I have abnormally good memory in some respects. Dates, time-passed-since, and sources are hard to remember, but stories, phrases, quotes, noteworthy or unexpected events, and some portions of conversations are accessible word-for-word years later—an example would be telling an amusing story to a friend who’d been the original source of the story, and using the same words they did to describe it to me years ago, which more than a little unsettled them.
As far as I can tell I have no feeling of this kind of memory as opposed to any other; it all feels constantly available, there’s no ‘lookup’ or ‘let me think’ feeling at all. Up until recently I have never had the ‘tip of the tongue’ phenomenon (it’s either available or not and I automatically know which without question), but I’ve been practicing trying to remember things I think I can’t, and I think I’ve had this feeling once or twice.
I used to have the same ability (and am still well above average) but it’s lessened over the past 3 years or so. I’ve been trying to work out whether it’s due to a) age (greater number of life experiences and/or memory naturally less good), b) studies (prioritising studied material over episodic memory), c) greater socialisation (I used to be fairly isolated, so it’s possible that there were just fewer noteworthy things to remember), d) some other factor.
And relatedly: do you also have that sense of frustration when people keep repeating themselves over multiple conversations? It took me a long time to realise that they weren’t doing it on purpose and that not everyone can remember what they’ve said to who in the past.
I can live with repetition over multiple conversations, but prefer it if the person will let me mention that I’ve heard and remember what they said.
What drives me crazy is the extent to which most people repeat themselves in the same conversation. I may not be doing anyone a favor by pointing this out—but if you listen, you’ll find that the real world sounds rather like Waiting for Godot, though the topics are more varied.
I have concluded professionally that I am far more effective when I repeat myself often in conversations: I get more evidence later that the information I was conveying actually gets across.
I have yet to decide whether it’s because people mostly don’t understand and/or forget what I’ve said, so repeating myself increases the odds of a particular message getting across, or because people understand repetition to be an indicator of importance, or for some other reason.
It frustrates me, but I try to do what works rather than what I think ought to work.
That’s a good point. Do you have a way of telling whether what you’re saying has registered, or do you use a heuristic that a certain number of repetitions is likely to work?
My impression is that a lot of repetition isn’t strategic, it’s nervousness (I think people are more likely to repeat themselves when they’re looking for support and feel unsure of getting it) or making sure they get more time in the conversation.
I came to the conclusion that repetition is valuable by looking at how often, after giving a presentation in which I convey certain facts, the audience subsequently follows up in ways that make it clear that they neither retained the facts nor the awareness that I’d presented those facts. When I started making a point of repeating my key points several times during a presentation, tying it back to multiple different topics and multiple different questions, the incidence of that sort of followup question dropped.
That said, I haven’t done a careful study, and I could easily be misattributing the result to the wrong cause. For that matter, I could easily be perceiving a result that isn’t actually there. Humans make those sorts of errors all the time.
I agree that a lot of repetition is nervousness, and that a lot of it is an attempt to grab floor-time. (I’m not sure I’d call the latter nonstrategic.)
I also think a lot of repetition is an attempt to maintain control of the attention of the group. (As in: A: “X” B: “Y” C: “NOT(Y)” A: “X.”
Looking back at this, it occurs to me that I may have misunderstood your question and thus answered a different one that you meant to ask. There are things that I take as real-time indications that what I’ve said has registered—for example, being able to answer questions or to ask sensible ones—and things that I take as indicators that it hasn’t, such as asking questions I’ve already answered. When I’m talking to groups I often get neither, unless I’ve done enough prep to create exercises specifically intended to obtain them,
If the person you’re talking to is distracted by another task or has a short attention span, they may appreciate repetition, for example if the person you’re talking to is distracted by another task or has a short attention span. (I have accidentally sounded like this in LW comments before.)
Currently 22. The effect was present and seemingly unaffected moving from early school (no study) to final few years of school (lots of study) to university (some study) to current day (very little study). I’ve always been highly social, can’t rule that out.
And yes! It’s not quite as frustrating for me as it is for them, because I finish their stories for them, sometimes in the words they were going to use. I’m guilty of the same thing, though—I find it hard to remember which stories come from where. It’s only once the person begins the story that the rest of the story becomes available.
