#Lets start creating memories series

The study showed that the majority of memories took place at the beginning of the academic year: around 40 percent in the month of September and around 16 percent in October. The memories were rated on the intensity of the emotions the experience involved, the impact the event had on their life (both at the time of the memory and also in retrospect), and the estimated date of the experience they remembered. In the second part of the study, participants were asked to analyze, one by one, each of the memories they had described earlier. “We are not interested in any particular type of experience,” said the researchers, “just describe the first memories that come to mind.” The researchers interviewed women who had graduated 2, 12 or 22 years ago from Wellesley College in Massachusetts. In a study led by David Pillemer, professor of psychology at the University of New Hampshire, participants were asked to describe memories from their freshman year in college. The importance of firsts also means that, say, if you go to university, you are more likely to remember events from the beginning of your first year than later in that same year. Extraordinary and novel experiences are subject to greater elaborative cognitive processing, which leads to better encoding of these memories. One study by British researchers Gillian Cohen and Dorothy Faulkner found that 73 percent of vivid memories were either first-time experiences or unique events. Several studies show that we are better at remembering the novel and the new, the extraordinary days when we did something different. Novelty ensures durability when it comes to memory.

In the Happy Memory Study we conducted at the Happiness Research Institute, we found that 23 percent of people’s memories were of novel or extraordinary experiences. Our first kiss, our first flat, our first job. One study found that 73 percent of people’s vivid memories were either first-time experiences or unique events.Īnother theory is that the period involves a lot of firsts. Our identity and sense of self is developing at that time, and some studies suggest that experiences linked to who we see ourselves as are more frequently retold in explaining who we are and are therefore remembered better later in life. One theory behind the reminiscence bump is that our teens and early adulthood years are our defining years, our formative years. What do you remember about being 21, or from another year? And how do your memories from different decades compare?

In contrast, she sums up the events of 1945 to 1965, when she was aged between 55 and 75, in just 23 pages - a little over one page per year. In the period that covers the reminiscence bump in her life, memories fill more than 10 pages per year. If you look at Agatha Christie’s autobiography, which is 544 pages long, the death of her mother happens on page 346, when Christie was 33. You can also see the reminiscence effect in some autobiographies, where adolescence and early adulthood are described over a disproportionate number of pages. For example, when asked what memory comes to mind when cued with the word “book,” what people have read recently may pop up more easily than what they read 10 years ago. The recency effect - a final upward flip of the curve - can usually be seen, too.

#Lets start creating memories series

In studies, when participants were shown a series of cue words and asked about the memories they associate with those words and how old they were at the time of the memory, their responses will typically produce a curve with a characteristic shape, the reminiscence bump. For instance, the phrase “driver’s license” is more likely to prompt memories from when you were a specific age than the word “lamp.” If I say the word “dog,” what memory comes to mind? Or “book’? Or “grapefruit’? It’s best to use words that are not related to a certain period in life. Memory research is sometimes conducted by using cue words. This is known as the reminiscence effect, or reminiscence bump. Jared Oriel Studies show we’re better at remembering the novel and the new, so let’s use this tendency to add to our storehouse of memorable and meaningful moments, says happiness expert Meik Wiking.Īsk any older person to recall some of their memories, and there’s a good chance they will tell you stories from when they were between the ages of 15 and 30.