280. Memory Biases: Don’t Forget To Listen! (Refreshed Episode)

Welcome to episode 280 of the Brainy Business. Understanding the psychology of why people buy. Today's episode is all about memory biases. Ready?

Let's get started.

You are listening to the Brainy Business podcast where we dig into the psychology of why people buy and help you incorporate behavioral economics into your business, making it more brain friendly. Now, here's your host, Melina Palmer.

Hello. Hello everyone. My name is Melina Palmer and I want to welcome you to the Brainy Business podcast. Today's episode is all about memory biases. Memory is a funny thing. We like to think we have these perfect pictures of what really happened in our minds waiting to be retrieved in pristine condition. But that's not at all how it works.

We have all sorts of sorts of.

Biases that, well, bias our memories and that's important to know in our interactions with other people. In general life and in business. You can remember something completely differently from someone else and neither of you has to be wrong. Let me say that again, even if you remember something that's completely different than someone else, it doesn't mean that either of you is wrong. Memory's funny and our brains screen for different information than what someone else might be screening for. That subconscious filter is sifting through a lot of stuff and what mattered to you. What you remember and how you remember it is never the full picture. This episode, which originally came out in early 2019, is a quick run through of a bunch of memory biases. In an episode that came out in an eight part series called all the biases. There were ones on our biases toward ourselves, the way we look to and are biased about others, about numbers, lazy brains, our affinity to novelty and story and more. So why was memory important today? It's because of the guest. I'm delighted to introduce you to this coming Friday, Dan Willingham, whose book Outsmart your brain will change your life and that of every learner in your house of all ages. He is an expert on memory, which we talked about in the episode and why I wanted to start off with this today. And he's shifted his attention to helping K through 16 learners to do better. Outsmart your brain has chapters on how to take notes and how to listen to a lecture and how to read hard books and how to take tests. It's fascinating and also has tips for teachers and the best way to learn so you retain information. It has more advice than I have ever seen in one book.

You're gonna love it.

And because I know a little about memory and that even with the best intentions, you might get a little distracted and forget to come find that episode when it comes out in just a couple days. May I recommend that you subscribe to the Brainy Business podcast if you haven't already. You'll be so glad you did. Before we jump into the episode on memory biases, I want to be sure you know there are lots of great links to past episodes and books, including Outsmart your brain and other good stuff that I don't want you to have to be remembering and retaining in your brain. So it's all waiting for you in the show. Notes for the episode, which are found within the app you're listening to and@the brainybusiness.com 280 all right, let's talk about memory biases as we dig in today.