Actually, I used to have a similar ability as well, although that was primarily for life experiences + written material (came in handy on tests—read once-write anywhere, heh). It faded and largely disappeared sometime during high school. I feel I compensated fairly well afterward, so the loss doesn’t bother me too much. Not that I wouldn’t be interested if I found a way to get it back, though.
It seems different people may experience changes in this type of memory at different times. Maybe those adults who are considered to have really good memories just never had their childhood mnemonic abilities fade over time.
That reminds me; while I tend to remember techniques and equations easily enough, my software has a bug where people with similar occupations and similar initials are easily confused with one another, even if they look very different from one another.
I think the classic example was the time I mistook Britney Spears for Beyonce.
I know two women who are close friends and whose first names begin with the same uncommon letter. One is white, the other is black. One was plump, the other was slender (they’ve converged to some extent since, but I’m talking about a while ago). One has a loud voice, and the other a soft voice.
I don’t know that I have much to say about it. It would be hard to name an aspect of vocal technique or musicianship that Beyoncé doesn’t do better than Britney. Beyoncé has a naturally beautiful voice and is in near-total control of every sound that comes out of her mouth—flawless pitch, lots of different colors and effects. She also is an excellent musician and has ideas about how to perform a given song in a way that’s engaging and effective. She has what singers call good “diction,” i.e. clear pronunciation of words. I wouldn’t even be tempted to say any of those things about Britney.
You might enjoy reading this blog post. A classical voice teacher was given some examples of heavy metal singing to review (from the point of view of vocal technique) for a metal blog. In addition to being interesting reading, I think a lot of people appreciated the point that many of the kinds of skills needed for good singing are constant across wildly different genres.
If you wanted me to comment on something more specific, let me know.
I have abnormally good memory in some respects. Dates, time-passed-since, and sources are hard to remember, but stories, phrases, quotes, noteworthy or unexpected events, and some portions of conversations are accessible word-for-word years later—an example would be telling an amusing story to a friend who’d been the original source of the story, and using the same words they did to describe it to me years ago, which more than a little unsettled them.
As far as I can tell I have no feeling of this kind of memory as opposed to any other; it all feels constantly available, there’s no ‘lookup’ or ‘let me think’ feeling at all. Up until recently I have never had the ‘tip of the tongue’ phenomenon (it’s either available or not and I automatically know which without question), but I’ve been practicing trying to remember things I think I can’t, and I think I’ve had this feeling once or twice.
If I may ask: how old are you?
I used to have the same ability (and am still well above average) but it’s lessened over the past 3 years or so. I’ve been trying to work out whether it’s due to a) age (greater number of life experiences and/or memory naturally less good), b) studies (prioritising studied material over episodic memory), c) greater socialisation (I used to be fairly isolated, so it’s possible that there were just fewer noteworthy things to remember), d) some other factor.
And relatedly: do you also have that sense of frustration when people keep repeating themselves over multiple conversations? It took me a long time to realise that they weren’t doing it on purpose and that not everyone can remember what they’ve said to who in the past.
I can live with repetition over multiple conversations, but prefer it if the person will let me mention that I’ve heard and remember what they said.
What drives me crazy is the extent to which most people repeat themselves in the same conversation. I may not be doing anyone a favor by pointing this out—but if you listen, you’ll find that the real world sounds rather like Waiting for Godot, though the topics are more varied.
I have concluded professionally that I am far more effective when I repeat myself often in conversations: I get more evidence later that the information I was conveying actually gets across.
I have yet to decide whether it’s because people mostly don’t understand and/or forget what I’ve said, so repeating myself increases the odds of a particular message getting across, or because people understand repetition to be an indicator of importance, or for some other reason.
It frustrates me, but I try to do what works rather than what I think ought to work.
That’s a good point. Do you have a way of telling whether what you’re saying has registered, or do you use a heuristic that a certain number of repetitions is likely to work?
My impression is that a lot of repetition isn’t strategic, it’s nervousness (I think people are more likely to repeat themselves when they’re looking for support and feel unsure of getting it) or making sure they get more time in the conversation.
