Random, utterly useless piece of trivia associated with a special interest? No problem.
General knowledge? Very hit and miss. Sport (particularly AFL and cricket) is a big thing here in Aus and apart from the odd famous cricketer and a few AFL team names, I couldn’t tell you much – it just doesn’t interest me, so very little of it gets retained.
What I do find interesting is that my memory works for pattern-matching people and music in TV and movies. For years, whenever I’ve seen an actor I recognise (although not necessarily recall their name), I can usually work out all the other shows I’ve seen them in (occasionally resorting to IMDB when I can’t place them). I’ve noticed I’m getting better at guessing composers based on the soundtrack, too, even when I might have only seen two films with music by a certain composer.
The other odd thing is that negative emotions generally form strong memories, but positive ones do not. I can recall any number of distressing moments and get a sense of the emotion, but I don’t have that with positive experiences – they seem to be stored more like facts. I can usually remember the event itself, but the memory doesn’t seem to include an emotional response. It’s probably the most frustrating thing about how my memory works.
Mine’s context-dependent.
Random, utterly useless piece of trivia associated with a special interest? No problem.
General knowledge? Very hit and miss. Sport (particularly AFL and cricket) is a big thing here in Aus and apart from the odd famous cricketer and a few AFL team names, I couldn’t tell you much – it just doesn’t interest me, so very little of it gets retained.
What I do find interesting is that my memory works for pattern-matching people and music in TV and movies. For years, whenever I’ve seen an actor I recognise (although not necessarily recall their name), I can usually work out all the other shows I’ve seen them in (occasionally resorting to IMDB when I can’t place them). I’ve noticed I’m getting better at guessing composers based on the soundtrack, too, even when I might have only seen two films with music by a certain composer.
The other odd thing is that negative emotions generally form strong memories, but positive ones do not. I can recall any number of distressing moments and get a sense of the emotion, but I don’t have that with positive experiences – they seem to be stored more like facts. I can usually remember the event itself, but the memory doesn’t seem to include an emotional response. It’s probably the most frustrating thing about how my memory works.