by a longing for authenticity that colors memory, which is made clear by a desire to experience the real (Susan Stewart)
Memory work - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
group's
Why Not... A Robert Gober Nursery? - Daddy Types
I've always loved the cute-but-unsettling evocations of vestigial childhood memories that adhere to the incredible, hand-made sculptures of Robert Gober. And it continues to surprise me that no one has ever licensed Gober baby furniture--actually, that doesn't surprise me at all. But at least, why has no one created a Gober-inspired nursery?
I mean, the actual crib and playpen sculptures are problematic because a) they're sculptures, not functional objects, so b) they're often distorted or incomplete, c) they probably run about a million dollars apiece if they ever came to market at all, d) if you did manage to get one of the rare, 4-sided, right-angled works, the conservation risks of having a teething kid gnaw on the rail might keep you up at night, and the real dealbreaker, d) the spindles are spaced more than the CPSC-mandated 2 3/8 inches apart, which could pose a strangulation or entrapment hazard.
NonObject: The Phone Designed With Wrinkles - Gizmodo
a more honest representation of life and how we live it? No orange is a perfect sphere; no tree grows in a perfectly straight line.
Why then do we seek perfections in our lives and in our objects?
Tarati invites us, finally, to "reach out and touch someone" through the invisible magic of technology. It is, literally, poetry in motion, the first step toward realizing the promise of cellular technology. Technology, invisible as it is, is also magical. It is possible to penetrate the barrier of the physical.
An interesting project on show at the Computer-Human Interaction Conference in Vancouver combine two Microsoft Kinect devices and a projector, together with a large acrylic global and some custom software and hardware. To present a 360 degree view of an object and which can then track a viewers movements and be controlled by gestures.
“Project Snowglobe” has been designed by students from Queens University and has a hemispherical mirror mounted inside of an acrylic sphere on to which the projector displays its image. Watch the video after the jump to see “Project Snowglobe” in action.
The imaged viewed within the globe is not actually in 3D but is moved as the viewer moves around the globe and is tracked by the two Kinect devices.
Planned obsolescence - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Planned obsolescence or built-in obsolescence[1] in industrial design is a policy of deliberately planning or designing a product with a limited useful life, so it will become obsolete or nonfunctional after a certain period.[1] Planned obsolescence has potential benefits for a producer because to obtain continuing use of the product the consumer is under pressure to purchase again, whether from the same manufacturer (a replacement part or a newer model), or from a competitor which might also rely on planned obsolescence.[1]
For an industry, planned obsolescence stimulates demand by encouraging purchasers to buy sooner if they still want a functioning product. Built-in obsolescence is used in many different products. There is, however, the potential backlash of consumers who learn that the manufacturer invested money to make the product obsolete faster; such consumers might turn to a producer (if any exists) that offers a more durable alternative.[citation needed]
Planned obsolescence was first developed in the 1920s and 1930s when mass production had opened every minute aspect of the production process to exacting analysis.[citation needed]
Estimates of planned obsolescence can influence a company's decisions about product engineering. Therefore the company can use the least expensive components that satisfy product lifetime projections. Such decisions are part of a broader discipline known as value engineering.
Planned obsolescence - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
1932 with Bernard London's pamphlet Ending the Depression Through Planned Obsolescence.[
Brooks Stevens - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Though he is often cited[citation needed] with inventing the concept of planned obsolescence (the practice of artificially shortening product lifecycle in order to influence the buying patterns of consumers in favor of manufacturers), he did not invent it but rather coined the term and defined it. Stevens defined it as "instilling in the buyer the desire to own something a little newer, a little better, a little sooner than is necessary". His view was to always make the consumer want something new, rather than create poor products that would need replacing.[4] There is some debate over his role in this controversial business practice.[5]
A gaming experience that only requires you to use your head
Microsoft’s Kinect and Sony’s PlayStation Move started a movement that’s steadily been picking up momentum over the last year or so, bringing motion sensing into gaming. This has added a new dimension to gameplay, making it far more immersive than ever before, and opening up pathways for gaming ideas we had never even dreamed of before.In a similar vein, students from the University of Texas have put together a fantastic video-game simulation setup. It makes use of an arced gaming screen, a head-tracking camera which has a pico-projector attached to it’s rear end, fitted with a rotating motor. That may be a bit technical, but it’ll all make perfect sense once you’re done reading this and have watched the video.
