On Memory

I have mostly quarantined myself for the weekend since I have been having sinus issues and coughing, and I don't want to spread my germs to all the lovely little babies at the picnics I was invited to. Michael is at a frisbee tournament, so I've mostly been lounging around, talking to the cats, watching reruns, and playing on the internet. And then I got to thinking...

Memory is a funny thing. Back in my university days, I took class that was entirely about learning and memory, and I took a few neuroscience classes that discussed the subject as well. I have what I believe to be a "better than average" long term visual memory. What I mean by that is I can semi-accurately re-watch a video in my head of something that happened 20 years ago. I say semi-accurately because we all make some mistakes or have some fuzzy spots, but generally I can remember more accurate details than others do about an event or interaction that happened years ago. 

For example, through happenstance I was reunited a few years back with someone I actually had met about 15 years prior - I had been about 14 at the time, and he had been about five years old. This is someone I only saw a handful of times, but I knew his sister and remembered all his sibling's names. I remembered that his family was from Britain and another country (turns out it was New Zealand), they all had unusual accents as children because of this, and I remembered what elementary school he attended, where his mother worked, and a few other details about them. He was dumfounded that I remembered any of these details. It even kind of freaked him out because he obviously didn't remember me and I knew all this stuff about him. He is actually still one of our friends, and we are cool, but it was a really strange reunion. 

Because of this and other interactions I've had with people, I've come to realize that I remember a lot of stuff most people don't. I have a rolodex in my brain for each person I know, and in that rolodex I have links to memories and details about all of them. Being a teacher, I remember stuff about the main students I've taught more/longer; if I've only taught a kid one day and didn't interact with them much, I probably don't remember much about them. 

My memory is why I'm pretty good at trivia. I tend to remember lots of anecdotes about history, literature, pop culture, etc. which become common trivia questions. In terms of a time-line, for example, even if I don't remember exactly when something happened, I can remember details surrounding that thing, and then work backwards from those details to pinpoint when that happened. For example, if I get asked what year a particular movie came out, I might think, I know that that movie came out when I was working at the video store, so it had to have come out between 2002-2005. Or, I might remember that I saw it in the theater with my friend Keri, so it had to have been in the late 1990's, or something like that. I've definitely gotten some questions right that I wouldn't have otherwise known, using that kind of reasoning. 

My good memory about people is not always a good thing, It probably means I carry grudges longer. It can make for awkward interactions when I remember things that other people don't (that they probably don't want anyone to remember). My use of brain power in memory probably also means that I am not expending that energy on something else that other people are better at, or that could be more important. My short-term memory is not great; I can say something and literally five seconds later not remember what I said or what it was in reference to. I also often remember things I don't necessarily want to remember, I waste brain energy on memories popping into my head one after the other and then thinking about them, when I probably could be more focused on what is happening in the here and now. That's not really by choice - a sound or a smell or the sight of an object could automatically send my brain in another direction, even if I'm trying to concentrate on something. I'm sure this is probably part of why I sometimes get headaches more than other people - I'm wasting brain energy all the time on things that don't really matter. 

Michael is always baffled by memory because we seem to have opposite memory strengths. His short-term memory is much better than mine, but his memory more auditory and not very visual, and longer than a few years his gets very fuzzy. I find it fascinating that we occupy the same space in life, so to speak, but we must internally experience it very differently. There was one time he randomly asked me whether Steven Spielberg and Stephen King spell their names with a "V" or a "PH" in them. I was able to tell him accurately which used which, by seeing the fonts in my head from credits and book covers, and he thought it was bizarre because he simply can't do that, and I can do it with little effort. Also, for all I know, he might not even remember that conversation because it was so banal. Why do I remember that?

Anyway, memory continues to be a topic that fascinates me. Knowing how to make something more memorable is important in teaching, which I do most days - some days more successfully than others. 

I leave you with this, one of my favorite case studies I watched in my Neuropsych class back in the day: Clive Wearing, the man without memory.