It's going to be divided into three sections, and as with the other episodes, nothing is more important than anything else. They're just grouped to try and make it flow easier on your brain. The first section is general memory stuff. Then we'll talk about false memories and wrap it up with some tips on how you can use these biases to help you remember things better. So make sure you stick around through the whole episode to get those tips. When we think about our brains and all the amazing things they do, much of what we're accessing are memories. Most people think of their brain like a filing cabinet, or maybe what we would imagine when people say a photo is stored in the cloud, an exact copy of what was created or what happened, stored in a secure place to look at whenever we want, and then put back in the exact condition it was in when we took it out. Well, sorry to tell you, that's not how memory works. Our memories are basically inaccurate renditions, our brains tell us, and every time we access them, we change them a little. So the more you think about something, the less and less it's like the original version. Frustrating, right? This is partially because of two biases called leveling and sharpening. Memories can be distorted over time. When details are lost in this process, there may be selective recollection, where you only remember, sharpen, and exaggerate certain portions of the memory, or it can be leveled out to fit some other biases that exist and just get a little dulled over time. Both of these are constantly sort of reinforcing each other over time, so the memories get further and further from the truth as time goes on, especially for those memories which are recalled again and again. Think about the old fishing tail example where someone caught a minnow and by the time they tell the story 20 years later, it was a whopper, the biggest thing you've ever seen. They're not intentionally lying in most cases, but as they've retold the story again and again, it gets modified when they put the story back in the filing cabinet in their brain, the fish actually gets bigger each time they tell the story and they level out some facts to exaggerate others. Again, a natural tendency of the brain. And we do this in all sorts of experiences, not just to look good to other fishermen. As we dig into the rest of the biases today, I want you to remember ironic terminology. I know, but try to remember that your customers and co workers and friends and family all have these same biases. So hopefully learning more about all your brains will help in all sorts of interactions in the future. The fish being bigger than it really was also happens because of egocentric bias. When we recall the past in a way that makes us look good, remember all those self serving personal biases I talked about in episode 45. Those impact your memories and the present and future which you'll hear about over the coming weeks. And this focus on one's own importance makes it so. It should not be surprising to hear that because of the self relevance effect, we find it much easier to recall memories about ourselves or related to us than remembering similar information about other people. You are the hero of your own story and no one will remember your story as well as you do. But of course even you don't remember your own story correctly. And due to the fading effect bias, our brains like to feel positive emotions more than negative ones. So the emotions tied to bad memories will fade quicker than the emotions tied to positive events. This is likely tied to optimism bias and our ability to persevere through hardship. It's a good thing I think. And this gets more intense as people get older. Due to the positivity effect or socio emotional selectivity theory, older adults are more likely to favor positive information over negative things in their memories. And because of reminiscence bump, people do not remember things from all times of their life equally. Instead, people will have memories and be able to recall more personal events from happenings in early adulthood and adolescence than from any other time in their life. Perhaps this is due to the way the brain is forming at that time, or the extreme emotional ties felt at those times in life. But for whatever reason, it's true for us all. Even though we remember some time periods better than others, some items from years and years ago are able to be recalled like it was yesterday. Have you ever felt that? You may wonder. It seems like that trip to the grocery store happened ages ago, but you hear a song from high school and you can smell the old perfume or cologne you used to wear like it was happening right now. This is because we sort of tend to put memories back in the wrong place due to the telescoping effect. We tend to think of recent events as being further back in time and those which happened longer ago are placed more recent in our minds. This is kind of like leveling in that everything kind of smooths out as it becomes a memory. This is also why we're victim to the peak end rule, where experiences are not about the sum of that entire experience over time. Instead, it's about how it was at its peak and how it ended. For example, if you were in a relationship that was mostly good, but nothing stellar, and it had a few really big fights and ended badly, you will remember it for the peak and the end, even if 90% of the interactions throughout your time together were good in business. Consider what this means for employees or customers. What are the peaks or valleys people experience with you and what is the most recent experience? A few well planned surprise and delight moments throughout a relationship can create good peaks. And remember, the most recent end holds the most weight. So if something bad happened, it might be worth putting in some effort to make sure this is not the last experience and instead have it be a midpoint negative item if you can, that becomes outweighed by some very positive peaks over time. This is also why we're victim to rosy retrospection. Or you might have heard of it as graduation goggles, where we remember the past as being better than it really was. This is more commonly called graduation goggles because you may have hated high school, but as you get toward the end of senior year, you start to remember all the good times and get nostalgic. This also happens in relationships and when people think about leaving a job or actually put in their notice, you start to look around and think this place wasn't so bad, even when you've been complaining about it for ages. This is also a little bit of loss aversion coming into play. The last piece of this general memory section is called the Tip of the Tongue phenomenon. I'm sure you've had this frustrating experience at least once when you can almost remember something and the word or phrase or moment or name of that movie is on the tip of your tongue, right? This is thought to happen due to blocking, when multiple memories that are similar to each other are being called upon at the same time and interfering with you pulling the right one out. Like three people trying to make it through a doorway at the same time. As long as they're all trying to be first, no one is getting through. This is why trying to think of something else will cause it to come to you. The subconscious is still working on sorting the thoughts out and can sift through the clutter much better than your conscious brain can. So while it may be frustrating, go do something else for a bit and you can probably overcome this one pretty easily. Now let's dig into false memories and misremembered items. A false memory is when we accidentally think something we imagined really happened and misattribute it as a memory. This is how some people have been said to have told themselves a lie so many times, or said the word so many times, they started to believe it. Our brains are powerful and this is why things like visualization and mantras can work. Our brains are very open to the power of suggestion and we can create our own experience in many ways if we want to think about selling. Confidence is key to selling. If you don't feel confident because you haven't sold at a certain price point before, or don't have experience with a certain product, you reminding yourself of that is not going to help. Try and imagine what it would be like if you had think through the whole memory to help make it as real as possible. Think about your success and what you would be like in five years or a year or six months from now if everything goes the way you think it would when you believe it. That could make future selling easier. This is similar to suggestibility, where an item suggested by a questioner or other person is mistaken for a memory. Think of all those dramas where someone makes a false confession and gets so stressed that they can't remember what really happened. And someone saying you walked into the room and then you turned left. Isn't that correct? Whether that happened or not, the brain may start to think it really did because of suggestibility. Our brains are powerful, but they're easily manipulated too. So in a simple work scenario, think about how you may inadvertently be putting words into someone else's mouth or or encouraging them to misremember to help tell your own version of the story. This should be avoided and hopefully knowing about these tendencies is a first step. Also, if someone ever comes in and says they remembered wrong because someone suggested something different, or they got caught up in the moment and they want to change their statement now know that this is a real thing and it happens to us all this can also be influenced by the illusion of truth effects. Essentially, people are more likely to believe something they've heard before or are familiar with than something they've never heard before or are unfamiliar with. This happens even when someone does not consciously remember hearing the statement before. That subconscious is always working Again, mantras and team chance and the things you say to yourself and others have a big impact. If you're a leader, be aware of what you're saying and the vibes you're putting out in the world. If you're saying positive things about meeting goals, people are more likely to believe it and achieve than if you put goals and then say negative things about how it hasn't been done before. The sort of opposite of a false memory is called crypt amnesia, when a real memory is mistaken as imagination because there's not a proper experience of it being a memory. I've linked to an example of accidental plagiarism or joke stealing in the show notes so you can read a little more about this, but it's essentially when you