How to remember names and faces

Photographic Memory teaches three ways to tie a name to a person.

• Where you met. Link the name to the place. In the book, a mother at the park is called Clarissa: the name sounds beautiful, and so is the park. Months later, the park brings back “beautiful”, and “beautiful” brings back Clarissa.
• How they look. Pick a feature that stands out, like the purple hair of Valentina at the museum desk, and tie the name to it. Physical traits work better than clothes, which change.
• Who they are. Something about their character or what they told you. Roger, met in a queue at the grocery store, teaches psychology, has just moved from London and is about to leave for Italy. Months later, his accent brings back the trip, and the trip brings back his name.

The version tested in the laboratory has three parts (McCarty, 1980):

1. A feature. Find something in the face that stands out: big eyebrows, a wide smile, round glasses.
2. A picture for the name. Turn the name into something you can see. In the study, Bryant became a bride ant.
3. One image. Join the two: a tiny ant in a wedding veil, marching along those big eyebrows.

In the study, all three parts were needed: taking any one away made the method weaker. And the feature had to be distinctive: the more faces shared it, the less it helped.

• The image works in the lab. The face-name method improves the learning of names from photos of faces, as long as the feature, the picture for the name and the joining image are all there (McCarty, 1980).
• Recalling the name works better than hearing it again. In studies on learning names, trying to recall a new name at growing intervals helped people remember it far better than simply seeing it again. Looking for a meaning in the name helped too (Morris and colleagues, 2005).
• A conversation is harder than a lab. Most of the evidence comes from photos of faces studied at a desk. Building an image while you listen and talk takes effort, which is why the results outside the lab are less certain.

1. Listen to the name. Many names are lost because we never really heard them, busy thinking of what to say next.
2. Say it back: “Nice to meet you, Laura.”
3. Pick one connection: the place, a feature, something they told you. Or see them saying their own name.
4. Recall it a few minutes later, then again at the end of the day. Each time you bring it back, it stays longer.

Photographic Memory closes with an exercise: a short story in which Donnie meets a presenter, with a place, a look and a voice to connect to his name.

Names & Faces trainer (coming soon) · Retrieval and spacing