By contributing author Paul Li, a neuroscience graduate student at Columbia.
If you are like me and have trouble remembering the names of people you first meet, then this mnemonic is dedicated to you. A helpful way to remember names is to say that person’s name after meeting him, and from then on associating his name with something interesting (i.e. his appearance, a rhyme, or an image). By making associations with his name, it strengthens effective encoding in the brain. Inventing the association helps your brain encode the information at least twice, by hearing it from the person and by verbalizing it yourself. It also helps to use the name throughout the conversation, since rehearsal and attention are the key components for memory retention (just don’t overdo it).
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