{"id":13310,"date":"2020-08-22T10:39:00","date_gmt":"2020-08-22T14:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=13310"},"modified":"2020-08-31T12:20:16","modified_gmt":"2020-08-31T16:20:16","slug":"memory-cues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/memory-cues\/","title":{"rendered":"What Are Memory Cues? How Do They Work?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>What are memory cues, and how do they work? Can you teach yourself to have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/how-to-strengthen-your-memory\/\">stronger memory<\/a> cues, or different cues?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Memory cues are associations we have that spark memories. Often, these cues are physical objects. They can also be words, sounds, or other memories. Humans have a very cue dependent memory. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Scientists don&#8217;t full understand how memory cues work, but they do believe memories can move around in our brains. Read more about retrieval cues below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Why Do We Have Memory Cues?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Science doesn\u2019t fully understand how memory works yet, but it does know that <strong>our brains are a network of neurons, and an individual memory is a group of connections between neurons.<\/strong>&nbsp;Memory cues help us make those connections. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Additionally, <strong>memories aren\u2019t stored in any linear way; they\u2019re stored in a web of associations. This is how memory cues come into play. <\/strong>For example, thinking of the word \u201cbaker\u201d would probably also make you think about bread, the smell of yeast, your favorite bakery, and so on.&nbsp;This is a cue dependent memory. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>To remember something consciously, we need a cue.<\/strong> For example, if you\u2019re trying to remember what your friend\u2019s car looks like, you might have to think more generally about your friend or about cars in order to \u201csearch\u201d the web of associations that will eventually lead you to the memory of your friend\u2019s car. These retrieval cues are extremely important in how our memory works. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Baker\/Baker Paradox<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>The Baker\/baker paradox is a phenomenon you can manipulate to help yourself remember names. If you\u2019re shown a picture of a person and told her last name is Baker, you won\u2019t remember \u201cbaker\u201d as well as if you\u2019re told she <em>is <\/em>a baker. This is because \u201cBaker,\u201d as a name, is an abstract concept without much to associate with it. As a profession, however, \u201cbaker\u201d is associated with things like flour, the smell of cookies, the heat of an oven, and so on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>To remember people\u2019s names, create an image that combines what they look like with a visual of something that will cue a memory of their name.<\/strong> For example, the name Joshua Foer could be remembered by imaging Joshua (he looks like <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/Kor0wFR72xc?t=46\">this<\/a>) joshing you so hard you break into four pieces.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Forgetting<\/strong>\u2014And Remembering<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Now that we\u2019ve explored the facets of memory, it\u2019s time to look at its opposite\u2014forgetfulness. Do our brains ever actually forget things, or do memories simply become inaccessible after a certain amount of time? Have our brains permanently and perfectly recorded everything that\u2019s ever happened to us, and we\u2019ve only forgotten because they&#8217;re all cue dependent memories and we don\u2019t have the right cue? <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the 1980s, most psychologists believed that we never forgot anything. There were a couple of studies that seemed to support this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>From 1934 to 1954, neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield probed the brains of epileptic patients. He was trying to cure epilepsy, but what he discovered was that when he probed temporal lobes, the patients suddenly remembered things they\u2019d forgotten in vivid detail.<\/li><li>From 1978 to 1984, psychologist Willem Wagenaar kept a diary of memorable events that occurred each day. In 1984, he looked back at his records and searched his memory for the events. He had no memory of the oldest 20% of memories and asked people he\u2019d been with during the time to cue him. Once cued, he was able to remember the event.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>However, over the last 30 years, psychologists have changed their minds about these retrieval cues. <strong>Neuroscientists have discovered that at the cellular level, memories disappear over time.<\/strong> Most think that Penfield\u2019s probing cued hallucinations rather than genuine memories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Memory cues can often seem like they&#8217;re random. But your brains are working hard to recall memories, and we continue to learn about the process. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What are memory cues, and how do they work? Can you teach yourself to have stronger memory cues, or different cues? Memory cues are associations we have that spark memories. Often, these cues are physical objects. They can also be words, sounds, or other memories. Humans have a very cue dependent memory. Scientists don&#8217;t full understand how memory cues work, but they do believe memories can move around in our brains. Read more about retrieval cues below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":13319,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,9],"tags":[120],"class_list":["post-13310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health","category-psychology","tag-moonwalking-with-einstein","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.3 (Yoast SEO v24.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>What Are Memory Cues? How Do They Work? - Shortform Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Have you ever looked at something, and suddenly remembered a seemingly unrelated idea or task? These are called memory cues. Learn more.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/memory-cues\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What Are Memory Cues? How Do They Work?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Have you ever looked at something, and suddenly remembered a seemingly unrelated idea or task? These are called memory cues. Learn more.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/memory-cues\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Shortform Books\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-08-22T14:39:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2020-08-31T16:20:16+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/wordpress.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/memory-cues-moonwalking-scaled.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2560\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1701\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Carrie Cabral\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Carrie Cabral\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/memory-cues\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/memory-cues\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Carrie Cabral\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/2ababb7c63a94ff5d2190f71dc417d56\"},\"headline\":\"What Are Memory Cues? 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