Names stick like 2 seconds around in my memory and are gone. Heck sometimes even a single person is an issue. My memory ain't greatest but for names specifically it is almost not writable. Tried few mind tricks but not really successful. I am sure there must be some way to get this to more acceptable level, anybody has any idea?
My theory is that, we don't internalise names and link it to the respective person for it to be anything memorable. but what do i know...
That happens to me too! PIN keys, or bank passwords I know I know, if I try to think to remember them, I'm unable to remember them correctly. Instead, just seeing the input interface, blank my brain and I start pressing keys... And I write them down perfectly!
Indeed, the brain is very weird.
Even though I'd tried loads of memory techniques over the years as I have a very poor memory, I'd never really understood people actually see images. I thought they meant that they were, like me, simply listing the properties the image would have in your head.
So all these techniques like "remembering the number as a picture" never worked well from me, and finally explained why all the common techniques people recommend are pretty useless. It turns out people have a huge variation on how good they are at visualising things in their minds eye, and I'm right near the bottom in terms of skill.
On the plus side it turns out that I can make images appear, having done some exercises to help it, although I didn't keep at it and it still doesn't come naturally. Most people can improve and there are very few cases of people not actually being able to do it. I also read of one man who'd had a stroke and lost his ability to picture things in his brain.
Oddly, I am very quick at generally orienteering myself in new places and picking up map layouts in games, even though I don't visualize anything in my head.
Funnily enough it never occurred to me to think of things as pictures for my whole childhood. Even though I am almost a completely visual thinker.
It’s worth thinking about how you think. Eg if I imagine time passing as images of numbers, I can keep track of time and talk at the same time. If I count them out in my head, I always loose track within seconds.
I do something similar for separating my hands on the piano, the left hand becomes a pattern rather than literal chords and I can picture the hand placement and still think of the melody. Forever a work in progress that is though.
She was capable of fluently talking about changes and the effects they would have on the design and so the fact that this could all happen without ever picturing the changes was super interesting.
Then I started cleaning up my attention span a bit, less social media, less mindless scrolling, more thoughtful long term tasks and planning. It helped a lot, but it wasn't perfect still.
Then one day I tried reading a number sequence once, not making a single noise in my brain, and I jotted it down again with ease. It seemed the secret for me was to trust my memory had the number in working memory somewhere, rather than trying to persist it my concious stream of thought which inevitably garbled it.
The brain is weird.