What I remember....

During high school, I was rather fascinated by the idea of having a fantastic memory. Such a skill would be invaluable – think of the possibilities? I wouldn’t forget a formula, a Shakespearean quote or what my parents have told me. Everything could be recalled at will and with fantastic detail! Best of all, it means less study time, more play time!

This led me to read up about a man named Dr A.R. Luria, a psychologist who tested the memory of a man for thirty years. The case study, a man referred to as S., had practically perfect recall – even after thirty years! He could recall the contents of the tests, the time of day, what the professor was wearing - all with a huge amount of detail. He would use synesthesia to aid his memory, utilising all his senses to describe an event.

Sometimes, different sensory cues will trigger memories. Seeing particular icons, smelling the sweet grass at the park or the taste of certain foods – all can cause memories to come rushing back, whether voluntarily or not.

Upon further analysis, I noticed that, unlike S., my memory does not use all senses every time. In terms of the order of the senses I seem to file against a memory, it would be:

1. Sight – A lot of my memory seems to have detailed images.
2. Smells – To me, scents are important. I would go so far as to say that perfumes that people use can also determine the type of person that they are – but that’s another story. Sometimes perfumes, foods can bring up some random memories. Also, they can be bad scents too – like that time I was in Guangzhou and had to visit a public toilet. To this day, if I think about it, I still gag….**gag, cough, splutter** Yuck!
3. Sound – For some reason I don’t appear to have that many sounds attached to my memories. I sometimes don’t remember what people tell me – which is a bad thing, I am often told…doh!
4. Taste – to a lesser extent but only for foods. Except after eating very hot chilly – since my mouth goes numb and I can’t taste anything!
5. Touch – for me, this is definitely an underused sense. Wait, I do have a strong memory of touch – I remember gliding my thumb over it and feeling the wave of joy as I realised that I just picked up a “two of bamboo” tile in Mahjong and won! Haha!

With all memories, I believe that I attach an emotion as well, so I also remember what I felt at the time.

I wondered why my memories do not contain utilise all senses and figured that it was because I had not learnt to develop all my senses equally. Some people would naturally have stronger senses than others, but it may also be a function of what one did in the past. For example, playing video games relied heavily on visual clues so this trained my visual senses more quickly. Only recently have I been developing my audio skills. The reason is work – my team members would come to me with their problems and I would have to listen to them. I remember when I first became a team lead, I did not listen well but luckily I had a whiteboard, so I would use it to help me visualise problems. I have a fair bit to go in this department and could do with more practise!