The function of the head tracking camera is self-explanatory. It fixes on to the gamer’s head, thereby telling where he’s looking. The pico-projector attached to its rear end, moves with the tracker, and projects the simulated image in the gamer’s line of sight, giving him the illusion that he’s seeing things in the first-person and is truly in control of his surroundings using just his head.
There were two games on display in the demonstration, of which the first is in the video below. That being a flight simulator, in which the player pilots the plane by moving around and bobbing his head appropriately to rise, descend or turn. The second was a military based first-person-shooter simulator, in which the player really feels like a soldier himself, with his viewpoint shifting as it would by moving his head in real life. Really impressive stuff, even more so, because it doesn’t make use of Kinect or Move or the likes.
Ladies and gentlemen, prepare to throw those gamepads away. This could well be the future of videogame technology!
In a similar vein, students from the University of Texas have put together a fantastic video-game simulation setup. It makes use of an arced gaming screen, a head-tracking camera which has a pico-projector attached to it’s rear end, fitted with a rotating motor. That may be a bit technical, but it’ll all make perfect sense once you’re done reading this and have watched the video.
The function of the head tracking camera is self-explanatory. It fixes on to the gamer’s head, thereby telling where he’s looking. The pico-projector attached to its rear end, moves with the tracker, and projects the simulated image in the gamer’s line of sight, giving him the illusion that he’s seeing things in the first-person and is truly in control of his surroundings using just his head.
There were two games on display in the demonstration, of which the first is in the video below. That being a flight simulator, in which the player pilots the plane by moving around and bobbing his head appropriately to rise, descend or turn. The second was a military based first-person-shooter simulator, in which the player really feels like a soldier himself, with his viewpoint shifting as it would by moving his head in real life. Really impressive stuff, even more so, because it doesn’t make use of Kinect or Move or the likes.
Ladies and gentlemen, prepare to throw those gamepads away. This could well be the future of videogame technology!
1. Set up background and camera
2. Calibrate your camera with one click
3. Start scanning by sweeping the laser line over the object
4. Gaze at the 3D window and export your result to .OBJ
5. Optional: Automatically stitch several scans/meshes
with DAVID-Shapefusion and export .OBJ, .STL, or .PLY
What is Moject?
Moject stands for “Mobile Motion Projection”, a patented technology and system developed by Dave&Adie that enables devices to interact with projected content.
When can I use Moject?
Dave&Adie are making the technology available through licensing to interested parties like device manufacturers and software companies so they can Moject ‘enable’ their products. If your company would like to know how you can integrate Moject interactivity into your products then get in touch and we’ll arrange a Discovery meeting.
If you are a hardware hacker or modest gadget tinkerer you might want to try our free guide to building a simple Moject (for non-commercial use). Check back on our blog or follow us on twitter to be the first to hear when our guide is published.
What devices can be Moject enabled?
Almost any device can benefit from integrating Moject technology but primarily products such as,
Johnny Chung Lee - Projects - Thesis
The fundamental concept of my thesis is to: 1) Embed optical sensors into the projection surface. 2) Project a series of Gray-coded binary patterns. 3) Decode the location of the sensors for use in a projected application. This video demonstrates this idea in the form of a target screen fitting application. It goes on to demonstrate how this approach can be used in multi-projector applications such as stitching (creating a large display using tiled projection) or layering (multiple versions of content on the same area for view dependent displays). Additionally, it can be used to automatically register the orientation of 3D surfaces for augmenting the appearance of physical objects.
This technique is also useful for performing automatic touch calibration of interactive whiteboards or touch-tables.
Lee, J., Dietz, P., Aminzade, D., and Hudson, S. "Automatic Projector Calibration using Embedded Light Sensors", Proceedings of the ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology, October 2004. [pdf][mov][ppt]
Beagle Board finds its new purpose in DIY wearable computer | Blog | ZiggyTek
Wouldn’t it be great if they would release this gadget on the market?
