Book SummaryRemember, by Lisa Genova

1-Page Summary1-Page Book Summary of Remember

Have you ever struggled to remember someone’s name at a party or forgotten where you parked your car? Are you worried that a memory lapse is a sign of Alzheimer’s? In Remember, neuroscientist and novelist Lisa Genova explores the complexity of human memory, demystifying why we remember and why we forget. She explains how memories are formed in the brain, what factors influence memory, and how understanding the science behind memory can help us better navigate both remembering and forgetting in our daily lives. She also reassures us that many types of forgetting are perfectly normal and even beneficial for cognitive function.

Genova holds a...

Remember Summary Types of Memory

Genova explains that memory is a process that involves encoding, consolidating, storing, and retrieving information (steps we’ll explain in greater detail later). Genova describes several types of memory:

Working memory refers to the brain’s system for holding information in consciousness for brief periods of time. It operates in the prefrontal cortex (the front part of the brain) and can only hold a few pieces of information for 15-30 seconds. Most of it is then forgotten, but some memories transition from working memory into long-term memory, something you store in your brain for an indefinite, extended period.

Episodic memory refers to your memories of things that have happened. These include experiences like important life events and specific memories of things that have happened to you. Semantic memory, on the other hand, is fact-based knowledge not linked to a specific personal experience. This includes things like your vocabulary (remembering what words mean and how to use them) and general knowledge.

Genova also describes prospective memory, which is your memory of things you intend to do in the future. For example, if you plan to call your doctor at...

Remember Summary How Memories Are Formed

Each type of memory is created in the same way. In this section, we’ll look at the process through which our brains create memories out of what we perceive.

According to Genova, memories are created through four basic steps in the brain: encoding, consolidation, storage, and retrieval. During encoding, your brain turns sensory input into a format that it can store. (Shortform note: This format consists of electrical signals created by the activation or “firing” of neurons. The rate at which neurons fire in specific patterns represents pieces of information, and the brain uses this code to process and store that information.)

During consolidation, your brain—specifically, your hippocampus, located in the middle of the brain—links this new information to existing neural patterns, or information you already know. (Shortform note: An essential part of the consolidation process is replay, when the brain reactivates the neural patterns of the memory being consolidated—essentially, playing back the memory. This largely occurs during periods of rest...

Remember Summary When Memory Fails

Experiencing a memory “failure” can be both frustrating and frightening, as we sometimes perceive it as a sign that our memories are degrading. Many view it as a sign of impending Alzheimer’s disease, especially those in older age groups. However, Genova explains that our brains are highly efficient, and they evolved to remember meaningful things and forget the meaningless. Much of what we forget—like routine daily activities or minor details—isn’t actually problematic, nor is it a sign of Alzheimer’s or dementia. Sometimes though, we forget things we care about, not because our memory is failing but because we haven’t provided our brains with the necessary inputs for memory creation and retrieval.

According to Genova, our episodic memories are fundamentally unreliable and prone to distortion. This unreliability begins at the encoding stage, as we can only remember what we notice and pay attention to in the first place, meaning our memories are inherently incomplete from the start. Distortion often happens at the consolidation stage: During this period, memories can be altered by imagination, beliefs, biases, dreams, other people’s memories, and various other...

Remember Summary How Stress Impacts Memory

According to Genova, the activation of our stress response can affect our memory in different ways. When we’re stressed, the brain releases stress hormones into our bloodstream. This acute stress response was important for our ancestors to avoid dangerous situations, and it remains necessary for our daily functioning today. Genova explains that modern psychological stress affects us similarly to the physical threats our ancestors faced—the reaction an ancient human would have to being chased by a bear is the same reaction a modern human would have to committing a major social faux pas, for example.

Acute stress has a complex relationship with memory. It enhances the formation of memories related to the stressful situation by increasing attention and activating neurochemical processes that promote memory consolidation. However, this enhancement is selective, focusing on major details of the stressful situation while potentially impairing memory for peripheral details. For example, if you’re hiking in the woods and you encounter a bear, you might remember a lot about the bear’s appearance and behavior (as this is the major source of your stress), but little to nothing...

Remember Summary How to Improve Memory

Genova offers many tips for how to improve your memory. One of the most important is to pay attention to what’s important to you, since we can only remember what we pay attention to (as explained earlier). This requires a conscious effort, as our default state is one of inattentiveness. She recommends making a concerted effort to focus on things you want to remember—such as joyful experiences or semantic information you think you’ll need later—and avoiding multitasking as well as minimizing the distractions in your life, such as devices and social media.

(Shortform note: To combat your natural state of inattentiveness, you may want to try engaging in hyperfocus—deliberately focusing on a single task for a specific period of time—when trying to pay attention to what you want to remember. In Hyperfocus, Chris Bailey provides the following steps for how to hyperfocus: 1) Choose when and how long you want to hyperfocus, 2) choose what you want to hyperfocus on, 3) limit and manage the distractions you may face, 4) use mindfulness and meditation to stay in the...

Remember Summary How to Forget

As mentioned earlier, forgetting is a key part of remembering, as it frees up space in your brain for important information. Genova provides various strategies for intentional forgetting at three stages of the memory-formation process. First, avoid paying attention to unwanted information in the first place, so you can refrain from encoding it. Turn your attention to something else that you would like to remember.

(Shortform note: To turn your attention away from what you don’t want to encode, you can try focusing on what’s going on around you, grounding yourself through your five senses until the unwanted stimulus is gone. You can also occupy your brain with tasks like listing words in categories, doing mental math, or reciting a poem you have memorized.)

Second, you can consciously get rid of information during the consolidation process, making a point to filter out information that you’ve encoded but don’t want to keep. (Shortform note: Genova doesn’t explain how you can consciously, selectively discard information during consolidation, but we can infer from...

Shortform Exercise: Apply Memory Science to Your Daily Life

According to Genova, understanding how memory works can help us better navigate both remembering and forgetting in our daily lives. This exercise will help you identify areas where you can apply her strategies to improve your memory function.

Think about the different types of memory Genova describes (working memory, episodic memory, semantic memory, prospective memory, and muscle memory). Which type of memory do you most often struggle with, and in what situations does this typically occur? For example, perhaps you frequently forget appointments (prospective memory) or have trouble remembering people’s names after meeting them (semantic memory).