think you've had a unique and original thought, perhaps a joke or something you write a paper on, or an idea you present as your own at work, only to find later that you heard it from someone else and miscategorized it as imagination in your brain. This is one reason it's important to always go back and check sources before turning in academic papers and putting podcasts on the air and things like that. We can also distort our memories via source confusion. If we don't properly remember our episodic memories and confuse them with other sources, the result is a memory that has been distorted. One last thing on false memories is a note that memories do not appear to be extreme enough, meaning we kind of smooth and average things out. This is why we tend to remember high values, likely likelihoods and probabilities as lower than they were and low ones as higher. This is also known as the conservatism or regressive bias. Anyone who has background in economics or is familiar with the terminology of regression to the mean or kind of this gradual averaging, you know, you understand kind of what that means or how that works. However, we do tend to remember efforts we had to put in as much higher than they were and our coils as more difficult than they were in reality. If we're the hero of our own story, we definitely overcame a lot to get to the point we're at right now. Think about how this impacts optimism bias and the way you determine how long a job will take and how much you can undertake based on what you've done before. You remember something that took a long time as not being as much as it really was, and because you're optimistic you'll do even better the next time, you severely underestimate how long it will be, and you think you had to overcome so much more and you've learned so much, so you're going to be much better off in the future. A great way to combat this is with something most people hate to do, myself included. Time tracking. If you're relying on a document that shows how long this task actually took the last 10 times you did it, it's a lot harder to argue with than your fuzzy, biased memory. Speaking of which, you probably want to know how to get better at remembering things, right? I know I do. So now I'm going to tell you about a few more biases and show you how those can be used to your advantage when you're trying to remember new things. Maybe you're studying for an exam to enter a new field, or trying to cram a lot of facts into your brain for a big presentation, or starting a new job and want to be ready for a networking event. Whatever the case, these biases coming next could have been holding you back in the past, but now that you'll know how they work after this episode, you're going to be much more successful in the future. Ready? Let's dig in. First, don't feel like you need to remember everything about everything. I went into detail on this in episode 32 on the overwhelmed Brain. Instead, remember important things that can't be easily looked up, and don't gunk up your brain with all the trivial information. I love Einstein and have always found him to be fascinating. One of my favorite quotes about him was that he didn't know his own phone number. People asked how someone so smart couldn't remember something so simple, to which he allegedly replied it wasn't worth clogging up his mind with information that could be so easily looked up. Always ahead of his time. It appears that Einstein was the original purveyor of the Google Effect, which is the tendency to forget information that can be easily found via online Internet searches. While this may seem like a bad thing, I think it's great and worth using to your advantage. Don't bog down your conscious processing with stuff you can find easily or someone else can't. Instead, make room for all the other stuff that people can't find easily this will make you a much more valuable asset in life and business. This is also helpful in delegating and things that are tasks. If someone else can look that up, you know you can free up your brain space for things that only you can do. And I know procrastination is tempting, especially when we have so much to do. But if you want to be able to remember things better and with easier recall, it's best to have repeated exposure over a long span of time instead of trying to cram it all in last minute. This is called the spacing effect. And because of the illusory truth effect, we're more likely to believe something is true if it's easier to process or if it's been stated multiple times. So repeating this thing to yourself over and over again over a gradual period of time and keeping it all coming in over and over in different contexts, which I'm going to get into here in a second, can help you to remember it better. So the next item here is the context effect. It's easier to remember something in the right context than when it's out of context. So if you practice your presentation for work at home over and over, it may be harder to recall and answer or questions on and give properly in the office where you want to do well because you've mixed up the context. And for, you know, kids in school, you know, studying only in one specific place at home, like at the kitchen table, and then they do bad on tests and forget information can be due to this context effect. If you get nervous before a presentation, do what you can to have access to the room where you'll be presenting in advance to help bring it into your brain brain's context. And try to commit things to memory in the context they belong or in multiple contexts so they're less isolated. That would be, you know, studying in different rooms or different spaces, or prepping in a lot of different experiences. And the mood we're in is also tied to the context instead of just the location due to mood congruent memory bias. It's easier to remember happy memories when you're happy, and sad ones when you're sad. So when thinking about performance, if you get nervous, try and commit the items you need to remember into your memory when you feel nervous or consider playing a sport. People tend to lose their muscle memory when they get into high pressure situations because you don't often practice that way. That's why you have mock games or scrimmages or would want to practice beating the clock instead of just taking all your shots with no time pressure. When preparing for the game. Any game, you want to get as close to the real situation as possible. And as I've said, visualization works if you can't physically be there again. Because we're self centered beings, we remember things we came up with or have said before before better than when others have said them. This is why repeating information out loud can help you remember it. And it's called the generation effect or self generation effect. This is also why teaching someone else how to do something makes it easier for you to remember in the future. Your brain has to process how it would explain the item which commits it better to memory than if you simply heard it. This is very closely related to the testing effect which shows us that rewriting something will help you remember it better than rereading it over and over. I've talked about this before in episode 32 on the overwhelmed Brain. If you want to remember things, write them down. And you can even just mimic writing if you don't have a pen. And because most of us type faster than we write, a good old fashioned pen and and ink is the best way to remember things and take notes because you have to commit more to memory than if you are typing. But I have good news. Because of the verbatim effect, we don't need to remember exactly what was said most of the time. Of course, if you're having to memorize a speech or something that's different. But in general, because our memories are representations of a concept and not an exact exact copy, having the general message should be enough to help you remember. I remember a class I took once on persuasive presentations where the coach taught us to work in chunks of information that could be remembered by one word or one image. So if you're trying to remember a presentation and you have a lot of important points to make, having an image or a word that's tied to a point would help you retrieve and remember it better. And this should be broken into as many small points as possible. You should only use each image and word once, so it's always associated with that item, even over multiple presentations. And then when you see it, your brain will easily recall what you meant to say or the gist of it when that word or image comes up. If you try and associate too many things with them, it will result in that tip of the tongue phenomena I talked about already already, which is a recipe for presentation disaster. And yes, images are often recalled by our visual subconscious faster and easier than words because of the picture Superiority effect. We learn concepts easier by viewing pictures than by using words, even when it's the exact same word. So reading the word boat will not help you remember a boat as well as a picture of one. Perhaps this is why some people remember movies so much better than reading books. So the tip would be, when you're working on a presentation, if you were able to have it so that your note cards had images on them on the one side, and then the thought of what you're trying to get, the concept, the overall point of that on the other side, that could help you to remember. And then you want to get each of those, those chunks sort of separately and then together in order, mixing them up, doing them backwards to where. Anytime you see a picture of a sailboat, it makes you think of this thought. Anytime you see a picture of a baby, it makes you think of this thought. And it doesn't matter when they come up, but that's what's going to come to mind for you. And then you can go through and play the pictures in your brain when you're giving that presentation. Or you could have them tied to the imagery on a slide. And that if you choose an image that is very helpful for the audience and descriptive, but also jogs your own memory, that can help be a really great experience for everyone. That's where a lot of my slides are, just images and no real words. Because I know what's coming, I know what I want to say, and I can explain it in different contexts, but it's always, always the same basic thought. Much like having better recall when you write something out by hand instead of typing. We all put so much effort into making things as easy as possible to read and process. But in reality, due to the processing difficulty effect, stuff that takes longer to read and process is easier to remember. When you think about it, this makes.