BeagleBoard Gives New Power to Open Source Gadgets | Gadget Lab | Wired.com
Open source hardware hobbyists now have a chipset to play with that’s comparable to the powerful processors found in smartphones such as the Nexus One or HTC Incredible.
Texas Instruments has released a new version of its low-power, single-board computer called BeagleBoard-xM. It’s based on the same 1-GHz ARM Cortex A8 processor that drives the most sophisticated smartphones today. That gives it far more processing power than the leading open-source microcontroller platform, Arduino, which many hobbyists currently use to create robots, sensors, toys and other DIY devices.
The BeagleBoard-xM has multimedia features similar to the processor seen in the Palm Pre and Motorola Droid, and includes on-board ethernet, five USB 2.0 ports and 512 MB of memory.
“It’s a fully loaded, open platform that allows users to run multiple applications and embed them in devices,” says Jason Kridner, ARM software architecture manager and BeagleBoard community manager. “We wanted to offer something that’s cheap, ups the performance level and has sufficient memory.”
The first BeagleBoard debuted in 2008, targeting hardware hobbyists who wanted a powerful chipset to build home-brewed gadgets. But, so far, it has been eclipsed by the simpler open source microcontroller Arduino. Arduino has become a big hit among DIYers powering an eclectic variety of projects including electronic textiles, a fire-breathing dragon and many robots.
BeagleBoard isn’t as popular, even though it packs in more technical firepower. Some hobbyists say that could change as open source hardware hackers get more ambitious and move beyond what a simple microcontroller can do.
The 3-inch–square BeagleBoard-xM runs a full Linux operating system with desktop managers and office applications. It also includes a 2-D and 3-D graphics accelerator, a port to add a computer monitor and an S-video port for TV.
BeagleBoard will let hobbyists and open source hardware enthusiasts go where the Arduino won’t, says Justin Huynh, a open source hardware hacker.
“A lot of people complain that Arduino is not powerful enough and if you want something that’s more technical and intensive it is just not good enough,” he says. “So BeagleBoard can be a very interesting alternative.”
And at $180, the BeagleBoard-xM is inexpensive enough to be a technical toy for DIYers, says Hyunh.
“What we have seen happen in the Arduino community is now happening with the BeagleBoard,” he says.
Here are four cool ideas that use the BeagleBoard:
There are at least two ways to create a large display: Buy a giant TV screen from Best Buy, or MacGyver a solution using multiple PC monitors.
The BeagleBoard Videowall tries the latter. It has six 19-inch LCD monitors networked together over USB to run high definition full-screen video.
“I enjoy the challenge of making the most out of limited resources, and the BeagleBoard is a perfect platform for doing just that,” says Måns Rullgård, an embedded software consultant based in England. “It has the power to do really cool things if you get it right, while remaining small both in physical size and power consumption.”
Rullgård and his project partners wanted to create “something spectacular” using the BeagleBoard and FFmpeg, open source multimedia libraries and programs.
The resulting Videowall project uses six BeagleBoards, where each board plays a special file containing only the corresponding segment of the video. The files were created ahead of time on a PC. To synchronize the playback across the BeagleBoards, they are interconnected with a USB-based network.
The video wall made its public debut in February in Brussels and it will be shown this week at the LinuxTag conference in Berlin.
Photo: Måns Rullgård
UPDATE: I’ve also included an option to have BeagleBoards with the BeagleTouch headers pre-soldered on.
Thanks! – Justin
The Beagle Embedded Starter Kit is designed for embedded developers working on mobile applications that require tablet-style functionality.
The kit contains everything needed to bring up Linux on a portable touchscreen device. With a 4.3” OLED touchscreen that mounts directly on the BeagleBoard, the BeagleTouch reduces the need for several peripherals and a mess of wires. Serial communication to the BeagleBoard is brought out to a Type B-mini USB port, and the entire setup can be powered and charged through theBeagleJuice battery module, which includes an on/off switch as well.
Everything is modular and snaps on or mounts directly to the BeagleBoard C4, resulting in a compact handheld device that can serve as a tablet computer or control panel. The kit comes with a 4 GB pre-formatted SD card to boot Angstrom Linux.
The Embedded Starter Kit makes interfacing with BeagleBoard hardware simple and modular, allowing embedded software developers to spend more time prototyping custom applications and less time navigating complex hardware.
