FORGET ME NOT
Can’t remember names? A simple strategy can help
Inever thought I would miss Zoom meetings when I returned to in-person interactions six weeks back. But there was one Zoom feature I loved: name displays.
Not having to remember the names of five people I just met made me more comfortable during meetings than wearing sweatpants.
Remembering names is a timeless problem, but the easing of pandemic restrictions has made it more urgent. The names of people you haven’t seen for months are especially vulnerable to forgetting. Fortunately, scientists have some insights that can help.
Many people think they are terrible with names, and studies show they are right.
In one typical experiment, subjects read biographies of fictional people that included their names, hometowns, occupations and hobbies, and it was the names that were most frequently lost. In other studies, subjects were asked to name and describe famous people from their photographs. Participants were often able to specify why the person was famous — “he’s an actor in a lot of action movies” — but could not pull up the name.
Why do names pose a special memory problem? We may think it’s their arbitrariness, but that’s not quite right. Any face might go with the name “Brewer,” but anyone might have the profession brewer, too. The important difference is that we can make this association meaningful.
In one clever experiment, subjects saw photographs of faces with biographical information they were to remember. People were more likely to remember “this person is a baker” than “this person’s name is Baker.” An occupation tells you something about a person’s work hours, how they spend their day, their income and so on. You can project that information on the face you see and better imagine a whole person. But the name tells you nothing.
Names have another peculiar characteristic. Being able to recall part of a memory usually serves as a hint to the rest of it. For example, if I recognize that someone is famous, that limits their possible occupations; I’ll figure they are probably an actor or politician. But a name might be composed of nearly any sequence of sounds. So partial information — for example, that it starts with “J” — doesn’t help me puzzle out the rest.
Even worse, when you block on a name, you can’t talk around it as you can other words. If I momentarily forget that I drive a Corolla, I can say “my Toyota” or “my car.” But if my neighbor says, “Hi, Dan,” social norms dictate that I respond with her name. If I say, “Hi neighbor,” she’ll assume I can’t recall it.
And she’ll be hurt. People assume (correctly) that we are more likely to remember something that’s important to us. Feeling you matter is foundational to a relationship, so people are alert to whether you use their name.
So what can you do to overcome a lapse?
Most people try to coax the name out of memory by thinking of how they know the person, or where they last saw the person. Experiments show this strategy doesn’t help; it merely brings other biographical information to mind.
It would seem you should try to prompt the sound of the name, perhaps by trying to think of names with a similar sound. But when experimenters directed subjects to use such strategies, they said they found it difficult, they seldom succeeded, and even when they did, the information did not help them find the right name.
A common strategy addresses the meaninglessness of names by encouraging you to pick a distinctive facial feature, find a word that sounds like the name, and then create a mental image to relate the two. Hence, if you meet a woman named Ruth with bright red hair, you might picture her with tree roots replacing her locks.
Experiments show this strategy is effective in the lab, but flops in everyday circumstances. Your mind is too busy navigating the social interaction to dream up clever mental images.
No strategy reliably unblocks your memory, but research shows you might mitigate the social damage. People assume a momentary blank signifies indifference, so offer an alternative explanation. Confess to the slip but add “I’m sorry, my head’s been in the clouds all day,” or another excuse indicating the lapse reflects on your state of mind, not the insignificance of the friendship.
But you cannot say that each time you meet. How can you ensure you’ll remember next time?
A simpler strategy is surprisingly effective: Periodically think to yourself, “What’s her name? Ruth.” Do this self-test 10 seconds after meeting the person, then at increasing intervals, say, 30 seconds, two minutes and five minutes. Researchers have shown by throwing parties for undergraduate subjects under controlled conditions that this technique is effective in fairly realistic situations.
With Zoom name displays a thing of the past, I tried this strategy and can attest that it works — I can remember more names.
Many of us feel our social skills are still rusty from a year of infrequent use. Ensuring you can call a person by name is a small way to boost your confidence and set an interaction on a good path.