Subject: 2 tips for remembering names, from this Emory University study:
From: "Lumosity" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2014 16:37:32 +0000 (GMT)

Hi,  

2 strategies for remembering names: a study

In a 2008 study, researchers from Emory University investigated some interesting new strategies for face-name recall, or the ability to remember names. 

Over 3 sessions, researchers attempted to improve face-name recall in adults with Mild Cognitive Impairment, or MCI. Often an intermediate stage between normal aging and Alzheimer’s, MCI is characterized by slight but noticeable “slippage” in cognitive abilities such as memory and judgment.

Why face-name recall matters to researchers

Face-name recall is of particular interest to researchers because both MCI and Alzheimer’s patients have below-average performance in this ability. Importantly, face-name recall is associated with explicit memory abilities, which rely on a part of the brain most severely affected by these diseases.

Explicit memory is your “conscious” memory for specific facts and events, as opposed to “subconscious” implicit memory. Remembering a specific driving lesson relies on explicit memory, while remembering how to drive in general relies on implicit memory.

2 types of memory strategies

Researchers recruited 8 adults with MCI who self-reported being able to carry out the basic activities of daily living — their cognitive abilities were impaired, but not enough to interfere with their lives.

First, participants took a simple test of face-name recall to establish baseline ability. After watching a master list of 90 faces and their paired names, participants filled out a multiple-choice questionnaire on the people they’d just seen.

In 3 sessions that followed, each participant was taught to use 2 memory strategies as researchers quizzed them on 45 face-name pairs from the master list. Participants looked for a visual cue — such as a unique facial feature — and a verbal cue — such as giving each person a memorable nickname. Both of these memory strategies came from the EON-Mem (Ecologically Oriented Neurorehabilitation of Memory) program, a guidebook of memory strategies published in 2007 and used in several studies.

Face-name recall one month later

A month after training, participants were once again tested on the master list of 90 face-name pairs — only this time, they’d seen half the names in training.

Participants improved their accuracy for the 45 trained names by between 27% and 69% after just 3 sessions. But even more impressive was that participants also improved face-name recall for names they hadn’t seen in training.

And recall accuracy wasn’t the only observed benefit. Participants also answered more quickly and self-reported being more confident about their choices.

What’s next?

This study was small and preliminary, and the researchers involved emphasize the need for even more rigorous investigation. But it certainly can’t hurt to try some of these memory strategies in your own life. Try picking out a unique facial feature next time you meet someone at a dinner party, or making up memorable nicknames next time you play a round of the Lumosity face-name recall game, Familiar Faces.

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