Mind Hacks

Hack #86. Change Context to Build Robust Memories

When you learn something, you tend to store context as well. Sometimes this is a good thing, but it can mean your memories don’t lend themselves to being recalled in different circumstances.

This situation should sound familiar to almost all of you: you’re trying to remember the name of the guy who wrote that book you read at some point in the not-too-distant past. You can’t remember his name, but you can remember that he’s a Canadian who moved to the United States and also writes about politics and has affairs with minor celebrities. You had a copy of the book about 5 years ago, the cover was reddish, and you packed it into a box when you moved and haven’t seen it since then. You remember reading the book in the old café that they’ve since turned into a video rental store. You remember an amazing amount about the book and loads of information associated with it...just not the name of the guy who wrote it. What gives?

Often, you don’t know in advance what details you need to remember for later recall. There aren’t any clean boundaries between relevant and not relevant, and there are no tags reading “You will be tested on this later.” So instead of remembering only what you choose to learn or are sure to need later, your brain files away many intricate details of context.

To you, this is just the context, but in your memory, it isn’t necessarily sharply defined as such. Your memory is a set of interlinked and interleaved representations ...