Memory Tricks

Researchers at the University of San Diego have found that the language you speak may determine the quality of your working memory. Running memory tests on participants in eight different cultures around the world, they found a difference in working memory capacity among speakers of various languages. The difference stemmed from the syntax of a typical sentence and how much the speaker must keep in mind before reaching the main point. The team studied eight languages from Africa, Asia, and…

At the University of Texas at Austin, linguistic researchers have found that we recall information from conversations better when we’ve been listening to someone who speaks clearly, as it frees up cognitive resources which would otherwise be used to decipher the words themselves rather than the meaning behind them. These findings have promising implications for the classroom. In one experiment, 30 native and nonnative English listeners were asked to listen to 72 sentences, such as “The grandfather drank the dark…

Researchers at Fairfield University in Connecticut have found the way we take a photo of an object makes a difference in our ability to recall it later. The research team, led by Linda A. Henkel, conducted two studies to determine whether taking photos of objects affects our ability to remember details about them later on. After study participants were led on a guided tour of an art museum and told to photograph some objects and simply observe others, Henkel’s team…