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The structure of the human brain reveals just how important spatial orientation and memory are for our species. The whole parietal lobe of the brain—the area under the crown of the skull—is given over to
“maps” of our bodies and of our position in space. Also, a sizeable part of the hippocampus is concerned with registering the landscape through which we travel and laying down memory maps. Damage to either of these areas can seriously affect a person’s ability to find his or her way around. If the “navigation”
area of the hippocampus is affected by stroke or injury, for instance, a person may lose the ability to remember new routes.
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If you learn or experience something when in a certain state of mind or while concurrently experiencing a particular sensation, you will subsequently recall it more readily when you are again in that state. For example, if you read a book on a sunny beach during a vacation, you may seem to forget it completely when you get home. But years later, on another sunny beach, the plot may come flooding back. Similarly, certain behaviors may be learned when in a particular situation or state of mind, and subsequently displayed only when in the same situation or state of mind, and
“forgotten” at other times, giving the impression that the person has more than one personality.
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When you spot someone you know, the information is first processed by the visual cortex, and is then shunted through the brain along different pathways (see pp.82–83) as shown on this diagram (right). One path travels through the limbic areas that generate a sense of familiarity—separate from conscious recognition—when a familiar person is seen. If this route is blocked, a person may recognize consciously that they know a person, but feel strangely detached from them. Without this input, even one’s nearest relatives would feel like strangers.
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Recognizing a person fully involves collating a huge number of memories. They include different types of facts about the person—I know him/he owns a dog/he walked right past me the last time I saw him/his name is Bill. At the same time, you have an emotional reaction to the person based on
memories, which produces the feeling of familiarity. Most or all of
this happens unconsciously—
you see the person and immediately “know” who it is.
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