📘 Part 3: Memory

This episode's vocabulary

Preschool (adj.) - of or relating to children who are between about three and five years old and have not yet gone to school, and their activities.

To bring someone up (phrasal verb) - to care for a child until they are an adult, often giving them particular beliefs.

Stretch (noun) - a continuous period of time.

Traumatic (adj.) - causing severe and lasting emotional shock and pain.

In this/that regard - in this particular way.

To stand out (phrasal verb) - to be very noticeable.

To be prone to something/do something - likely to show a particular characteristic, usually a negative one, or to be affected by something bad, such as damage or an illness.

Organizer (noun) - a book or small computer in which you keep a record of what you have to do, your meetings, etc.

To aid (verb) - to help.

Retention (noun) - the ability to keep or continue having something.

Prompt (noun) - anything that serves to remind.

Cue (noun) - a signal for someone to do something.

Distortion (noun) - a change to the intended or true meaning of something.

Irrelevant (adj.) - not related to what is being discussed or considered and therefore not important.

Defective (adj.) - something that is defective has a fault in it and does not work correctly.

Collective memory (noun) - shared experiences and knowledge passed on within a social group or society.

Questions and Answers

M: What early childhood memories do people usually have?

R: It's not something I know much about. But from what I remember, there are usually some preschool memories like playing with toys and family members, learning how to do things like tying your shoes. Oh, and of course you recall spending time with the people who brought you up.

M: Why do some people remember more of their childhood than others?

R: I suppose some people have better memories overall, just because of simple biology, really. Other people might not have had very memorable childhoods, it was just one long, boring stretch for them. In a minority of cases, maybe some people had some kind of traumatic experience which prevented their memories of that time from forming properly.

M: And why do some people have better memories than others?

R: Well, we already talked about the role that biology plays. So some people might just have better genetics in this regard. Others may have had more experiences that stood out for them. I mean, you're more likely to remember trips to different places around the world than you are just another day in your home town, for example.

M: What kinds of things do people have to remember?

R: Oh, in an ideal world, names, times of different events like birthdays. Things that tend to carry a lot of meaning to most people and those closest to them. I mean, you'd be rather annoyed if your partner forgot your name or your birthday, right?

M: What kinds of people are forgetful?

R: I don't know if there's a specific kind of person, but maybe people who are quite busy or disorganized in terms of information they keep to hand or more prone to forgetting things, since there's usually a lot for their brains to cope with. Maybe too much if they're forgetting things.

M: What are some techniques people can use to help them remember important information?

R: Well, definitely a diary or some sort of organizer... Or, well, keeping a diary or some sort of organizer, I should say. That way everything is held into one place, and you have to write or type it, which I think aids memory retention. They can also use prompts like visual cues and alarms to help remind them of things.

M: Do you think people can trust their memories?

R: Most of the time, I would say so, yes. They're never 100% perfect, of course, there's always some distraction or distortion that reflects that and you forget things that aren't particularly meaningful or irrelevant. I think they're effective at capturing the big things. I mean, if they weren't, then we'd have gone extinct from having defective memories a while back.

M: How do you think technology has affected our ability to remember things?

R: I'm not sure it's possible, really. I mean, on an evolutionary scale, we've only had advanced technology for a really short time. And changes in human abilities don't usually take place over such periods. They might have given us things to add to it, but to change the fundamental nature would be very unlikely. You could argue that we have greater access to collective memory. But that's just a question of scale. There's just more information to draw on.

M: Thank you, Rory, for your memorable answers!

R: Ooh, memorable.

Discussion

M: People remember early childhood memories, people have early childhood memories. Early childhood? Like when you are, I don't know, one year old, two years old. We can also talk about pre-school memories. Like before school. Some people usually have preschool memories, preschool memories, primary school memories. Another synonym for remember is recall. So people can remember, people can recall spending time with other children. Usually, people can recall their school days, so they can remember, recall. And recall doing something. And things like memories, like playing with toys, family, learning to do things. But actually, some people do have very early childhood memories. When they didn't talk and they were just born and then they remember certain things. It's really interesting. Rory, do you remember anything like this?

R: Not really, no. But then I've got a terrible memory. I need to write everything down.

M: Yeah, me too. Yeah, like horrible memory. Some people remember more of their childhood than others, and surely traumatic experience. Some people, well, might have had. So maybe they had in the past. So they might have had traumatic experience, something bad happening to them. And that's why they blocked those unhappy memories. Yeah? They just don't remember them. Some people have better memories overall. So they are just, their memory is better overall. And that's why they remember more about their memories. And it's just simple biology. Yeah? Well, why? Well, because of simple biology. You know?

