Get smarter by ignoring the irrelevant
While I was walking the dogs before work this morning, all kinds of strange things kept popping into my head: My old roommate’s name (wonder what Guy’s doing these days?), the theme song to “Bewitched,” the taste of breadfruit, how scary “Fatal Attraction” was when it first came out—you get the drift. My mind is an endless stream of irrelevant trivia. Which doesn’t bode well for my IQ, according to this article.
Basically, it says that researchers at the University of Oregon did some brain-measuring to figure out what makes people score high on visual working memory tests (those with good visual working memories also tend to score high on cognitive tests, it says). Turns out that they aren’t just stuffing more info into their heads; instead, they have the ability to ignore the irrelevant.
- The findings turn upside down the popular concept that a person’s memory capacity, which is strongly related to intelligence, is solely dependent upon the amount of information you can cram into your head at one time. These results have broad implications and may lead to developing more effective ways to optimize memory as well as improved diagnosis and treatment of cognitive deficits associated with attention deficit disorder and schizophrenia…
“People differed systematically, and dramatically, in their ability to keep irrelevant items out of awareness,” Vogel said. “This doesn’t mean people with low capacity are cognitively impaired. There may be advantages to having a lot of seemingly irrelevant information coming to mind. Being a bit scattered tends to be a trait of highly imaginative people.”
So I guess there’s some hope for people like me after all. Now, can someone get the jingle for Foxwoods out of my head?
Update: According to the New Scientist, maybe all I need to improve my memory is more coffee.
Related Topics: Adult learning
November 30th, 2005 at 12:33 pm
Interesting. In the association world — particularly small-staff associations that have to manage a number of sometimes-complicated policy issues — one of the secrets to success is the ability to “temporarily” remember lots of details that become irrelevant (and forgotten) later. Is this something that’s an innate trait, or something that can be learned? I don’t know, but I used to have deal with some complex environmental and technology issues and at the time could spout off for hours about them in meetings and hearings. If you asked me about them now the only thing I could offer is a blank look. I’m sure the same thing is true of all organizations and professions that have to deal with a lot of changing factors.
December 6th, 2005 at 10:38 am
Kevin, you hit the nail on the head. In my former life I moderated medical discussions on a wide variety of topics and products from alpha interferon to ACE inhibitors to thiazolidinediones and more. I was able to converse about these therapeutic areas with ease in the company of clinicians during those years, and could shift easily from topic to topic, often several times during a week or even day. But once a project wrapped and we moved on to a new focus, the information stored in “wetware” seemed to evaporate very quickly as if to make room for more. This gives me a heightened respect for primary care clinicians who have to keep lots of diverse and detailed info available for near-instant recall. All this time I’ve wondered if I had a long term memory deficiency but hadn’t considered the up-side to this characteristic.
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