A lot of sense.

If something is more difficult to read, you pay more attention and read more carefully. It becomes more of your own thought as you internalize and understand it, making it easier to remember later. When learning or teaching new information, consider making things a little confusing or awkwardly written to slow down the process. It may help you or your clients remember the important stuff, but and like, huge disclaimer here, don't make it so difficult that they give up or think you don't know what you're doing. This is a very, very, very fine line to walk when you're working on it with customers, but something that you can do internally or for yourself a lot easier. Now, what about items in A list. We are provided with lists of things all the time, and the way those items are presented absolutely impacts memory due to the part list queuing effect. If you're shown items in a list and then remember one of the items on the list, it will make it harder to retrieve the other things on the list. Think of all the stuff you forgot to pick up at the grocery store because you left the list at home. When possible, of course, keep the list with you to overcome your own tendency to Google affect your life. If you don't have to remember it, don't. Also, you should put the most important things on a list at the end when you're saying them aloud to people. Because of the modality effect, if people hear a list of items, they will remember the last items better than everything else. This impacts more than just things we hear though, due to the primacy effect, also known as the recency effect or the serial position effect. Items near the end of a sequence are easiest to remember, followed by those at the beginning, and the poor muck in the middle is hardest to remember. This is very much like the peak end rule where everything gets blurred together in the middle and the end matters most, plus the way it started out or some of these peaks. But of course this all goes out the window when we're waiting for our turn to speak because of course we are the center of our own universe. Due to the next in line effect, you are less likely to remember the words people spoke just before you because you were distracted with your own stuff you want to say. Then you'll be able to remember information from others in the group, in networking situations or in meetings. Are you always waiting for someone to take a breath or pause so you can speak? Do you always have something to add? And are you constantly making a mental list of what you will say next? That is a sign you aren't really listening to others when they speak because you're creating a next in line effect all the time. Being a good listener is key to building relationships in life and business, and that's key to creating and selling a product or service people will want to buy. Our brains are so naturally focused on themselves, it can be hard to focus and listen to others, but when you do, it can create such a benefit for you in life and business. And of course know that all of our memories are murky at best. Everyone has their own view of what happened, and it's good to give others the benefit of the doubt you would like them to give to you as well. Hindsight may seem to be 2020. But those memories are not always what they seem.

