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Today’s column is for people with partial recall

By Ed Goldman

Working memory” is what psychologists term our temporary sense of recall, such as forgetting a person’s name moments after meeting him or her but having remembered it long enough to get through the initial conversation.

To summarize, “Working” implies a quick strategic memory move for our brains but not necessarily a sustainable business model.

As for me, I have a surprisingly robust memory for the lyrics of TV show’s theme songs, dialogue from favorite books and movies and what people tell me when I interview them (I take notes but often write the first draft of an article from memory). 

Even so, I’m remarkably capable of forgetting someone’s name during a conversation. It’s a condition I’ve dubbed “working amnesia.”

Forgetfulness is usually considered one of the marvels of aging, along with liver spots, thinning hair and the inability to climb out of a car seat in less time than it took to circle the lot in search of the parking space. Even so, I can clearly remember the origins of my not remembering—all the way back to childhood, in fact. 

This may be because my parents insisted I call adults Mister or Missus So-and-So. But unless the name inspired a moment of giddiness for me—say, Finklestein, Assman or Dikshit (an actual Indian surname which means “provider of knowledge”)—they all pretty much sounded alike to me. 

This had a great deal to do with soooo many Jewish names ending in “berg,””burg,” “stein,” “baum,” “man” (hello!) or the regrettable “blatt”—and so many Christian ones seeming to be interchangeable, like Johnson, Jackson, Jansen, Jensen, Jones and, of course, the redoubtable Smith.

“When going about your daily life, your brain holds information in a temporary state called working memory,” writes Caroline Hopkins in the Well column of the New York Times’s weekly “Science Times” section. Paraphrasing Dr. David Gallo a psychology professor at the University of Chicago, Hopkins says, “Having a phone conversation while following a dinner recipe, for instance, involves juggling multiple tasks in your working memory.” Most of us, she and the good doctor add, “can only hold four or five thoughts or tasks” at a time in our working memories. 

This revelation will likely cause great stress among people who claim to be effective multi-taskers (modifying the term “multi-taskers” with “effective” is among my favorite oxymorons. Another is “government in action” unless you spell “in action” as one word).

At least the article wasn’t another scare piece about the 497 warning signs of dementia (“Number 26: You wake up and realize you forgot the Alamo”). It also gave tips on how to improve your memory, such as Repeat And Recite, Assign Meaning, Sing Along and Create Cues.