R: Some people are just genetically better memories. Why? I don't know.

M: Yeah, genetically better memories. Some people might not have had very memorable childhood. Again, we're talking about the past. So maybe people didn't have memorable childhood. People might not have had memorable childhood. Okay? So we're not sure, maybe they didn't have, may not have had memorable childhood or happy childhoods. Yeah? So they blocked the memories, and they don't remember anything.

R: Do you think people can do that for real? Just block out their memories.

M: Oh, yeah. No, I think it's a fact. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you read psychology and like psychological research on this, oh, yeah. Also, there is a thing when some people substitute, and it's a real thing. So for example, it didn't happen, but a person remembers that it actually did happen. Amazing. It's kind of substitution.

R: Wow!

M: I know, our mind is amazing. It's just awesome. Some people have better memories than others, because they have better genetics in this regard. So in the connection to memory, people have better genetics. Okay? So I've got a brother, I don't have a very good memory, but my brother could remember stuff at school. He read it once and he could remember facts. I had to read it like five times. Yeah? I don't know. So my brother does have better genetics in this regard.

R: But you've got better hair.

M: Yeah, I've got better hair, definitely and better shoes.

R: Not sure of shoe choices genetic. Anyway, moving on. And other people may have had. Again may have had, maybe they had more experiences, which stood out for them. So some people just had situations which stood out for them, which were memorable. Yeah? And we again use the structure with may or might plus Perfect Infinitive. Maybe people had, they may have had more experiences than other people. And then if your life was more interesting, or if your life is interesting, then you are likely to remember more, right? So to be likely to do something, like probably you will remember more, you are more likely to remember trips to different places, than a trip around your hometown. Well, maybe just like a usual trip. A regular trip. Nothing memorable happened. Right? It was like all boring, nothing new. So you are more likely to remember trips to Africa, rather than like a usual day at home. If nothing interesting happened to you. People usually remember names, times of different events, dates, Rory didn't mention any passwords. Maybe he doesn't remember any passwords. You just have them written down.

R: I don't. My computer remembers them for me.

M: Yeah, there you go. And we remember things which carry a lot of meaning. Right? So dates which carry meaning, numbers which carry meaning. So addresses, postcodes. Passwords, maybe things to do? We have to remember what we should do. We have to remember our aims. Our name, our age, perhaps.

R: Well, unusually you need to remember the names of the people that you work with. That's helpful.

M: And then an example. You'd be annoyed if your partner or if your family forgot your name or your birthday. Yeah, like I think everybody would be annoyed if kind of like a husband and wife and a husband go, oh, yeah, Svetlana, hello, oh, yeah, Julia, sorry. Sorry, Julia. Sorry, love. I just called you Svetlana. I think this is the worst thing that could ever happen to a man or a woman. Yeah? So just like mix up the name, especially if like a husband and wife, boyfriend, girlfriend. Ooh, this is like, really bad. Yeah, my ex-boyfriend did that. Not to me, but to his next girlfriend. He called her Maria. And she was called, I don't know, Valerie.

R: Well, maybe you're just more memorable. That's not your fault.

M: It was bad. So people could be forgetful. Forgetful people forget things, obviously. Why? Well, they are disorganized. So busy people, disorganized people usually forget things. People who are in a hurry. And disorganized people are more prone to forgetting things. So prone, they are likely to forget things.

R: Ooh, we had that before, didn't we?

M: Yeah, yeah, yeah, we did. Again, a very good structure, C-2 structure. To be prone to something or to do something. So kind of like you are likely to have this situation, usually negative. Give us another example with prone.

R: People with bad memories are prone to forgetting things.

M: Yeah, so likely to forget things, right? People should keep a diary, or some sort of organizer to remember things better. Or type it down, write it down, which aids memory retention. Aids? Helps. Memory retention? So to remember things. So keeping a diary aids memory retention. Keeping a diary helps us to remember things. Or also some prompts. Prompts? Like some stickers, some visual cues that you stick to your fridge, some to do lists, and maybe alarms to help remind you of different things. So kind of set an alarm or like a notification on your phone to help remind you of something. Right? Setting notifications on your phone can remind you of different things. A very good question. Like should people trust their memories? I think definitely no. Rory said, I would say yes, most of the time. Our memories. Memories? Like what? Like situations we remember, our memories. Memory is in general, I have a good memory, but memories from my childhood. So situations, which I remember from my childhood, they are never 100% perfect. And I think that our memories are faulty. Like we distort the reality. And we remember things which didn't happen.

R: We remember things we want to remember.

