I Forget What You Forgot

It's on the tip of my tongue.

It is the dawn of World War III. In midwestern America, a group of teenagers band together to defend their town, and their country, from invading Soviet forces. What was the name of that movie? It has a young Charlie Sheen, Patrick Swayze? What was it?!?!?!

Ever struggle to recall really important information, those crucial tidbits that just might one day save your life?

Scanning the latest news tagged "Cognitive Neuroscience" led me to this article on why we sometimes forget things or details but, you know, they're on the tip of our tongues.



Basically, the article indicates that memory travels via electrical impulses from the brain to the tongue, where the information is normally transmitted via muscular contractions (known as elocution). Sometimes, oral buildup occurs, however, insulating the tip of the tongue from the electronic impulses, resulting in the memory shifting endlessly back in forth between tongue and brain. This scientific explanation has since been dumbed down for the public and appears now in colloquial English as "having [something] on the tip of [one's] tongue."

Okay just kidding. The REAL scientific explanation is that your brain stores a whole bunch of memories next to each other according to their characteristics. Sometimes competing memories with similar characteristics interfere with retrieval of the desired memory. So, if your brain were in charge of finding a stapler on your desk the way you are, it would sometimes pick up associated objects like a packet of staples (go in the stapler), or some pieces of paper (get stapled), or a paper clip (functions like a stapler). Thankfully our brains aren't in charge of those tasks, just finding memories.

Listen Up, Brains:

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Here's the practical upshot. If you find yourself in a situation where you forget someone's name, or a REALLY important detail of something, just start quoting the study titled "Tip of the Tongue and Retrieval-Induced Forgetting." It's sure to a) impress whoever your talking to, and b) make them forget what you forgot.

RED DAWN. Don't you forget it. Ever.