THE IMPORTANCE OF MEANING
Remembering names Meaning plays a major role in determining what we can remember. Consider the case of remembering (or rather forgetting) names. People who feel they have a bad memory commonly complain that they find names especially difficult to remember. In fact, people are generally poor at dealing with a new name. When introduced to a new person, our minds are usually occupied and so we fail to attend to their name. Then we most likely do not use or try to think of the name until much later, by which time memory often fails. But there is more to the problem of remembering names than merely not paying attention and not using the names until much later. Cohen and Faulkner (1986) presented participants with information about fictitious people: their names, the places they came from, their occupations and hobbies. The participants remembered all of the other attributes better than the names. Why? Not merely because names are unfamiliar words – many names are also common nouns (e.g. Potter, Baker, Weaver, Cook). McWeeny, Young, Hay and Ellis (1987) tested people who studied the same set of words; sometimes the words were presented as names, sometimes as occupations. The same words were remembered much better when presented s occupations than as names. It is apparently easier to learn that someone is a carpenter than that they are named Mr Carpenter! Nevertheless, names that are also real words do have an advantage over ‘non-word’ names. Cohen (1990) showed that meaningful words presented as names (e.g. Baker) are better remembered than meaningless words presented as occupations (e.g. ryman). Even so, names are often treated as being meaningless – think for a second how it sometimes comes as a surprise when we recognize that they are also occupations (for example, the names of the former British prime ministers Thatcher and Major). We know that attending to the meanings of names can improve memory for them, especially when combined with practice in recalling them (Morris & Fritz, 2002, 2003). One aspect of what makes a word meaningful is the associations that it has with other terms (Noble, 1952). Words that trigger more associated words (e.g. ‘kitchen’) certainly seem more meaningful than unusual words (e.g. ‘rostrum’) and the e, in turn, seem more meaningful than non-words (e.g. ‘gojey’). The lack of associations to some names may be one of the main reasons they are hard to learn. Cohen and Burke (1993) point out that many names lack semantic associations, while occupations have many semantic associations.
[Hermann Ebbinghaus (1850–1909), a German philosopher, read Fechner’s work on the study of sensation and perception in the late 1870s and decided to adapt these methods to the study of memory. He devised a systematic way of simplifying memory tasks so that aspects of memory could be manipulated and measured. Ebbinghaus invented syllables made up of two consonant sounds separated by a vowel (e.g. ‘tir’, ‘kam’, ‘dol’) in an attempt to avoid the contaminating effects of prior familiarity, and then measured the number of repetitions required to learn them. He also devised a clever way of measuring forgetting. He counted the number of repetitions required to relearn the material and found that it usually took fewer repetitions to re-learn something than to learn it in the first place. Ebbinghaus’s experimental method for the study of memory established a major field of psychology and continues to influence our understanding of memory today.]
Remembering names Meaning plays a major role in determining what we can remember. Consider the case of remembering (or rather forgetting) names. People who feel they have a bad memory commonly complain that they find names especially difficult to remember. In fact, people are generally poor at dealing with a new name. When introduced to a new person, our minds are usually occupied and so we fail to attend to their name. Then we most likely do not use or try to think of the name until much later, by which time memory often fails. But there is more to the problem of remembering names than merely not paying attention and not using the names until much later. Cohen and Faulkner (1986) presented participants with information about fictitious people: their names, the places they came from, their occupations and hobbies. The participants remembered all of the other attributes better than the names. Why? Not merely because names are unfamiliar words – many names are also common nouns (e.g. Potter, Baker, Weaver, Cook). McWeeny, Young, Hay and Ellis (1987) tested people who studied the same set of words; sometimes the words were presented as names, sometimes as occupations. The same words were remembered much better when presented s occupations than as names. It is apparently easier to learn that someone is a carpenter than that they are named Mr Carpenter! Nevertheless, names that are also real words do have an advantage over ‘non-word’ names. Cohen (1990) showed that meaningful words presented as names (e.g. Baker) are better remembered than meaningless words presented as occupations (e.g. ryman). Even so, names are often treated as being meaningless – think for a second how it sometimes comes as a surprise when we recognize that they are also occupations (for example, the names of the former British prime ministers Thatcher and Major). We know that attending to the meanings of names can improve memory for them, especially when combined with practice in recalling them (Morris & Fritz, 2002, 2003). One aspect of what makes a word meaningful is the associations that it has with other terms (Noble, 1952). Words that trigger more associated words (e.g. ‘kitchen’) certainly seem more meaningful than unusual words (e.g. ‘rostrum’) and the e, in turn, seem more meaningful than non-words (e.g. ‘gojey’). The lack of associations to some names may be one of the main reasons they are hard to learn. Cohen and Burke (1993) point out that many names lack semantic associations, while occupations have many semantic associations.
[Hermann Ebbinghaus (1850–1909), a German philosopher, read Fechner’s work on the study of sensation and perception in the late 1870s and decided to adapt these methods to the study of memory. He devised a systematic way of simplifying memory tasks so that aspects of memory could be manipulated and measured. Ebbinghaus invented syllables made up of two consonant sounds separated by a vowel (e.g. ‘tir’, ‘kam’, ‘dol’) in an attempt to avoid the contaminating effects of prior familiarity, and then measured the number of repetitions required to learn them. He also devised a clever way of measuring forgetting. He counted the number of repetitions required to relearn the material and found that it usually took fewer repetitions to re-learn something than to learn it in the first place. Ebbinghaus’s experimental method for the study of memory established a major field of psychology and continues to influence our understanding of memory today.]
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