←back to thread

Attention lapses due to sleep deprivation due to flushing fluid from brain

(news.mit.edu)
589 points gmays | 2 comments | 31 Oct 25 13:14 UTC | HN request time: 0.545s | source
Show context
earless1 ◴[31 Oct 25 14:40 UTC] No.45772465[source]▶
So biological garbage collection pauses then? skip sleep, and the brain tries to run gc cycles during runtime. Causing attention and performance latency spikes. Evolution wrote the original JVM.
replies(5): >>45772560 #>>45773351 #>>45776679 #>>45777047 #>>45778878 #
layer8 ◴[31 Oct 25 14:47 UTC] No.45772560[source]▶
Luckily it doesn’t clear all unreferenced memory, though.
replies(5): >>45772666 #>>45772718 #>>45773046 #>>45773081 #>>45773625 #
1. DenisM ◴[31 Oct 25 14:56 UTC] No.45772666[source]▶
Cleanup is an LRU process.

Once a memory lapses you have to relearn from life experience (or not at all).

replies(1): >>45775166 #
2. thaumasiotes ◴[31 Oct 25 18:31 UTC] No.45775166[source]▶
No, a lapsed memory can be provoked. It doesn't have to be relearned. It is "lapsed" because the organizational path to it within your brain has been lost, like a book in a library that has been left out of the card catalog, but just like the book, if you happen to find it anyway, it will be there.

Compare, from https://evolutionistx.wordpress.com/2016/12/16/anthropology-... :

> at the first news of English ships in the area, Buckley rushed to the spot. He attempted to make contact, but couldn’t swim out to the ship and couldn’t convince the ship to send a boat to him (Buckley had, at this point, forgotten how to speak English.) Buckley was again heartbroken until another ship showed up, and he found the English colonists and tried to approach them:

> “Presently some of the natives saw me, and turning round, pointed me out to one of the white people; and seeing they had done so, I walked away from the well, up to their place, and seated myself there, having my spears and other war and hunting implements between my legs. The white men could not make me out–my half-cast colour, and extraordinary height and figure [Buckley was around 6’5” or taller,]–dressed, or rather undressed, as I was–completely confounding them as to my real character. At length one of them came up and asked me some questions, which I could not understand; but when he offered me bread–calling it by its name–a cloud appeared to pass from over my brain, and I soon repeated that, and other English words after him. …

> “Word by word I began to comprehend what they said, and soon understood, as if by instinct, that they intended to remain in the country; that they had seen several of the native chiefs, with whom–as they said–they had exchanged all sorts of things for land; but that I knew could not have been

I submit that it takes more than a day to learn English if you don't already know it.

Once I was in a Toys-R-Us and noticed a cover image among the bottom-of-the-barrel DVD display which caused me to put what I was doing on hold for several minutes while I stared at the DVD. I bought it, and it turned out to be a movie I had watched many times when I was very young, but that information hadn't been accessible to me.