Hang on, Did I Tell You That?

The brain can recall who said what to you, but not what you said what to whom

Stop us if we’ve told you this before, but scientists have discovered why we are often so unsure what tales we’ve told to whom. Our brains appear to be better at recalling the source of information than whom we give information to, and the more self-focused a person is, the worse he is at so-called destination memory. In one experiment, 60 undergraduates were split into two groups. The students who were giving information out (destination memory) scored about 15 per cent lower on memory performance compared with the students receiving information. Researchers knew that when providing information to others you are generally preoccupied with thinking about what you’re saying and how you look. So a second experiment had 40 undergraduates complete the same task for destination memory as the first experiment. It was found that when you start telling personal facts compared with non-self facts, destination memory goes down more. Clearly, narcissists would have a very tough time recalling to whom they said what.

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