M: Exactly. We remember things we want to remember. Yes, Rory, thank you! So I really don't remember my memory. Because there are many examples where I kind of I was so sure that I did this. I was like, oh, I did this, I closed the window. I remember definitely closing the window. And then I came home and the window is open. And kind of wow, this is just amazing. There's always some distraction or distortion. So distraction? Something that distracts us. And distortion is what?

R: Something that distorts. No. Distraction is something that pulls your attention away. Distortion is something that changes what you're paying attention to.

M: Yep. So distort means to change something. For example, distort the truth, change the truth or distort reality.

R: We would never do that.

M: No. But our memory could, our mind could distort reality. So we kind of, we stay happy. Or for example, distortion of the facts. So when the facts are changed, and here Rory told us that memories are never 100% perfect, because there's always some kind of distraction or distortion. So our memories are usually distorted. And we forget things that aren't meaningful, we forget things that are irrelevant. Any, you know, like we may not remember the full picture. We remember some, you know, particular moments, but not the full thing. What did you mean when you said defective memories?

R: Oh, that just means they don't work properly.

M: You mean our memory is defective? It can be. Or a particular memory is defective.

M: So a particular memory? A particular situation I remember, yeah? Yeah. Could you clarify this like memory? Because we use it as memory in general and we use memories as situations and it could be confusing. Like how to use it.

R: Yeah. But memory in general, no article. A memory, a particular time you remember a situation. And memories of... And then specific things.

M: Yeah. So for example, I've got a good memory, some people have a bad memory, right? So the ability to remember information, right? Also, some people suffer from loss of memory, or some people suffer from memory loss, they lose their memory. Or, for example, some people have an excellent memory for names. An excellent memory for numbers. Here, I do need an article. Because I have an adjective, an excellent memory for names, for numbers, or, for example, some people have vivid memories of their childhood. Okay? And here, vivid memories of their childhood. Memories? Because something you remember from the past.

R: It's super clear.

M: Or this song brings back a lot of memories. Memories from the past, things you remember from the past? Or kind of like school is a distant memory. So something distant that I remember. So one thing you remember. Now we have greater access to collective memory? So thanks to technology, what did you mean by collective memory?

R: Well, that's just like, all of the memories of everybody in the world now and in the past when they contributed to it. So it's not like inside one person, it's distributed.

M: And I reckon that due to technology, we have, like a bad memory now, because we rely on the devices, but we just don't get ourselves to remember things. So why should I remember this number? I'm gonna write it down. So you know, I'm kind of... I make things simple for me. But my memory suffers.

R: But human beings have had the ability to write things down for 1000s of years. So if that's a problem, then it's been a problem for 1000s of years, that's not a new thing.

M: Why isn't it a new thing? 1000s of years people didn't have phones. They remembered everything.

R: Well, you said to write it down.

M: They didn't have maps.

R: Yes, they did.

M: Yeah. But they didn't have like GPS. They didn't have the internet. So they had to remember things.

R Yes. But they still have forms of keeping information, of keeping records.. That's the kind of technology in and of itself. I don't know if that could affect people's ability to remember things. Like I say, it might add to it. But that's just a question of increasing the size of something. That doesn't change the actual ability itself.

M: You see, dear listener?

R: Yeah, science. But if you're wanting a cheap answer, then you could probably say, yeah, it's totally changed things. We have USB sticks that we can save memories on, and cameras. They take pictures so we can remember things more clearly. But none of these things actually are to do with the ability of remembering things.

M: Because we've always had this ability to remember things, yeah.

R: Yeah, I don't think it's changed much.

M: Okay. You can read a couple of articles about memory from the psychological point of view, because really, it's fascinating. So kind of you can Google "can we rely on our memory", and read about distorted memories, you know, like change the memories, and also this substitution, that people remember what didn't happen. It's amazing, really amazing. And yeah, to give some interesting examples, and some interesting facts about memory in the exam. And also it's useful for our essays as well. And just like in general, for your own education, dear listener, so your task is to read some interesting articles on memory. Okay? You can take a look at what's this magazine about psychologists do something? Like a very popular magazine.

R: Psychology Today?

M: Psychology Today. Yeah.

R: Is it? I don't know. That's just a guess.

M: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Actually, psychologytoday.com is very good one. Yeah. Happiness and just search... Okay, I'm there now, memory, psychologytoday.com, and there you go, memory test, memory bombs. False memory, there we go. They're called false memories.

R: Oh, wow

M: Something didn't happen but a person says that oh, yeah, I remember that. It's just crazy. The seven sins of memory. Nice. An interesting article. Like seven different ways that memory can mess with your head and your life, dear listener. Exciting stuff. I'm going to read it now. So about memory lapses and distortions. Thank you very much for listening! And we'll get back to you in our next episode! Bye!

R: Bye!

M: Bye!

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