As we start a new school year at a new place, we are meeting and seeing many new faces for the first time at a school as big as Penn State University. Remembering the names of each and every person we come across is not an easy task by any means, especially for us freshman. I cannot even begin to tell you the amount of times that I have spoken with someone here and forgotten their names within seconds. For example, at my orientation, I sat down with this girl in the morning and we introduced ourselves to each other. I spent a few hours with her doing orientation things. It wasn’t until she said, “I’ll talk to you later, Amber,” that I realized that I didn’t remember her name. But why do we forget people’s names? Watch this to find out:

According to this video, we are more likely to remember someone’s face before their name. Forgetting someone’s name may be due to the “Baker Effect.” Because telling a bit about yourself creates more connections in the brain than simply saying a name does. Saying a name requires no mental links, which makes it simple to forget. Also, another reason we forget people’s names is due to the “next in line” effect. We are so focused on our own speech and movement that it is hard for us to focus on another person at the same time. If we don’t focus on information in our short-term memory, it goes away quickly. Another issue with remembering names is that sometimes we don’t even care about other people’s names. The truth hurts…

This isn’t only the case with forgetting names. Our short-term or working memory does a pretty good job at letting a lot of information slide. This book mentions a correlation between word-structure and length with short-term memory. Two interesting facts that this book points out are, “(1) Memory span is inversely related to word length across a wide range of materials; (and) (2) When number of syllables and number of phonemes are held constant, words of short temporal duration are better recalled than words of long duration,” These are very interesting factors in memory. It proves that you are more likely to remember a shorter name than you are to remember a longer name. According to this article, the three subcomponents of short-term memory are: the central executive, the visuospatial region, and the phonological loop. This book argues that “short-term and long-term memory are closely related but involve some separate mechanisms.”

So what does this mean? Forgetting names is inevitable, but here is 7 tricks to help you remember names:

1. Focus on the name.
2. Use and repeat their name.
3. Build associations.
4. Use wordplay (mnemonic devices).
5. Spell out the name and picture it.
6. Help people remember your name.
7. Introduce someone else (so you hear their name).

Follow these steps and you’ll know everyone on campus in no time. Well maybe not EVERYone.

(Picture found: here)