On Lacking a Temporal Memory

[tiger_spot]

I was reminded this evening, collecting my bike from the shelter, that there's an interesting side effect of having performed an action repeatedly, in slightly different ways, when I don't have much of a temporal memory, and that is that when I get to the shelter in the evening I have to look for my bike rather than remembering where I put it,

Comments

[brooksmoses]

I wonder if this is also somewhat related to the fact that we don't necessarily convert short-term memory to long-term memory unless it's new information. I'm reminded of the study of people who were driving on a familiar route and got to their destination and had no recollection of how they got there, which discovered that this didn't actually have any correlation to being inattentive when they were driving. It was just that the drivers hadn't been "writing to disk" any of what they were doing, because it was all "the same".

I do on occasion forget where I've parked, but not all that often.

On a related note, I probably will forget tomorrow that my bike isn't here, and only remember once I don't see it in the garage. Or I would, except that my gloves are also over there with it and I'd not see them first, but also writing this out means I'm actively thinking about it as a unique thing and thus will probably remember.

[tiger_spot]

Yes, there's always a bit of a Heisenberg observer effect with thinking about memory.

[baratron]

Ah, is this why I often forget to take my meds, or forget whether or not I have taken them? Every night I have the same sort of routine, and I get confused sometimes about whether I'm remembering today or yesterday or some days ago.

I ticked "usually" for the vehicle question because there are only a handful of places where I'm likely to park my tricycle around town. Having said that, I have completely freaked out a few times because I've parked it somewhere different to usual and thought it got stolen.

[tiger_spot]

My daily medication comes with day names marked on it, which is Very Very Helpful for clearing up that sort of confusion.

Having said that, I have completely freaked out a few times because I've parked it somewhere different to usual and thought it got stolen.

This has happened to me, too.

[marialuminous]

I don't have a vehicle (besides my own two feet), but I answered the question anyway, because I typically do put things in the same spot each time.

[tiger_spot]

Things around the house have very specific spots I put them in, so (a) I only have to look one place and (b) if I have put them somewhere else for some reason, that's unusual and I'm more likely to remember it. Out in public there are too many other people to use a specific spot all the time, but I try to keep to the same general region if possible.

[pyrzqxgl]

Tuesday night I was hanging out downtown with someone who at the end for a while just could not remember which parking lot she had parked in. Myself, all I had to do was walk over to the bus station.

[rubrick]

Too few choices. I don't usually eat breakfast. When possible, I try to park in approximately the same place every day so I can find my car quickly, but I still find it by looking for it, not by remembering exactly where it was. In general I'm *extremely* prone to forgetting where I parked; but I think that's much more a problem with spatial memory than temporal.

[redbird]

I answered the breakfast question generally, because the actual answer is "I am eating breakfast as I read this."

And January 4, you happened to pick the evening I got home from my last trip, so I know I was traveling on Amtrak and then having a late dinner with cattitude and unpacking. I'd started to answer that as a generalization, until I got to the second question. Part of why I keep a journal is that it does remember things I might not.

Skipped the last question because I have no vehicle: that's the Metropolitan Transit Authority's job.