I came across two interesting articles about the workings of the human brain, one a common enough condition and the other I heard of for the first time in my life.
The Tip of the Tongue moment is something we are all familiar with. What begins as an occasional event in our youth, becomes frustratingly common as we grow older. A familiar word or name escapes our memory and although we may remember the meaning of the word or the face associated with the name, we cannot recall them. Research on memory and brain function shows that the disconnect happens because we do not store related information in one place neatly bundled together. For example, the name of a person (the word) and the memory of his or her face (the image) are stored in different parts of the brain. So, even when we successfully retrieve the image, the name attached to it may take a while to locate, being buried in another corner of our memory archives. The human brain, it appears, is not a perfectly organized file cabinet. Rather, it more resembles a cluttered desk with concealed (not lost) information. It takes some time and effort to rummage through it.
It’s estimated that, on average, people have a tip-of-the-tongue moment at least once a week. Perhaps it occurs when you run into an old acquaintance whose name you can’t remember, although you know that it begins with the letter "T." Or perhaps you struggle to recall the title of a recent movie, even though you can describe the plot in perfect detail. Researchers have located the specific brain areas that are activated during such moments, and even captured images of the mind when we are struggling to find these forgotten words.
This research topic has become surprisingly fruitful. It has allowed scientists to explore many of the most mysterious aspects of the human brain, including the relationship between the conscious and unconscious, the fragmentary nature of memory, and the mechanics of language. Others, meanwhile, are using the frustrating state to learn about the aging process, illuminating the ways in which, over time, the brain becomes less able to access its own storehouse of information.
"The tip-of-the-tongue state is a fundamental side effect of the way our mind is designed," says Bennett Schwartz, a psychologist at Florida International University who studies the phenomenon.
One of the key lessons of tip-of-the-tongue research is that the human brain is a cluttered place. Our knowledge is filed away in a somewhat slapdash fashion, so that names are stored separately from faces and the sound of a word and the meaning of a word are kept in distinct locations. Sometimes when we forget something, the memory is not so much lost as misplaced. (link via 3QD)
One arm (hand, leg, foot) too many? Apparently there are people who are uncomfortable with their limbs. Even while in possession of the right number of healthy legs, hands, arms or feet, they feel there is something wrong with their physical make-up, something extraneous. Sufferers of Body Intergrity Identity Disorder (BIID) have the uncontrollable urge to "amputate" the offending limb – sometimes by their own hands!
"Josh" says he was fully prepared when he amputated his left hand with a power tool. He says he had tried to cut it off before—once putting it underneath a truck and trying to crush it (the jack didn’t collapse right); once attempting to saw it off with a table saw (he lost his nerve). He even spent countless miles driving around with his hand dangling out the window, hoping to get side-swiped. But this time he was determined to succeed. Josh, who insisted on anonymity because his family thinks he lost his hand in an accident, says he practiced on animal legs he got from a butcher, and he was equipped with bandages to stop the bleeding and a charged cell phone in case he got dizzy. Now, years later, Josh says he feels wonderful without his hand, that his amputation finally ended a "torment" that had plagued him since middle school. "It is a tremendous relief," he told NEWSWEEK. "I feel like my body is right."
Surprising as it may seem, Josh is not alone. He has what some scientists are calling Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID), an exceedingly rare condition characterized by an overwhelming desire to amputate one or more healthy limbs or become paraplegic. The desire to be disabled seems so bizarre and contrary to basic human instincts that those who suffer from BIID have largely kept their compulsion a secret. But online communities of those with BIID have formed over the last decade, galvanizing a small movement to bring the disorder into the open.
They may soon be getting some support from the scientific community. BIID is attracting the attention of researchers who suspect that the condition may be related to other body image disorders—including anorexia, body dysmorphic disorder, and gender identity disorder—that at first glance may seem entirely psychological, but may be linked to physical differences in the brain. "In studying the hinterland between neurology and psychology, we can tell not just about people with conditions themselves, but how all our brains work," says Paul McGeoch, a neurologist at the University of San Diego who is currently doing brain scans on people with BIID. McGeoch’s research may help answer the fundamental question: is BIID a mental illness or a hard-wired identity?
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