Word: pattern
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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BUILDING A DATA BASE We think of learning and memory as somehow separate functions; in fact, they're not. Both are processes by which we acquire and store new data in a way that makes them retrievable later on. The storage takes place, says the current theory, as a pattern of connections among neurons, the nerve cells that serve as the brain's basic building blocks. When information-the image of a new acquaintance's face, for example-enters the brain, it arrives in the form of electric impulses streaming from the retina, up the optic nerve and into...
...impulses die away within milliseconds, but their passage reinforces the particular set of connections between this particular set of neurons, giving them the ability to re-create the image. The more often the pattern is reinforced-by repeated sightings of the person, by the effort to remember him or by connection with some other mental trigger ("This woman is attractive; she's worth getting to know better," or, "This man looks unpleasant; I need to avoid him")-the more likely, says Damasio, the pattern, or image, will not go into short-term memory, lasting weeks or months, but into permanent...
...core of the problem for Colin Powell is that no matter which course his candidacy would take, either as a Republican-challenging the party's titular leaders and current front runner-or as an independent, the very act of his running would disrupt the settled pattern of American politics...
...fact, Kishline has merely helped bring into the open one of the most contentious and enduring debates in addiction research: whether most people who repeatedly abuse alcohol suffer from a disease over which they have no control, or whether they are engaging in a freely chosen, if unhealthy, pattern of behavior...
Spring has come to Bosnia, and irises, primrose and lilacs pattern the mountainsides, but the temperature still dips below freezing at night, and heavy rains are frequent. The terrain is excellent for hiding, however. O'Grady had crashed in a cave-pocked, densely forested region used during World War II for that purpose by partisans evading the Nazis. The downed flyer had soon consumed the eight 4-oz. packs of water in his emergency kit. But he was able to catch rain in Ziploc plastic bags and at one point tried to squeeze water out of his wet woolen socks...