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Best way to remember someone’s name revealed

The finding, as an outcome of a new research project, may not seem that impressive. There is, however, a slight twist on the process of recall.

First, the finding repetition is the key to making a piece of information stick. Secondly, and here is the catch, this process is not simply repeating the name to yourself over inside your head. To make the name stick you need to go and tell someone else.

For the research, psychologists asked 44 French-speaking students to read a series of lexemes (words as found in a dictionary) from a computer screen. During the reading, the students wore headphones that emitted “white noise.” The idea here was to confuse the sound of their own voices.

The students were divided into four groups. They either repeated the word in their head; repeated the word silently while moving their lips; repeated the word aloud while looking at the screen; or repeating the word aloud while talking to someone. Later the students were required to identify the lexemes from a list that included other words not used in the test. The students who had addressed another person had by far the better recall.

The results show a clear difference when the exercise was performed aloud in the presence of someone else, even though the participants had heard absolutely nothing. Repeating in one’s head without gesturing was the least effective way to recall information.

These findings are based on studies carried out at the University of Montreal’s Department of Linguistics and Translation. Commenting on what was found, Professor Victor Boucher told the Huffington Post: “We knew that repeating aloud was good for memory, but this is the first study to show that if it is done in a context of communication, the effect is greater in terms of information recall.”

The research has been reported to the journal Consciousness and Cognition, in a paper titled “.The ecology of self-monitoring effects on memory of verbal productions: Does speaking to someone make a difference?”

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Written By

Dr. Tim Sandle is Digital Journal's Editor-at-Large for science news. Tim specializes in science, technology, environmental, business, and health journalism. He is additionally a practising microbiologist; and an author. He is also interested in history, politics and current affairs.

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