TITLE

Why You Forget Names Immediately—And How to Remember Them

DESCRIPTION

A fascinating article that explains how and why we forget some names very quickly after introductions and why we remember others.   

“A common name may be forgettable because it doesn’t strike your mind as interesting, or because you know multiple people with that name already. On the other hand, a rare name may be easy to recognize but harder to recall. And any name, common or not, has to fight for space in your already-crowded brain. Given all these factors, it takes more effort than you think to lock down a name.  “You’re not only remembering the name, but you’re remembering the name in relation to a face. Even if you get the information in, which we call encoding, you might not be able to find the information because there’s so much competition between other names and other faces in your memory,” Ranganath says. “People are often overconfident, and they underestimate how hard it will be later on.”  The article also provides a number of ways on how to remember names through mnemonics and other memory “tricks” to enhance memory ability.  

This is a terrific interesting article to be used in conjunction with the textbook chapters on memory and cognition.

SOURCE

Time, July 26, 2018, by Jamie Ducharme

LINK TO RESOURCE

https://time.com/5348486/why-do-you-forget-names/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=sfmc&utm_campaign=newsletter+health-thursday+default+ac&utm_content=+++20220519+++body&et_rid=207786296&lctg=207786296

(Tiny URL)  https://tinyurl.com/2p9aybzc

CLASS DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

•According to the article, why do we forget some names so quickly and remember others?

•What are the provided suggestions to remember names?

•You have just started a new semester and the professor asks each of your classmates to state their name.  What would you do to remember each name?