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Black-and-white photograph of two girls, one yawning and the other looking forward, both in close-up profile.

Memory and nostalgia

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It’s not just youth’s happy memories that have a special weight

Mixed in with the highly memorable rites of growing up are more troubling highlights. But these, too, can have enduring value

by Çağlayan Özdemir, Michelle D Leichtman & David B Pillemer

Many commuters walk towards the camera with varying degrees of blurred faces

Mind and brain

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What is it like to remember all the faces you’ve ever seen?

They’ve been studied by researchers and recruited by police forces, but what’s it actually like to be a super-recogniser?

by Shayla Love

Sticky reminder notes are seen on a mirror and on various other items on top of a chest of drawers

The self

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What my mother’s sticky notes show about the nature of the self

Dementia accelerates a process we all experience, as our memories become increasingly externalised into the world around us

by Crispin Sartwell

A woman holding a white flower sits on a kerb amid a crowd of standing people at an outdoor event.

Forgiveness

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Must you forget to forgive? A scientist tests the relationship

Forgiveness is colloquially linked with fading memory – but research is probing what it really means to let go of wrongdoing

by Shayla Love

A teacher gesturing while standing beside a whiteboard with German writing, addressing a group of students in a classroom.

Communication and language

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Will studying a new language interfere with any others you speak?

Multilinguals say it feels as though learning another language interferes with old ones. New research put this to the test

by Shayla Love

Child in a polka-dotted top enthusiastically holding and about to eat a slice of rainbow cake with multiple colourful layers.

Memory and nostalgia

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You can feel nostalgia for things that you haven’t yet lost

Nostalgia is a longing for the past, but psychologists are coming to realise it can focus on the future too

by Shayla Love

Archaeological dig showing three weathered stone head sculptures, partially buried in the ground.

Death and dying

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Why ancient Mesopotamians buried their dead beneath the floor

In an age before photos or audio recordings, people found other ways to stay sensorially connected to their deceased

by Nicola Laneri

Black-and-white image of a person playing the piano, focusing intently on the keys in a dark setting.

Music

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What is it about musical hooks that makes them so catchy?

From hummable riffs to striking lyrics, the catchiest hooks tell us something about the limits of human attention and memory

by Tim Byron & Jadey O’Regan

Elderly couple in hats watching colourful kites flying in a blue sky with scattered clouds.

Brain injury and dementia

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Earlier memories are relatively spared in dementia. Why?

People with Alzheimer’s have richer memories of late childhood and early adulthood and this could help therapeutic care

by Dorthe Berntsen

Painting of large trees with exposed roots in a verdant forest, a wooden fence and a distant cabin partially obscured by foliage in the background.

Imagination

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Aphantasia can be a gift to philosophers and critics like me

Aphantasia veils the past and the future from the mind’s eye. That can be a gift to philosophers like Derek Parfit and me

by Mette Leonard Høeg

Photo of a blurry suburban street with detached houses and a neatly trimmed lawn with another image faintly overlaid of two children and two houses

Altered states

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Déjà vu is just one of many uncanny kinds of déjà experiences

What can the many types of déjà experiences that most people have tell us about reality, memory and the gaps in between?

by Art Funkhouser

A photograph of people with luggage and a cowboy statue outside an airport building reflecting a large American flag.

Community

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The collective memory bias that flatters our homelands

A community’s vision of the past is often selective and biased, exaggerating its own contributions relative to others

by Jeremy K Yamashiro & Henry L Roediger, III