Applications
Components
Resources
Pico Projector Displays: PicoP Display Engine Development Tools
The PicoP® Display Engine is an ultra-miniature laser projection module capable of producing full color, high-resolution images that are always in focus (video: see how it works). Small enough to be embedded directly into a variety of electronics products, the PicoP® Display Engine is ideal for your next generation display application.
Laser projector stuck to iPhone for 360 degree gaming | Joystiq
Are you ready to watch some videos of the most unnecessary iPhone modification in the device's recorded history? Check out the two clips posted past the jump to see YouTube user SoundKite's Frankenstein-esque tech mash-up, in which he adheres a Microvision ShowWX laser projector to an iPhone 3GS. While playing a game which uses the iPhone's compass (such as Sky Siege), the projector gives the illusion of 360-degree immersion.
It looks awfully neat, though we're not sure how many practical applications it actually has. Though it would be pretty great to hijack a movie theater, and force its patrons to witness our sick Tilt to Live skills.
Dr. Sickle's previous work involved studying asthma and chronic respiratory disease in India but in developing Asthmaoplis he and his team are seeking to better track the environmental factors and triggers to asthma attacks. His goal is to map where and when environmental exposures trigger asthma symptoms by using inhalers that have a built-in GPS device that signals the central server whenever the puffer is used. Of course they will also have access to other sets of data including pollutants, pollen, wind direction which will enable them to better track factors impacting lung disease and overall air quality.
[Via Geekosystem - Better Lives for Asthma Sufferers With GPS Inhalers]
YouTube - Handheld Projector Demo
Imagine having a projector inside your cell phone or PDA, what can you do with it? Researchers from University of Toronto made a demo.
http://www.cs.toronto.edu/~caox/
Laser projector stuck to Wii Remote for faux 360-degree immersion | Joystiq
by Griffin McElroy 
We can already see a hot new trend surfacing in the gaming hardware modding world: Hastily conceived designs featuring the handheld ShowWX laser projector. Yesterday, we saw what happens when the pint-sized display was adhered to an iPhone 3GS; today, we see how Nirav Patel managed to stick the projector (and a Spacepoint Fusion gyrometer) to a Zapper-equipped Wii Remote. The result is a somewhat disorienting 360-degree "virtual reality" display, which is just perfect for playing simple, open source first-person shooters with.
iphone « I'm Not Actually a Geek
As for the “quantity of meaningful visual data” being reduced, I think of it mathematically:
The X/Y variable represents the decrease in data per picture. If Y is the “full” data from a high resolution photo, then X is the reduced data set. The loss of scene details, the inability to discern people’s expressions, etc. Yeah, that is a loss due to low quality cameras.
The B/A variable represents the increased number of pictures enabled by the proliferation of convenient low quality cameras. If A is the quantity of photos with high resolution cameras, B is the overall number of photos inclusive of the low quality cameras.
Multiply the ratios, and I believe the overall historical record has been improved by the advent of phone cameras. In other words, “> 1″.
Something the higher quality, standalone cameras have lacked is connectivity. They miss that aspect we have to share something in the moment. The fact that I can share a picture just as soon as a I take it is extra incentive to take the picture in the first place.
iphone « I'm Not Actually a Geek
The inventor stressed the medical uses of it. He showed how a brain scan would look. Doctors can view results on-the-fly, on any surface. This gives them the ability to react much more quickly to medical conditions.
But another guy watching this and I both had the same thought: this would be great for business. Sales presentations held on your iPhone. It also seems like something that work at trade shows.
And how about watching videos through your iPhone? Not on the small iPhone screen, but broadcast on a nearby wall or a screen in the back of a car seat? That would be pretty slick.
iphone « I'm Not Actually a Geek
TEDEx Talk: Phones That Touch Us
PhD student Fabian Hemmert presented at a recent TEDx talk. He is working on a concept where phones include physical movements that better connote actions to people using them. In the video below, you’ll see him describe how the phone would shift weight in relation to changes in movement on a map.
