Notes from The July 2nd Memory Research Group: Exhalation by Ted Chiang

Originally, we were going to discuss Richard Semon’s seminal The Mnene, where the German scientist introduced a variety of important concepts that would go on to shape and influence our understanding of memory.

It’s an important work, but not the easiest to digest, so instead Kei Kreutler selected Exhalation, a great short story by Ted Chiang about an alien investigating the nature of memory in his species.

It’s very fun and very short, and it’s available on Archive.org.

I heartily recommend checking it out.

There were some excellent comments made by the other guests, I quite liked the one that pointed out the relationship between rhythm and memory. I, alas, can’t remember what everyone said, so these notes will mostly reflect my own engagement with the material and other participants.

Before we begin, a few short notes on Ted Chiang’s story. There are spoilers below, so only scroll down after you’ve read the story or if you don’t mind ruining parts of it.

A bit about breathing

In Exhalation, metallic aliens realize their experience of time is beginning to change. The protagonist, an anatomist, decides to auto-dissect his brain to see what’s going on. His biology allows him to do this without dying. He discovers the relationship between the flow of air and the formation of memories in his people, which leads him to conclude that the distribution of air in his universe is slowly changing in a way that will eventually lead to the extinction of his species.

I have had a long-term interest in the relationship between breath and cognition ever since I read Shroeder and Ostrander’s Superlearning as a teenager. That book introduced me to Georgi Lozanov’s suggestopedia, a teaching practice that involves aligning your breathing with the rhythm of Baroque music.

Shortly after reading Superlearning, I joined an internet forum hosted by the late Win Wenger, a pioneer in creative problem solving techniques. Wenger firmly believed in a link between cognition and breathing, and would often encourage us to take up the habit of swimming so that we could practice holding our breath. The longer you could hold it, the better.

These ideas would go on to shape my own approach to learning, influencing how I viewed the interactions between our bodies and our thoughts. I’m always happy to discover books like John Ratey’s Spark, which discusses how exercise impacts cognition.

Breathing and thinking are intimately tied, and there is a growing body of research that’s starting to help sketch out the relationship between the two.

Thomas Schreier recently released a study last year that investigated the relationship between inhalation, exhalation and memory retrieval. A quote from his press release:

“Our data thus points to a sort of functional bifurcation: Inhalation is a favorable moment to receive the reminder cue, while exhalation is a favorable moment for the actual reconstruction of the memory in the brain.”

Breathwork is a low-cost, easy studying intervention.

For mnemonics, you can create images on inhalation, and retrieve them on exhalation.

Slow breathing can help lower stress and reduce interference. Bookending a study session with it is easy and, at the very least, it won’t harm your studies and will most likely help them out.

Over-controlled box breathing might backfire if it consumes too much attention, so I wouldn’t overly focus on it, but you should be able to pull it off automatically or with the help of a metronome. You still want to reserve your attention for the actual material you’re studying.

A bit about climate

Towards the end of the research group, I mentioned that the essay reminded me of Galen’s old theory of temperaments. The ancients used to believe that climate shaped cognition.

I didn’t do a great a job explaining Galen’s impact, since I shared his theories in a way that sounded like his medical framework was a modern one backed up by research, which it wasn’t.

In many ways, Galen held back medicine for centuries, and it wasn’t until the last couple hundred of years that doctors were able to finally free themselves from his shackles.

However, the conversation around Galen’s ideas did raise some important facts about climate and cognition that have actually replicated.

There’s a famous quote by Lee Kuan Yew, the modern founder of Singapore, on the importance of air conditioning in the tropics:

Air conditioning was a most important invention for us, perhaps one of the signal inventions of history. It changed the nature of civilization by making development possible in the tropics. Without air conditioning you can work only in the cool early-morning hours or at dusk. The first thing I did upon becoming prime minister was to install air conditioners in buildings where the civil service worked. This was key to public efficiency.

Studies do seem to back-up the idea that temperatures impact cognition:

We demonstrate that heat inhibits learning and that school air-conditioning may mitigate this effect. Student fixed effects models using 10 million PSAT-retakers show hotter school days in years before the test reduce scores, with extreme heat being particularly damaging. Weekend and summer temperature has little impact, suggesting heat directly disrupts learning time.

I’ve been aware of the relationship between air quality and cognition for some time, and it’s something I should really take more seriously. I’ve always noticed I’m lighter on my feet and clearer headed when I let fresh air circulate through my apartment, and there’s some evidence that backs this up:

Our paper published today shows the significant acute effects of PM2.5 and ventilation on cognitive test performance. These findings add to a growing body of evidence of how air pollution affects brain health, both short- and long-term.

I should get an air quality monitor for my flat -_-

In Summary

This was a light and breezy session, and I think everyone enjoyed getting to read a bit of fiction. Stories allow us to wrestle with ideas in different ways than non-fiction. I should probably incorporate more in my own newsletter.

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