
How Many People Can You Remember? - ryan_j_naughton
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-many-people-can-you-remember/
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kozukumi
I hadn't really thought about this until my wife pointed it out to me a year
or two ago but I apparently have "weirdly good" face and name recollection. My
wife on the other hand isn't all that good at it. Not bad but not great. I
would say about average.

I am also a very sociable and chatty person. I can and do chat to everyone. On
the tube. On a plain. Waiting in a queue (I am British after all!). You name
it I will chat to you. My wife on the other hand is a person who doesn't like
to chat with people she doesn't know. She gets nervous striking up a
conversation whereas I just start it without giving it a second thought.

I have wondered if these are related? I am naturally very observant. I
remember car reg plates, addresses and telephone numbers with ease. I can't
remember if I trained myself to do this or it is just a natural ability. I
suspect it is a little bit of both. Remembering IP addresses and directory
structures in my early years and teens no doubt helped strengthen those
skills.

A couple of months back I did this test [0] and apparently got the 'super
recogniser' title with ease. If you think you are good at remember small
details it is quite a fun test!

[0]
[https://jfe.qualtrics.com/form/SV_e3xDuCccGAdgbfT](https://jfe.qualtrics.com/form/SV_e3xDuCccGAdgbfT)

~~~
jstanley
Wow! I'm surprised the later ones are even possible to do. The faces are shown
at a completely different angle and with aspect ratio distorted, I don't know
where to begin.

Scored 7/14\. Enjoyed it a surprising amount anyway.

~~~
kozukumi
It is hard to explain but I can just understand the structure of the face and
my brain can sort of automatically map that to a 3D model of their head. I
don't even need to try and look for distinguishing marks. I just look at the
face for a couple of seconds and that's it. Just retook the test, my results
[http://i.imgur.com/HwQs6XQ.png](http://i.imgur.com/HwQs6XQ.png)

~~~
Denzel
That's interesting, I feel the same way about faces. It just feels natural to
me.

I got a 13/14 on the first test you posted. Then I decided to take the
extended test:

\- 37/40 (top 5%) upright face recognition

\- 27/32 (top 5%) inverted face recognition

\- 38/40 (top 25%) glasgow face matching

\- 32/40 (<top 50%) chair recognition test

The results are very interesting. I don't know what to make of them. But these
tests were fun nonetheless! Thanks kozukumi.

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andygcook
I did a lot of research on learning techniques, especially spaced repetition,
a few years ago. I also noticed I'm not great with names, so I wrote a piece
of software called Nombre that tracked everyone I met and let me play a spaced
repetition game so I could learn names. It basically died when LinkedIn shut
down their APIs, but thought I'd share anyways -
[http://nombreapp.com](http://nombreapp.com).

Does anyone here use a personal CRM or contacts database? Would love to hear
your thoughts on that type of software.

~~~
mistermann
I'm absolutely horrendous at remembering both names and faces so would be very
interested to hear suggestions of techniques or tools one can use to assist
remembering people.

"You can repeat the person’s name back to her while you’re talking to her,
Harris says, “although the best strategy is simply to show more interest in
the people you meet."

I've tried this with no luck, I will still forget a person's name within 60
seconds.

It almost seems like I have a portion of my brain missing, and I've always
been like this for anything involving memorization. Going over a list of names
on a regular basis _helps_ , but very little. However, my spatial recall seems
to be much better - if I have a seating plan for example, for some reason I
can easily associate a person with where they sit, but I simply cannot
remember their name even if I deal with them fairly regularly.

~~~
andygcook
The human brain is actually wired to remember visuals over abstract concepts.
This is why you're so good at remembering faces and the places you meet
people, but not names. Names are abstract, so they are hard to remember,

The best way to remember names is to actually turn that person's name into a
mental image, then tie it to the location where you met them. This gives your
brain a mental image of someone's name, and when you see there face again,
you'll recall the component cues of their name.

For example, my name is Andy Cook, so you might imagine me standing next to a
life sized Raggedy Andy doll wearing a chef's hat + apron. When you see me
again, you're likely to remember the image and put the name together. The
other nice thing about this technique is that it forces you to stop and commit
someone's name to memory instead of letting it go in one ear and out the
other.

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codingdave
I have noticed that people who move around a lot seem to remember and care
about more people - they tend to have a group of people in their memory from
each location they have lived, job they have worked, etc. Whereas people who
have lived in one place their entire life tend to be more focused on those who
also stayed in that place.

My evidence is anecdotal, as I grew up in a small town, and all of us who left
remember each other well, with many of us in touch with each other at least
via social media. But our childhood acquaintances barely remember us. Or good
friends do, but not those who were simply classmates, for example. And even
those who do remember don't necessarily care.

I'd be interested in seeing any actual research performed on that aspect of
remembering people.

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pingou
"The average number of Christmas cards mailed was 68.2". I think it was the
most impressing number for me in that article, although only based on data
from 43 people. Do they spend their whole Christmas writing cards?

~~~
bostonpete
Most Christmas cards I get are just photo cards with a collage of family
pictures from the year and maybe a handwritten "Merry Christmas" or something
on the back.

~~~
bshimmin
I have found over the years that the fewer Christmas cards I send (zero for
quite some years now), the fewer I tend to receive. I'm quite happy with this
situation.

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lordnacho
Has Dunbar looked at how technology changes this? After all we now have a
database of friends including their pictures and biographical data. And
there's one of business connections as well.

You can also keep relations up in a time-economical way now, both two-way
(chat,email) and one-way (status update).

You'd think this would make a big difference both to number and quality of
connections.

~~~
ttctciyf
Pretty interesting question - I don't know Dunbar's view, but I can see two
ways of looking at it: one: that the functional social group is the primary
thing to be measured, and people who you aren't physically around very often,
and who you need a database to remind you who they are, wouldn't properly be
part of that; two: that the notion of functional social group should now be
expanded to include these very people, and that the relation Dunbar was
interested in (proportionality between social group size and neocortex size,
viz:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number))
needs to be adjusted to regard databases of friends as an extension of the
neocortex :)

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _needs to be adjusted to regard databases of friends as an extension of the
> neocortex :)_

It's sometimes called an _exocortex_ and I find it to be a very useful term.
It implies that your tools are a part of you :).

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landmark2
tl;dr 150

