Does it ever happen to you that someone tells you something, then weeks or months pass, and the same person tells you the same thing again forgetting that they already told you before?
Why is it easier for the listener to remember than the speaker? Is there some fundamental difference in the way memory operates? Or is it that the memory is more evocative for the listener just because the fact being told is uniquely associated with the teller? For the person doing the telling you are just a generic listener. Or is it something else? Answer below.
None of the above. There is no evidence of any asymmetry here. Its pure sample selection bias. Each party is equally likely to remember the first event but the mirror-image events in which the listener forgets being told and the speaker remembers telling never happen. Because the speaker wouldn’t repeat it if he remembers telling it the first time.
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May 13, 2010 at 12:01 pm
Marc
Except for all the times a spouse says “But I already told you blah blah blah”.
May 13, 2010 at 12:07 pm
Robert Wiblin
You explain our observation well, but I also think it’s true you are more likely to remember as a listener than a teller. To realise they are being told something a second time, the listener only need remember what they were told not when they heard it or who told it.
But the teller needs to remember both the fact and that they have told it to a specific person. This is even more complicated if you have repeated the fact to many people.
May 14, 2010 at 8:33 am
Matt
Don’t forget about heterogeneity. I have a friend who has extraordinary memory. When we were in high school, he would recall conversations we had in 3rd grade.