Memory

Episode #688

April 9, 2022

My memory is getting rusty as i get older.
A well oiled memory is one that gets used.
i exercise my memory whenever possible.

i used to think that men were incapable of remembering more than three things at a time. i practiced that premise every time i left the house.

1. CELL PHONE
2. ID
3. KEYS

Check, Check, Check.

i was quite good at remembering three things and then came COVID.
Now i had to remember to bring a mask.

4. MASK?

Remembering four things was difficult at first, but eventually i mastered it.

Turns out that men CAN remember more than three things at a time. The limit, apparently, is four.

Short term memory seems to degrade with age.
Have you ever left one room to go to another on some mission and then, when you arrived in the other room, you couldn’t remember why you went there in the first place?
Some will say to go back to the original room and the task will come to mind. This only works sometimes for me.

i came up with a theory that might explain the phenomenon:

Perhaps as we grow older we develop a continuous loop of short term memory loss.  
My long term memory is very good and includes things i could not remember in the short term.
i propose that for 3 minutes i can remember a thing clearly.
In the next three minutes the thing is unretrievable.
When three more minutes transpire the thing from 6 minutes ago becomes indelible in my long term memory.

Does this ever happen to you?
It may explain how taking the time to go back to the other room reveals the task that you forgot.

Psychologists say that the act of walking through a doorway into another room is what causes the memory loss. It is aptly called the “Doorway Effect.”

The problem of short term memory loss could be Functional Cognitive Disorder (FCD). FCD is not dementia. It can be caused by anxiety, depression, vitamin deficiencies or simple distractions. FCD tends not to worsen over time. People learn how to live with it.

i remember in college how knowledge and memory were emphasized. In my Biology class there was a 100 question final exam. It covered 500 pages of text. There were 6 questions on one footnote about flat worms. I missed all six for a 6% deduction in my grade. That did not seem like a fair test of knowledge to me.

Thankfully we now carry the memory of the human race in our pockets. All it takes to remember something today is a smart phone and good search skills on Google.

College did teach me critical thinking. It is what i use to assemble a good search string.
Now if only i can remember more than four words to string together i will be golden.