I’ve been on a rabbit hole to learn more about the human memory after watching college kids perform seemingly impossible memory feats on a tv variety show. It has made me reflect on my own poor working memory. A few years ago I attended a bicycle building class: I struggled badly with remembering the instructions and had to make the instructor repeat it a few times for me while others didn’t seem to have the same issue. It is something I have accepted about myself since I was a kid. I was topping my class quite effortlessly every year until rote memorisation became necessary in secondary school.
My poor ability to rote memorise permeated into other parts of me. I began to believe I have poor learning skills, so for long spurts in my life I gave up on learning anything. It also fuelled a large part of my low self-esteem because I started getting terrible grades at school.
Thankfully due to the rise of the internet in my teens I realised I could learn something quickly if I was deeply curious. I picked up photoshop, web design, and coding on my own and didn’t seem to have issues remembering steps to do something. I think it is mostly because a lot of it can be inferred from logic before it becomes part of our long-term memory.
I guess I tend to assume I have a poor all-round memory because I have a poor working memory. Yet when I was bored in secondary school I would keep myself awake by writing down lyrics of chinese songs in traditional chinese. In Singapore we learn simplified chinese, but cantopop and manga exposed me to the traditional version. On top of remembering the aural form of the lyrics, I could also write them.
It has been around 20 years since, and I can probably still remember at least half of them. A random song I haven’t heard in years can pop up on the radio and I would still be able to sing along. I can still write out chinese lyrics of hundreds of songs. As a big fan of Faye Wong, I can recite her discography in chronological order complete with the order of the tracks. Isn’t my memory strange?
There is something about conscious and repeated exposure that injects these effortlessly into my memory, but somehow it fails me if I try to remember something deliberately. I think a large part of it is due to adhd. I just cannot sustain enough attention to memorise anything consciously, except when I am in a hyperfocused state. Hyperfocus brings me the attention span not available to me in my daily life. But it is not a state I can consciously switch on. It comes and goes like a ghost I cannot chase.
I just wish I knew all of these when I was much younger so I wouldn’t have wasted so much of my life. I am probably 100x much better at studying now compared to when I was a teenager. Personally I think it is too much to ask of a teenager to ace multiple exams over multiple years that would define their life significantly at a period when they are typically in turmoil for various reasons. We designed society to be convenient for the economy instead of what actually makes sense.
Going down the rabbit hole I picked up Moonwalking with Einstein, a book where journalist Joshua Foer sought to demonstrate that anyone can having amazing memory after training with mnemonic techniques. I am not very convinced: he may have survivor’s bias – just because he can train himself to be a memory athlete doesn’t mean anybody can. Mnemonic techniques typically require good visualisation skills, which not everybody has.
But unlike my past self I now believe that it can be at least improved, because the brain is the ultimate learning engine. New neuronal connections are formed each time we are exposed to new stimuli. Like strength training a muscle, the brain can be exercised to gain improvements. Yes there is probably a threshold, but I would wager that most of us are nowhere near that threshold. Constant new learning experiences are not something most of us have as adults.
This has taught me is that in general we are too quick to believe in self-limiting narratives for ourselves. We should try to investigate if these limits are true. My working memory is poor as of now, but is it something that can be improved? I kept thinking that my memory as a whole is bad because I have accumulated too many traumatic memories (yes I see the irony) with regards to my working memory, forgetting that there are strange large repositories of things I actually can remember. Like lyrics. The spelling of a ton of words. The writing of numerous chinese characters. Phone numbers and addresses from few decades ago. Lots of random facts I’ve accumulated by reading a lot.
I hope it doesn’t come across as bragging. I am trying to express how blind we can be to parts of our selves, unconsciously choosing to have a narrow yet magnified focus on a particular part. The way this society operates (and its emphasis on rote learning) has made me feel bad about myself for most of my life. I wonder if I can slowly change that impression.
Well, I once believed I was born physically weak. Making the conscious decision to strength-train has changed that perception. I wonder how many of these beliefs I can flip.