why do some people recall lots of facts and others not?

she went so far as to claim on one occasion that the slight difference in our education in that I did 'O' levels and she did GCSEs was a contributive factor to this difference (for non-UK ilxors - the O level was a purely exam based system of qualifications taken at age 16 and the GCSE was its more coursework based replacement).

I have however developed a strategies for remembering phone numbers and pin codes. For phone numbers I learn the melody of the tone dial. For pin codes i remember the pattern on the keyboard.

These things you might think would be so much harder to remember than the actual numbers, but they're not. My brain must work in strange ways.

also the line between "knowledge of emphemera" and "anorak" is a fine one. i for one, know exactly on which side of the line i belong...

would people say this was a mainly male thing? or not? i'm inclined to think it is, but i think it depends on the type of "fact" eg meg remembers who every person who appears on our telly has been out with for the past ten years, which 9 times out of 10 means nothing to me, but i can pretty much recite the venue and year of every modern olympics...

It's kind of like how blokes bond over football, isn't it, it's just a Statto kind of thing - "yeah, but remember when he got sent off against St Johnstone in 1976" kind of things = "hey, I know stuff". I'm much better at that kind of conversation but I think that it's more a male trait.

As I age ungracefully I can't remember anything I learned in school. I studied economics in college and when the econonmics thread about the strength of dollar relative to the Euro and the Pound was posted I thought, oh good I'll have a try at this. I couldn't recall anything. I then spent last night trying to formulate why deficit spending was a bigger boost to the economy then just spending what you take in.

Eventually full on dementia will set in I won't have to worry about it.

i have absolutely no memory for current film and tv actors. my brain refuses to store this information. i forget films unless i really like them.

I'm not convinced as to the worth of social relationships but I can remember lots of facts, and "trivial level" knowledge that would come in handy on Jeapordy. I'm generally detached from social conversations, so my memory of that is sketchy at best.

And yes I can remember some Flying Nun catalog numbers, but I'm better at Creation Records catalogs

I run into trouble when I'm trying to focus on one thing -- everything else going on around me gets shut out and I find myself with so little concern for peripherals (whether to turn left or right, which guy my waiter is when I need to signal him for the check, etc) that I forget them instantly. It's a little frustrating sometimes, but it's just how my brain processes and stores information.

lawrence, I know just exactly what you were trying to communicate/explain re: that thread. I can also recall learning about the benefits of deficit spending and the drawbacks of balanced budgets, but I don't know how to communicate that which I understood perfectly just three or four years ago. Ackage!

I think the answer to your question is that some people have brains that I envy and some people don't. you can take ol' God to task for that shit.

Actually, you can take *me* to task for having a poor memory. God is silly.

That said, it seems like I can remember more offhand than some of the guys at college, who always assume I've been doing Mad Revision when I haven't looked at a single book.

I think the answer is pretty simple, though it only shifts the question along a step - everyone is different, and one of those areas is memory, and indeed we can break it down further as people have said - different people are stronger or weaker in different areas and modes of remembering. I think I'm pretty good at most of them, to be honest, but I can still see variances.

OMFG...SO OTM, it ain't even funny. Drugs are bad!