Why Do People Struggle to Remember Mundane Things Like Passwords, Locking the Front Door?

Mundane activities are those you regularly do that you sometimes find unexciting because they have become a routine. Despite doing them regularly, you tend to forget them.

Memory and Mundane Activities

In a new study, researchers looked into the possible reasons why people tend to forget some stuff they regularly do. For instance, locking the front door when they leave for work or school and accessing their emails or phones.

One usually locks the front door when they leave home to keep the place safe from potential robbers, especially when living alone. However, there are times when individuals get anxious because they aren't sure if they lock the door or turn off certain appliances before leaving home.

Also, we use our phones daily, but when asked to enter the password of our emails or certain apps, we tend to forget them. It's ironic how people forget things they regularly do.

According to the researchers, our emotions affect our memories. Mundane activities tend to become a routine that we detach ourselves from, and we do them automatically or unconsciously without thinking because we are so familiar with doing them that when we start analyzing them, we find ourselves unsure of what to do.

For the study, 38 participants were shown various photos to test their memory. Some of the visuals were the same, while others were entirely new.

Some of the images were incredibly similar to one another, but others were more difficult to distinguish. The identical visuals were designed to impede recall by imitating mundane, everyday experiences, such as shutting a door.

The photos that participants were most likely to remember were determined to be the most memorable, according to the study. People-focused, colorful, and uncluttered photos are reportedly easier to remember.

The researchers noted that memorability and lure similarity interact. Memorability affects low similarity lure discrimination after a 24-hour delay, but it largely affects high similarity lure discrimination when assessed immediately. Second, only lure discrimination demonstrated the relationship between memorability and emotion; forgettable neutral images outperformed more memorable ones in terms of lure discrimination. Even while a picture is typically remembered, this does not always indicate what information is kept. Some of these trade-offs can be addressed by lure discrimination techniques, which behaviorally tax pattern separation.

And last, another factor that might make an image more memorable is emotion. In the investigation, researchers demonstrated that emotion interacts with memory for lure discrimination measures more significantly than target recognition due to gist vs. trade-offs that exist with emotional memory.

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Routine For Memory

Another reason we tend to forget things is because of our brain's capacity. The bran's capacity is limited, so we can't remember everything in detail.

Recounting everyday memories can be challenging as it's difficult to distinguish too many similar events. However, Alexander Easton, a professor of neuroscience at Durham University in the U.K., said we could overcome it through "routines."

For instance, keeping your car keys in the same spot every time you enter the house will make it easier for you to locate them later. You don't need to remember where you put things in the first place as long as you can remember where you usually put them and stick to that routine.