As Hemmert notes, humans live in a physical world, one “which tastes good, feels good smells good”. He wants to design products that better integrate that experience.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
digital worlds - virtual worlds
making digital content more graspable - tactile
-shape
-weight
-lifelike/dynamic
in the future -
not humans more technological
but
technology more human
Having experienced quite a bit of trouble getting the Nintendo Wii remotes to work reliably with his home theater projector, [Sprite_TM] designed his own sensor bar replacement. If you’re not familiar, the Wii remotes have an infrared camera in the tip that sense two IR LEDs in the sensor bar that resides above or below your television. The problem is that if you’re too far away, the points of light are not where the remote expects them to be and the cursor will not perform as expected. Since this is a huge projected display it’s no surprise that the player is further away from the screen than the system was designed for.
[Sprite_TM's] solution was to build a projection system for the two IR points. The unit in the picture above is a driver circuit with two IR emitters mounted on a heat sink, each with its own reflector. The reflected beams are shined through a Fresnel lens and projected on the same wall as the TV image. The viewer will not be able to see this light as it’s in a longer wavelength than the visible spectrum. But the Wii remote performs beautifully now and the replacement sensor bar is happily mounted out of sight above the projector.
Flâneur - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The term flâneur (English pronunciation: /flä-ˈnər/) comes from the French masculine noun flâneur—which has the basic meanings of "stroller", "lounger", "saunterer", "loafer"—which itself comes from the French verb flâner, which means "to stroll". Charles Baudelaire developed a derived meaning of flâneur—that of "a person who walks the city in order to experience it". Because of the term's usage and theorization by Baudelaire and numerous thinkers in economic, cultural, literary and historical fields, the idea of the flâneur has accumulated significant meaning as a referent for understanding urban phenomena and modernity. In French Canada flâner is rarely used to describe strolling and often has a negative connotation as the term's most common usage refers to loitering.
Flâneur is not limited to someone committing the physical act of peripatetic stroll in the Baudelairian sense, but can also include a "complete philosophical way of living and thinking", and a process of navigating erudition as described by Nassim Nicholas Taleb's essay on "why I walk" in the second edition of The Black Swan (2010)[1]
Flâneur - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The term flâneur (English pronunciation: /flä-ˈnər/) comes from the French masculine noun flâneur—which has the basic meanings of "stroller", "lounger", "saunterer", "loafer"—which itself comes from the French verb flâner, which means "to stroll". Charles Baudelaire developed a derived meaning of flâneur—that of "a person who walks the city in order to experience it". Because of the term's usage and theorization by Baudelaire and numerous thinkers in economic, cultural, literary and historical fields, the idea of the flâneur has accumulated significant meaning as a referent for understanding urban phenomena and modernity. In French Canada flâner is rarely used to describe strolling and often has a negative connotation as the term's most common usage refers to loitering.
Flâneur is not limited to someone committing the physical act of peripatetic stroll in the Baudelairian sense, but can also include a "complete philosophical way of living and thinking", and a process of navigating erudition as described by Nassim Nicholas Taleb's essay on "why I walk" in the second edition of The Black Swan (2010)[1]
Eli Pariser: Beware online "filter bubbles
information diets
personalised search results - but is it getting it right - is it a balanced result - what it thinks we need not what we need?
passing of the gatekeepers from human to algorithms - ethical considerations lost?
Karim Nader, 40
Neuroscientist
McGill University
Nader's big breakthrough came in 1999, when he first revived and tested the obscure theory that memories, once formed, do not necessarily remain stable. Instead, he posited, they could be unfixed and "reconsolidated"
http://www.nature.com/nature/videoarchive/memory/index.html
competitive memories fighting for expression
exingtion training
merging meory - stored in a different form
target specific fear memory - rather than your ability to recolect information
>> memory - different elements / sub-files - this collage of connections creates our experience of a memory
dont want to erase your recollection of the event - just change your emotional response - still remember the content - maintian continuity in your life
disrupting emotional response removed - still remember - just not special/ vibrant any more.
Here we introduce a non-invasive technique to target the reconsolidation of fear memories in humans. We provide evidence that old fear memories can be updated with non-fearful information provided during the reconsolidation window
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v463/n7277/full/nature08637.html
recollections frequently surfaced with the help of recovered-memory therapy techniques like hypnosis and guided imagery, in which patients are encouraged to visualize terrible experiences.
