If you are that kind of people who forget names easily or those who go through embarrassing situations because of not remembering the name of a person who has just presented you, then you have something that behavioral specialists call “attention deficit”. That is something that happens to some people very often, even more than usual. To counter this deficit, we will recommend some useful strategies to improve and solve this type of problem.
Showing an attention deficit in terms of some names is a fairly common situation. And it is that; Who has not ever happened that just after he has been introduced someone, he forgets her name almost immediately? Then, you start a conversation again and… It happens again! Right there you forget what that person’s name is when it was only a few moments ago that they introduced you. And for much more effort you do, at the end, you cannot remember his name.
For many, being able to remember the name of someone who has just been introduced to them is also synonymous with paying enough attention. But sometimes, we just do not remember. Of course, that does not mean that we do not care. In that case, that detail becomes a problem that is linked to a small disorder in our ideas. In the professional field, when a boss knows and remembers each of his employees, that generates a feeling of trust and rapprochement almost immediately.
For their part, specialists point out that a person who possesses a great ability to memorize quickly will also be able to do anything that is proposed. This skill will allow you to have a mind in constant use, so it will be easier for these types of people to find solutions more quickly and effectively, in the face of any troublesome situation.
Actually, this is not a matter of having a bad memory. In that sense, humans have 2 types of memories; a long-term memory, and a short-term memory. Long-term memory is one in which significant information segments are maintained in a constant and sustained manner over time. Short-term memory, on the other hand, consists of the briefly temporary storage of non-significant or useless information segments and which tends to discard or discard a considerable part of such segments.
Being the latter type the one that is discarding a greater amount of data that is why we forget the new names. As a strategy, this kind of memory will change if we focus directly on knowing someone specifically. As a curious fact, it has been scientifically proven that we remember a certain person, more because of his way of earning a living than by his own name. In relation to the above, this happens because the notion of a profession is linked to other objectives within our cognitive system. At this specific point, our mind works with associations that are based, and are developed, through interconnected information.
Unfortunately, it is not enough to feel bad to fight the attention deficit. Too often we want to cling to remembering certain information. This will not take effect until this information is linked to other data that we have already internalized in our minds! Connecting directly with the information of the person we know, as for other important aspects concerning their daily routines, their chores, and specific tastes, etc., could become the perfect formula to remember their names more easily. This strategy can accelerate the shift from short-term to long-term memory.
The most important aspects to take into account to activate our memory abilities are to apply the following tricks oriented towards the development of mental skills, with very simple and specific recommendations:
• Constant repetition. It is of the utmost importance that when listening to a name it is repeated over and over again, so as to allow us to fix in our long-term memory this new element of information with which we come into contact.
• Visual association. It also works as a totally valid exercise, and with very good results, to associate the person with some feature of his personality, be it the color of his hair, his height, or the shape of his face.
• Regressive mental flashback. Shortly after the first contact with another person, it is recommended to take a certain time to enhance the visual aspects that his name evokes, and then make a kind of regressive mental flashback at the moment of knowing it.
• Know how to listen. Sometimes we are more aware of what we are going to say than what the person says when he presents himself.
• Photographic storage. Believe it or not, the human being possesses a kind of innate photographic memory. That is why it is recommended to establish correlations between the name of a person and various objects linked to it. Thus, once we remember such objects, we will associate them indirectly with that new person we just met.
Put these recommendations into practice and, in less than you think, you will see the best results that will undoubtedly improve your memory. That way, you will manage to solve this inconvenient problem of attention deficit.