Memories Are Made Of This

[liadnan]

A comments exchange with Frankie the other day had me thinking about the odd tricks my memory plays. The thing is, I have, in several regards, an exceptionally good memory, which is an incredibly useful gift in my line of work, and was also fairly handy when I purported to be a historian: the ability to remember in the middle of XExam where in twenty files a particular document is to be found -or even that it exists- or to keep in your head the details of an exceedingly complicated trust and corporation structure is not to be underestimated.

Like most such gifts, it has some appalling bugs. It works best with words and sounds: I can remember whole screeds of text, place obscure quotations from things I haven't read in years (which is why I become enormously irritated when I can't) and remember exactly how people sound. One odd failing is that I have serious difficulty remembering people's names until I'm familiar with the person involved - I learnt the embarrassing way to write down names on a piece of paper when in court and eventually ended up consciously working on memory tricks to cover it. Even with people I know well, names can occasionally go astray or, (as was the point in the original comments thread) become attached to the wrong people, particularly if there's some connexion in my head between the "wrong" and "right" people concerned.

Even worse is that my visual memory is completely buggered. It's a real struggle for me to call up mental pictures, even those of things and scenes I see every day (how this works with the fact I also have a very good sense of direction, which I would assume is something to do with subconscious assimilation and interpretation of what I see, is not entirely clear to me). And at the extreme end of this, I am almost completely unable to visualise faces. To give some idea of the extent of this, I cannot visualise my mother's face. I can visualise that of my father and one of my sisters, the sister who largely looked after me when I was an infant, but not my brother or my other sister. Most other people, with a very few notable exceptions - almost hopeless. (I have no problem with recognising anything or anyone when I see them, it's imagining them when I don't that's the problem.)

Except, except, for a trick that puts the lie to this: I can call to mind photographs with which I'm familiar, eg the photos of my close friends usually to be found on my wall. So I can't recall what people looked like the last time I saw them - but I can call up a memory of a photo of them. (Which means that memories of most of my friends involve backdrops of various Oxford and London pubs)

Is this bizarre? (Is dr_d in the house?).

I also discovered on Friday that I can't actually remember what I did for my 21st birthday. I have my suspicions about the reasons for this, but it's nonetheless rather sad, not to mention bloody irritating, as a consequence of generally having a decent memory is absolute fury when it fails, so James, Stephen, Matt, Ruth, Lyd, Marie: you were all there and occasionally pass by here, do enlighten me if you can remember.

In other news I have had a day fuelled by such righteous ire and indignation at all concerned, on all sides, in certain pieces of litigation that I'm not sure I should be allowed to go and poke an epee at people in anger now. I'm going to do it anyway though: I think it's precisely what I need.

Comments

[kittenexploring.livejournal.com]

I can call to mind photographs with which I'm familiar, eg the photos of my close friends usually to be found on my wall.
This really reminds me of Memento. Do you have any of those names tattoed on your skin to ensure you remember them?

[liadnan]

No, but I do write people's names on my hand a lot.

[itchyfidget.livejournal.com]

As someone with pretty damn decent visual memory but almost nothing in the way of non-visual information storage, it's interesting to read about it from the other perspective. I am as frustrated by my inability to remember information spoken to me as you are about the visual thing.

[liadnan]

Weird innit. I can also remember how whole evenings went, but not what the people at them looked like.

[sbp.livejournal.com]

I have a similar remembering-faces-but-not-names thing, but my visual memory's not bad and I can generally visualise people. Unless they look a bit like other people in which case my picture memory of them blurs into the other person.

From the remembering how people sound thing - are you musical at all?

[liadnan]

Sort of. In the dim distant past I was a boy treble, play the French horn, and I can hear written music in my head, if that goes to the same thing.

[ex-greythist387.livejournal.com]

Fascinating (really). Though I haven't the depth of verbal/textual recall you describe, I share the mental preference for stills over real life re: how people look. Good pathfinding here, too, which I've generally attributed to spatial perception (the kind for parallel parking someone else's car right the first time or for piling things in a dish-rack to dry, rather than the kind for sketching). The pathfinding is slanted (sub)urban, in that I remember building-faces, street names, and the number of intervening blocks better than turnings on a hiking trail, but for a native of Los Angeles that's unsurprising.

Remembering how people sound: it bugs me that I can hear accent distinctions, sometimes in languages I can't understand, and cannot reproduce them at all.

[liadnan]

The direction thing only partially works out here... after seven months I am still subconsciously convinced that the island is upside-down.

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

I seem to have the same strengths for factual recall, and the same weakness for people's names. This is the only area where I've resorted to mnemonics, with varying degrees of sucess, and even this gets short-circuited from time to time.

[liadnan]

As I say, I learned the hard way. When, in the middle of cross examination in the High Court, I suddenly realised with horror that I couldn't remember anyone's name. At all.

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

"My learned friend" and "the witness" probably got a good work out that day.

My worst moment is when I start introducing someone and then realise that 1) I can't remember their name 2) I can't remember who I'm introducing them to...

[liadnan]

"My learned friend" and "the witness" probably got a good work out that day.

You are so right.

[rparvaaz.livejournal.com]

I work the other way round - I can't remember faces but I am very good with names. And I remember the eyes.

[liadnan]

Eyes are the thing I notice first about people.

[rparvaaz.livejournal.com]

Yes, and the only visual I can ever recall. I have often ignored people I have met many times if they are wearing sunglasses and I can't see their eyes.

Another weird trick my memory plays on me - I somehow memorise all the license plates I ever come across. And then, when I come across that plate again, I sometimes spend minutes wondering just where I had seen that car before...

[liadnan]

I think you told me that about licence plates once before, and I know someone else who does the same. Can't imagine that kind of memory.. though I suppose I'm quite good with phone numbers.

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

That's easy - but don't you find that they get mixed up when you keep them in a jar?

[rparvaaz.livejournal.com]

Nah. I sorted that out long ago. Get teeny weeny jars, one pair per jar, and you are set!

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

Hmm, not sure if I have the shelf room. You know what the hearts of small boys are like...