I came to the conclusion that repetition is valuable by looking at how often, after giving a presentation in which I convey certain facts, the audience subsequently follows up in ways that make it clear that they neither retained the facts nor the awareness that I’d presented those facts. When I started making a point of repeating my key points several times during a presentation, tying it back to multiple different topics and multiple different questions, the incidence of that sort of followup question dropped.
That said, I haven’t done a careful study, and I could easily be misattributing the result to the wrong cause. For that matter, I could easily be perceiving a result that isn’t actually there. Humans make those sorts of errors all the time.
I agree that a lot of repetition is nervousness, and that a lot of it is an attempt to grab floor-time. (I’m not sure I’d call the latter nonstrategic.)
I also think a lot of repetition is an attempt to maintain control of the attention of the group. (As in:
A: “X”
B: “Y”
C: “NOT(Y)”
A: “X.”
Looking back at this, it occurs to me that I may have misunderstood your question and thus answered a different one that you meant to ask. There are things that I take as real-time indications that what I’ve said has registered—for example, being able to answer questions or to ask sensible ones—and things that I take as indicators that it hasn’t, such as asking questions I’ve already answered. When I’m talking to groups I often get neither, unless I’ve done enough prep to create exercises specifically intended to obtain them,
If the person you’re talking to is distracted by another task or has a short attention span, they may appreciate repetition, for example if the person you’re talking to is distracted by another task or has a short attention span. (I have accidentally sounded like this in LW comments before.)
Weird, I also used to be really good at this.
Specifically, I could recite funny scenes from Futurama episodes verbatum after watching them once. It’s gotten worse.
I had the same problem but with the of the second Harry Potter movie when I was in second grade. People got tired of listening to me on the road trip.
Currently 22. The effect was present and seemingly unaffected moving from early school (no study) to final few years of school (lots of study) to university (some study) to current day (very little study). I’ve always been highly social, can’t rule that out.
And yes! It’s not quite as frustrating for me as it is for them, because I finish their stories for them, sometimes in the words they were going to use. I’m guilty of the same thing, though—I find it hard to remember which stories come from where. It’s only once the person begins the story that the rest of the story becomes available.
Well, I’m 26, so if there’s an age-related phenomenon going on you should be due to start experiencing it any day now ;)
Actually, I used to have a similar ability as well, although that was primarily for life experiences + written material (came in handy on tests—read once-write anywhere, heh). It faded and largely disappeared sometime during high school. I feel I compensated fairly well afterward, so the loss doesn’t bother me too much. Not that I wouldn’t be interested if I found a way to get it back, though.
It seems different people may experience changes in this type of memory at different times. Maybe those adults who are considered to have really good memories just never had their childhood mnemonic abilities fade over time.
That reminds me; while I tend to remember techniques and equations easily enough, my software has a bug where people with similar occupations and similar initials are easily confused with one another, even if they look very different from one another.
I think the classic example was the time I mistook Britney Spears for Beyonce.
This may be more common than you think.
I know two women who are close friends and whose first names begin with the same uncommon letter. One is white, the other is black. One was plump, the other was slender (they’ve converged to some extent since, but I’m talking about a while ago). One has a loud voice, and the other a soft voice.
People would confuse them with each other.
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How can a link to a video of one of two people show that there is a difference between them? Or usefully illustrate that difference.
My guess: you are claiming that Beyonce is a better singer than Britney Spears, but it could be any number of other things.
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That is awesomely put.
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I don’t know that I have much to say about it. It would be hard to name an aspect of vocal technique or musicianship that Beyoncé doesn’t do better than Britney. Beyoncé has a naturally beautiful voice and is in near-total control of every sound that comes out of her mouth—flawless pitch, lots of different colors and effects. She also is an excellent musician and has ideas about how to perform a given song in a way that’s engaging and effective. She has what singers call good “diction,” i.e. clear pronunciation of words. I wouldn’t even be tempted to say any of those things about Britney.
You might enjoy reading this blog post. A classical voice teacher was given some examples of heavy metal singing to review (from the point of view of vocal technique) for a metal blog. In addition to being interesting reading, I think a lot of people appreciated the point that many of the kinds of skills needed for good singing are constant across wildly different genres.
If you wanted me to comment on something more specific, let me know.
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You might enjoy Solange (Beyoncé′s sister) covering “Stillness is the Move”.
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