So what got your brain buzzing as you learned about memory biases today? For me, I find memory to be fascinating in so many ways, and right now I'm all in on how to present information so that others are more likely to remember the things you want them to, how to share the right stuff that can help influence decision making in the best possible interpretation of the term influence, mind you, I know outside of behavioral science that term can get a bad rap sometimes. And this is partly because of Dr. Dan Willingham's fantastic book Outsmart your Brain, which, as you know, we're going to be discussing on the podcast on Friday in episode 281. He is an expert on memory and this new book is all about how to set ourselves up to learn and present better. There are chapters on how to take notes with simple but counterintuitive tips. Like take your notes in class on the left side of a notebook and leave the right side blank because when you go back to fill in your notes and provide thoughts after your brain's used to reading from left to right, at least here in the U.S. i mean, whoa. So different from what we naturally do and so obvious. Also, bigger conceptual stuff on how you retain information and categorizing what you hear and how to determine what's the most important stuff that you should remember. And speaking of remembering stuff, what's the most memorable thing you learned about memory today? Come share it with me on social media. You can find me as the Brainy biz pretty much everywhere and as Melina Palmer on LinkedIn. There are easy links to find me in the show notes for the episode, along with related past episodes, books and articles. It's all waiting for you within the app you're listening to and at the brainy business.com 280 and just like that, episode 280. Can you believe it?

280 on memory biases is done.

Join me Friday for a brand new episode with Dr. Dan Willingham on how to outsmart your brain. It's going to be a lot of fun. You don't want to miss it. Until then, thanks again for listening and learning with me and remember to be thoughtful.

Thank you for listening to the Brainy Business Podcast. Melina offers virtual strategy sessions, workshops and other services to help businesses be more brain friendly. For more free resources, visit thebrainybusiness.com.