How well do you remember books and movies?

shetline

My memory for books and movies, at least fictional material, is terrible. A year after I've read a book or seen a movie, about all that usually comes back to me are a very rough idea of the general subject matter and a vague notion of whether or not I liked the book or movie in question.



I have a number of friends, however, who might have read a book or seen a movie only once five to ten years ago, and their recall is about as good as mine would be a week later.



My memory for facts and figures is generally pretty good. I got straight A's in college and barely took any notes in class. Things in science and programming than I can mentally organize as parts of a bigger picture I'm particularly good at remembering. But my brain seems to process fiction entirely differently. It's as if my brain decides "This is irrelevant fluff! No sense making room to store this crap!"



I'm curious how common my kind of memory for books and movies is, or how many of you are like the friends I mention, or somewhere in between.

paul

I cant remember too much usually until my memory is refreshed. Once I get a very general idea of just one small part of a movie i can usually remember the whole thing very vividly...



do you watch the simpsons?

brussell

[quote]Originally posted by shetline:

<strong>But my brain seems to process fiction entirely differently. It's as if my brain decides "This is irrelevant fluff! No sense making room to store this crap!"</strong><hr></blockquote>Funny, because if you watch Leno, most people can't remember anything BUT fictional fluff. <img src="graemlins/hmmm.gif" border="0" alt="[Hmmm]" />



I think you've got it right - it's a concept called "depth of processing." When you're interested in something you think about it in a richer way - by analyzing it carefully, by associating it with other things you know, etc. That's the key to good memory. Some people think forgetting is a problem at recall, like when you just can't pull something out of memory, but it really is a problem of learning, like when "Friends" is on TV but you're staring at it blankly, not really thinking about what's happening.



When you were in class not taking notes, I bet you were thinking in depth about the stuff. I think some people take notes so superficially that it interferes with their learning of the material.



But I wonder if fictional vs. real is really the issue. I bet you do have good memory for some fictional things - maybe a novel or other things you were really interested in. And I bet you have bad memory for plenty of real things - maybe people you meet and don't care about.



It sounds more like you may have good procedural memory, but not good episodic. Procedural memory is memory for how to do things, which is common in math and programming, whereas memory for movies/books is episodic - memory for episodes or events. The two memory subsystems seem to be very different, e.g., amnesia is almost always for episodic memory, and leaves procedural memory intact. Amnesics might forget their mother's name, but they won't forget how to ride a bike. (Not suggesting that you have amnesia. )



Another thing about your quoted comment - it sounds like a concept called proactive interference, which means that stuff you learned in the past interferes with your ability to learn new information. Ever try to remember a lot of people's names? It's hard because they all get jumbled together. So what you want is called release from proactive interference - to forget the names you learned that you don't need to know anymore. In other words, forgetting is good! Forgetting helps you to learn new stuff. S. Shereshevsky, who had perfect memory, went crazy in his 30s because he couldn't forget anything.



However, your ability to remember sciency info. shouldn't be decreased by your knowledge of entertainmenty info. Proactive interference only occurs for similar material. So go ahead and memorize movies and books, it won't hurt your memory for more important stuff.



Another thing - are your friends who have better memories for that sort of thing women? I don't know of any direct evidence, but I suspect women have better episodic memory and men are better at procedural.

thuh freak

i find that movies and shit that i like, i retain. i could probably throw a synopsis, scene-by-scene, of godfather, reservoir dawgs, or trainspotting, but flix i didn care for, go right out of my mind. like matrix. that was god awful. i probably retain, not because of selective memory tho, but because i like them, and i watch them over again.



my memory on general things sux. i can't remember what day of the week it is for more than an hour. i remember concepts and ideas for classes wifout notes, because i can't remember to study so i dont bother.