Why You Forget Names Immediately —And How to Remember Them

Of all the social gaffes, none is perhaps more common than meeting a new person, exchanging names and promptly forgetting theirs — forcing you to either swallow your pride and ask again, or languish in uncertainty forever. Why do we keep making this mistake? There are a few potential explanations, says Charan Ranganath, the director of the Memory and Plasticity Program at the University of California, Davis. Why you forget The simplest explanation: you’re just not that interested, Ranganath says. “People are better at remembering things that they’re motivated to learn. Sometimes you are motivated to learn people’s names, and other times it’s more of a passing thing, and you don’t at the time think it’s important.” But this isn’t always the case. Often you really do want to remember, and find yourself forgetting anyway, Ranganath says. This may be because you underestimate the work necessary to remember something as seemingly simple as a name. 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...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized healthytime Mental Health/Psychology onetime Source Type: news