Cognitive scientists suspected that some of these memories were bogus, the unwitting product of suggestion by the therapist.
::: memory tools altering our memories - bias of what is thought more vital in the recollection of the memory - e.g. visual data over other sensorial data included in the memory file? :::
http://discovermagazine.com/2009/jul-aug/03-how-much-of-your-memory-is-true/article_view?searchterm=memory&b_start:int=1
Spurred on by the controversy over recovered memory, other cognitive scientists found that false memory is a normal phenomenon
Even harrowing memories—the so-called flashbulb memories that feel as if they have been permanently seared into the brain—are not as accurate as we think. Less than a year after a cargo plane crashed into an Amsterdam apartment building in 1992, 55 percent of the Dutch population said they had watched the plane hit the building on TV. Many of them recalled specifics of the crash, such as the angle of descent, and could report whether or not the plane was on fire before it hit. But the event had not been caught on video. The “memory” shared by the majority was a hallucination, a convincing fiction pieced together out of descriptions and pictures of the event.
memory is more like a shifting collage, a narrative spun out of scraps and constructed anew whenever recollection takes place.
Nader tweaked a standard method used in fear research, in which rats are trained to associate a tone with an electric shock to the foot. The animals quickly learn that the sound is bad news. If they hear it weeks later, they freeze in fear. It is an easy way for the experimenter to know that they remember what took place. Nader trained some rats, then played the tone again 14 days later, prompting them to remember. He also simultaneously injected them with a protein-synthesis inhibitor, which prevents new memory from forming by prohibiting alteration at the synapses. According to the standard model of memory, the chemical should have no effect since the memory of the tone has already consolidated. In reality, the treated rats’memory disappeared. When Nader sounded the tone again later, the animals did not freeze. LeDoux was won over by this simple but powerful demonstration, he showed that reactivating a memory destabilizes it, putting it back into a flexible, vulnerable state. >>>>> Memory constantly rewritten/reconstructed - Re-consolidation teasing out the reconsolidation process molecule by molecule. Nader’s group found that the NMDA glutamate receptor—which solidifies memory—also is involved in destabilizing it. A group led by Sue-Hyun Lee at Seoul National University demonstrated that proteins must be actively dismantled to destabilize a memory, more evidence that the old memory is actually changed as it is recalled. “I felt more detached from it,” she says. “I felt that I was relating a narrative rather than describing something right in front of me right now.” After the study was over, the flashbacks returned, though with less intensity. For her, the only real cure was time.Six-session treatments with a total of 12 doses of propranolol have shown better results. Collaborating with Harvard psychiatrist Roger Pitman, who was the first to try propranolol for post-traumatic stress, the McGill group has treated about 45 PTSD patients, ranging from soldiers to rape victims. Most had been suffering for years. But after the longer treatment, their symptoms declined by half and stayed that way even six months afterward. They still remember what happened, but it is less disturbing. “They say: ‘I’m not thinking about it as much. It just doesn’t bother me as much anymore,’?” Brunet says. As a group, they are considered to be in remission. The researchers must still prove that the improvement will last. If it does, it could offer rare hope to millions of people with PTSD, a disorder from which only a third completely recover. >>> tools for constructing memory>>> emphasisng certain perts of the memory?>>> Anxiety, acquired phobias, and addiction are increasingly described as disorders of emotional memory, overly powerful fear memory, for example, can crystallize into a phobia, in which a relatively safe experience like flying in a plane is inextricably linked to a feeling of extreme danger, No matter how the phobic person tries, his emotional memory refuses to update itself to incorporate reassuring information. A treatment that restores his emotional memory to a flexible state http://discovermagazine.com/2009/jul-aug/03-how-much-of-your-memory-is-true/article_view?searchterm=memory&b_start:int=2 Addiction is another kind of pathological remembering, but in this case the memory is pleasurable. drugs of abuse enlist the amygdala and the brain’s reward centers to forge unforgettable memories of pleasure. Anything connected to the bliss reawakens the memory, in the form of craving.you are suffering from reminiscence, from an emotional memory memory might be constantly revamped As you replay these memories, you reawaken and reconsolidate them hundreds of times. Each time, you replace the original with a slightly modified version. Eventually you are not really remembering what happened; you are remembering your story about it. your