Transcripts

Daniel Schacter:
And the two most relevant are the first two sins of memory. One I call transience and that refers to when memories fade over time. The second I call absent-mindedness. This doesn't involve fading over time so much as it involves a failure to pay attention when we need to.

Daniel Schacter, author of the book, The 7 Sins Of Memory…

It's an important distinction to make because people often mistake absent-mindedness for transients. And that has important implications for things such as Alzheimer's disease.

A perfect illustration of this, says Daniel, is a story about Yo-Yo Ma.

And how he went for a cab ride and put his million-dollar cello in the trunk of the cab. A few minutes later walked out, paid the driver and forgot all about his cello. This is a failure of absent-mindedness because he wasn't paying attention at the time he needed to be reminded where his cello was. It wasn't a problem with transience; the memory hadn't faded out of his mind. If you had asked him where is your cello he would have known right away. That's absent-mindedness. But often people will become concerned when they can't remember where they just put their keys or glasses, thinking that it indicates that they can no longer hold on to information and memory over time. That is, that they have a problem with transience when they don't. In fact it's more likely a problem with absent-mindedness.

At somethingyoushouldknow.net I'm Mike Carruthers and that's Something You Should Know.