August 01, 2007
How My Mind Works
I've been reading several books about the brain recently. They all talk about how the human brain stores information by association. That's why our minds often wander from one thing to another. We think about a movie, say Sicko, which might lead to a thought about Michael Moore, which might remind us that our sister is a big Moore fan, which might lead to the conversation about Moore between her and cousin Randy at a family gathering a few years ago. And so on.
Since we store information associatively, that's also how we retrieve it.
One time I was trying to remember the name of someone's wife. I knew it was a short, relatively popular name, but I just couldn't bring it out. So I did what I often do in those situations: go through the alphabet to see if I can recall the first letter of the name.
I got as far as "I" and the name Irene popped into my head. So I knew that the name I was searching for would have some relationship to Irene, but I was also sure that the name wasn't Irene, and I was pretty sure the name didn't start with an "I".
Moving on through the alphabet, I tried "J" and Jane instantly popped into my mind. Yes, the name was in some way related to Jane and to Irene.
Finally, I had it. The name I was trying to recall was Joan! So obvious.
Because three of my aunts' names are Irene, Jane, and Joan.
Posted by jt at August 1, 2007 02:03 PM