memory is only as good as your last memory. The fewer times you use it, the more pristine it is. We’ve all had the experience of repeating a dramatic story so many times that the events seem dead, as if they came from a novel rather than real life. This might be reconsolidation at work. the flexibility of memory might be functional—an advantage rather than a bug in the brain. Reconsolidation might be how we update our store of knowledge, by making old memories malleable in response to new information. “When you encounter a familiar experience, you are remembering the original memory at the same time, and ?the new experience somehow gets blended in. From the perspective of survival, constructive memory is an asset. It allows you to pull together scraps of information to simulate the future on the fly. Facing something new, we want to link the novel information with memories to better interpret the situation. If the side effect is a few mistakes memory and imagination are two sides of the same coin. Like memory, imagination allows you to put yourself in a time and place other than the one we actually occupy. remembering and imagining mobilize many of the same brain circuits. “When people are instructed to imagine events that might happen in their personal future and then to remember actual events in the past, we find extensive and very striking overlap in areas of brain activation,” he says. Other researchers have found that people with severe amnesia lose their ability to imagine. Without memory, they can barely picture the future at all. When calcium floods a neuron as a memory is formed, it turns on an enzyme called CaMKII (calcium/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase). Among many other things, the enzyme responds to signals from NMDA receptors, leading to more receptor activity and stronger signaling throughout the network of cells. protein kinase M-zeta (PKMzeta), which is involved in memory maintenance,“You inhibit the PKMzeta and those glutamate receptors float away very, very fast,” he says. “As a result, the memory is lost—very, very fast.” The implications are staggering. If stored memories were inscribed in the brain, it is hard to imagine how flipping one chemical switch could erase them so quickly. “It really is a paradigm shift in how people think about long-term memories,” Sacktor says. In the old view, erasure should cause permanent brain damage as the synapses are ripped apart. Instead, Sacktor’s rats’ brains remain intact. Once the ZIP treatment wears off, the animals behave and even learn normally again. “It’s like wiping a hard disk http://discovermagazine.com/2009/jul-aug/03-how-much-of-your-memory-is-true/article_view?searchterm=memory&b_start:int=3 Nader and Brunet’s studies suggest much more benevolent possibilities. If he had received reconsolidation therapy, Carrey’s character would not have forgotten Winslet’s. He simply wouldn’t care that much about her anymore. He would be able to look at his failed relationship as if through the wrong end of a telescope. What is on the other side is still visible, but it is tiny and far away. >>> army veterans - easing memory from war - (PTSD study with a new, $6.7 million grant from the U.S. Army,) LeDoux’s lab has figured out a way to trigger reconsolidation without drugs to weaken memory, simply by carefully timing the sessions of remembering. “The protocol is ridiculously simple,” LeDoux says. >>> Tools to help people with dementia and other memory loss problems retain important memories. digital applications that ultalise physical sensorial data to reate memory stimulating experience?
For a hundred years, people thought memory was wired into the brain,” Nader says. “Instead, we find it can be rewired—you can add false information to it, make it stronger, make it weaker, and possibly even make it disappear.
Neuroscientists believe that memory forms when neurons in these key brain structures are simultaneously activated by glutamate and an electrical pulse, a result of everyday sensory experience.
The experience triggers a biochemical riot, causing a specialized glutamate receptor, called NMDA, to spring open and allow calcium ions to flood the cells. The ions stimulate dozens of enzymes that reshape the cells by opening up additional receptors and by prompting the formation of more synapses and new protrusions that contain still more receptors and synapses. In aggregate, these changes make neurons more sensitive to each other and put the anatomical scaffold of a memory in place.
Enacting all these changes takes time, and for up to a few hours
the memory is like wet concrete—solidifying but not quite set, still open to interference.
Once the process is over, though, the memory is said to be “consolidated.” neuroscientists talk of memory the way geoscientists describe mountains—built through a dynamic process, but once established almost impossible to reshape quickly except by extraordinary means
>>>>>>
What actually happens when we recall the past? Does the very act of remembering undo what happened? Does a memory have to go through the consolidation process again?
http://discovermagazine.com/2009/jul-aug/03-how-much-of-your-memory-is-true/?searchterm=memory
