Memory is a funny thing. I’ve already mentioned the idea that emotions are a way of making things more memorable, but it can be quite difficult to know what to do with that information. What do you do? Next time someone tells you to remember the date of an event do you think of your dead pet to make yourself sad? Perhaps you spend all your time before an exam flicking through page after page of information and crying with laughter (come to think of it, that’s how I got through my GCSEs)? The blunt answer is no, apart from generally being quite silly things to do, these particular examples wouldn’t work.
There has been quite a bit of research done on how emotions can affect memory, and the two things are generally considered to be closely related. A great example of emotions’ effect on memory actually debunks a commonly held misconception that people are able to perceive things more quickly in an emergency. It had been previously suggested that the reason time appears to slow down in moments of extreme danger was because the body released adrenaline which sped up the body’s reactions and senses. I have heard of a couple of experiments that have put this theory to the test, and you can read about one of them here. Basically, in this experiment, the scientists scared volunteers by dropping them 150 feet, and then tested for sped-up sensory abilities. They did this using a device that tasks the subject with reading numbers, as they fell, from a display that operates at a speed just above ordinary speeds of perception. What they found was that, whilst the volunteers estimated their own plummet was about a third longer than the dives taken by other volunteers, they were still not able to read the device’s display. Admittedly this might be because they were too busy s**tting their pants as they hurtled towards the ground at 70mph, but the scientists concluded that this had more to do with how fear affects memory as opposed to how fear affected reaction times. You can see more on memory vs. experience here.
It’s thought that this has come about through evolution due to the fact that our simian ancestors needed to learn to stay alive. If you’re a happy little primate stumbling around the jungle and you hear a hissing sound followed by a giant reptilian head flying at you firing venom, and your adrenaline kicks in allowing you to narrowly avoid being mauled, the next most important thing is to remember that the next time you hear a hissing sound, you need to run like hell. It basically comes down to instinct.
Whilst fear might be the most obvious example to use here, it's not the only emotion to have this effect. Ever hear someone talk about the first time they saw the love of their life, and how “time seemed to slow down”? Aside from being a nausea inducing cliché, this is actually similar (chemically) to the brains response in times of extreme danger. And if you’re still not convinced consider this: how often do you find yourself remembering an event that causes you to fill up with emotions similar to or the same as the ones you felt when experiencing that event; sadness when thinking of a loved one who has died, sentimental when thinking of an old flame, rage when thinking of an old flame, or mirth when thinking of a funny friend.
A reason why funny people tend to be popular (“The thing I look for most in a guy/girl is someone who can make me laugh”) is that amusement causes the brain to release certain chemicals which can, amongst other things, make a person laugh and generally feel good. If this response is associated strongly enough with a specific person because, for example, they made you laugh a lot when you first met them, or they make you laugh regularly; the sight of that person will trigger the release of a small amount of those same chemicals, making you feel happy to see them. This might explain how an obnoxious person who can make people laugh might still be seen as a desirable person to be around. It’s a bit like mirth being the drug, the person telling the jokes being a drug dealer, and the person laughing being the crack addict.
This release of a small amount of chemicals is necessary for providing context by which we recognise things. It’s a bit like if I say “Don’t think of a red square”; to understand that command you must first think of what a red square is, so that you can then focus on not thinking about it. If someone says “I accidentally saw a bit of Jordan’s TV show the other night”, for you to understand that phrase, you must recall what you can about the things being referenced; whilst this may be a mixture of facts and opinions about Jordan, it will almost invariably involve recalling and re-experiencing your emotional response to Jordan (in my case, leading to bouts of uncontrollable rage, followed by feelings of futility).
To be honest, none of this is really new thinking. In fact, theories about memory’s relation to emotions date back as far as the first millennium BC and are thought to have roots possibly stretching as far back as the ancient Egyptians. Such theories also discuss the importance of visual markers, claiming that even things such as sounds require a mental image to aid in recall. These theories are where we get the basic idea for many mnemonics; a popular one being Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain, the initials of which are the same as the colours of the rainbow (Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet) and you may have caught an alternative mnemonic for this at the end of my post on the seven wastes (ROY G BIV) which works for me because it sounds funny.
I think this is an acceptable point to end this blog for the day. You now, hopefully, have a slightly better understanding of how memory can work; and I intend to cover this subject far more extensively in the posts to come. For now, consider that if you can turn something into a funny image, it will make it much easier for you to remember. After all, I’ve managed to remember DMAIC as ‘Duh! Make’, which is the no-nonsense advice given to people implementing the Six Sigma improvement processes; and DMADV as ‘Duh Mad V’, the crazy DJ rapper who body pops into a factory to introduce his new Six Sigma process.
I told you my brain was different.
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