Our common foibles

One admonition given to slow the effects of aging memory is to learn something new each day. One bit of knowledge recently gleaned from “The Seven Sins of Memory” by Daniel L. Schacter is that forgetting names is a common human condition. Schacter calls it “proper-name anomia.” Names are harder to remember than other things because they are specific to one person. If you are trying to remember the name of a particular item of living room furniture and the word sofa will not surface, you can substitute others names such as divan, settee, couch, etc., but a person’s name has to be specific, making it more difficult to recall. Admittedly, some have better control of the problem than others.

Another “sin” he identifies is absent-mindedness. A common ailment, not limited to college professors. Countless times I have driven away from my house, gone a block or so and wondered if I closed my garage door. I either backtrack or circle the block to check. Not once have I found it open. Things we do automatically are quickly forgotten or never register at all, as in my punching the button to close my garage door without being conscious of it.

He also reports an anecdote that is encouraging to me. It concerns the winner of the National Memory Championship, The winner, who beat out 16 other gifted contestants in rigorous memory exercises, later admitted that she had to often resort to Post-it note reminders to make it through the day.

Another condition is called tip-ofthe tongue (TOT) state of mind; the feeling that a blocked word or name is on the tip of one’s tongue but simply won’t emerge. A near universal sensation, it seems. I love it when experts give fancy names to common human foibles while declaring their universality.

JOHN McPHERSON Searcy