Originally Posted by
Velo Vol
I saw it in an overall dumb movie yesterday and got to thinking about it. Like, is there ongoing research on how it supposedly works?
Another question I have is the myth of the brain having a vast store of memories which you generally can't recall, but can be revived if the brain is properly stimulated. Is there anything to that?
There is, particularly using functional MRI. For instance, my old fellowship supervisor has been interested in the difference in brain mechanisms between voluntary and involuntary movement and found that it's not that clear when you begin to look at people with unreal or "functional" movement disorders that they sincerely believe are real and involuntary. Posthypnotic suggestion probably works in a similar way.
Regarding the second question, the memory system for events, facts, names, etc. has a storage and a retrieval component. Retrieval, which involves focused brain work, is a harder task than storage, which happens almost automatically in many cases. As for remembering lost info when "properly stimulated," I suppose the extreme case is things you once saw or heard fleetingly looking familiar when seen again, so I guess it's pretty much true.