We all wish that we could know if we were going to later remember something, the moment that new information enters our brain. For example, if we could predict whether our children would later remember a vocabulary word, then we could have them spend more time on the words they will not remember. A group of neuroscientists at Vanderbilt University has developed a way of measuring and analyzing brain activity that achieves this goal of predicting later memory as we study and view new information. The procedure involves measuring brainwaves from just two electrodes on the head as people view pictures, words, or virtually any kind of information that a person hopes to remember later.
