Remembering makes us forget, at least according to a group of neuroscientists here in Britain who watched the volunteers remember one memory which in turn caused them to forget another. To explain the process, I spoke to the lead researcher from Birmingham University.

　　In the experiments we were interested in how the brain creates forgetting. And the challenge was it’s been quite hard to study forgetting cuz you can’t really tell. So what you need to find is something like a neuro fingerprint in the brain that tells us what exactly a subject or participant is remembering at a given moment. So we developed a method that actually allowed us to track individual memories in the brain. Sowe could directly watch the brain while it forgets. And that was quite exciting for us.

　　And you use pictures of Marilyn Monroe and Albert Einstein.

　　Yes, we do.

　　And why?

　　So we used these images which are all like famous people’s faces or well-known places around the world oreveryday objects, because they are quite well-known to our subjects already. So they are easier to remember in the first place. But also and probably more importantly we found that these pictures elicit quite a distinct signature in the brain like individual part of the brain. So we can actually tell just based on a participant’s brain activity.

　　And when you looked at those signatures, what did it tell you?

　　So it told us when there were words that triggered a memory of two pictures at the same time, the more often we asked participants to only remember one of these pictures, the more we saw the brain picture of thator the brain pattern representing that picture coming up in the brain, but also the more the competing or irrelevant pictures were suppressed by the brain. And that suppression ultimately led people to forget those memories at a later point. So the basic phenomenon which always surprises people that namely that remembering causes forgetting has been known for quite a while. So it’s been published in the nineties. But the new thing about our study is really that we can actually watch the mechanism behind it. So we can watch the brain while it’s suppresses memories that it doesn’t need any more.

　　词汇精析

　　1.suppresses v.抑制

　　The reproduction and growth of the cancerous cells can be suppressed by bombarding them with radiation.

　　癌细胞的繁殖和生长可通过放射线辐射加以抑制。

　　2.ultimately adv.最终

　　Whatever the scientists ultimately conclude, all of their data will immediately be disputed.

　　无论科学家们最终得出什么结论，他们的所有数据将随即受到质疑。

　　3.elicit v.引出

　　Mr. Norris said he was hopeful that his request would elicit a positive response.

　　诺里斯先生说他希望他的要求会引起积极的回应。

　　4.distinct adj.独特的

　　Engineering and technology are disciplines distinct from one another and from science.

　　工程学和工艺学是互不相同的学科，也不同于理科。