PHYLLIS SCHNEIDER (1947- )

Memory: Tips You’ll Never Forget Born in Seattle, Washington, Phyllis Schneider received her B.A. in English at Pacific Lutheran University and her M.A. in Advanced Writing at the University of Washington. She has been articles editor at Seventeen magazine, editor in chief of YM magazine, and managing editor of Weight Watchers magazine. She currently works for Consumers Union, the publisher of Consumer Reports, for whom she writes a fundraising newsletter and various promotional materials. She has also published articles in Working Woman, Redbook, Woman’s Day, New Choices, Parents magazine, and many other periodicals, and she writes health care career supplements for the Greater New York Hospital Association and The New York Times. A lover of animals (she has a mixed-breed dog named Jenny), she also enjoys making jewelry in her spare time and serving as an associate at an Episcopal convent. Her advice to students using The Brief Prose Reader is to “learn grammar.” “Many young people have the enthusiasm to write well,” she explains, “but not the proper skills.”

Preparing to Read The following essay, originally published in New Choices, offers us some important insights into the strengths and weaknesses of our memories in an attempt to classify some of the typical memory lapses we all experience on a daily basis. Prior to reading this essay, consider the strengths and weaknesses of your own memory: What information do you remember best? What do you have trouble remembering? Do you have any minor problems with your memory on a daily basis? Do your memory lapses fall into any particular categories? What are these categories?

When my husband, Ted, started “losing” our car, I began to worry. In his 30s and 40s, he’d

leave a store or a theater and head straight for our vehicle – no problem. But shortly after his 50th birthday, Ted walked into a mall parking garage and stopped short. Scratching his head, he asked, “Where did we park?” In the ensuing months, there were times when Ted would forget where he put his glasses, his keys, his wallet. And walking by a restaurant one day, he remarked, “Remember what a great dinner we had there?” I’d never been in that restaurant and said so. But he insisted: he’d ordered the sole, and I’d had the salmon; we had both agreed it was one of the best restaurants we’d ever been to. Thought I found Ted’s memory lapses troublesome, most experts would say that such forgetfulness doesn’t necessarily signal trouble. “You needn’t worry about these lapses unless you experience a noticeable and consistent decline in memory or you aren’t able to function at work,” says psychologist Daniel L. Schacter of Harvard University. At that point, of course, you should see a doctor. For most people, such lapses are just a normal-if annoying-part of life. Mild deficits in memory do begin in the 40s and 50s and increase in later years, but stress, fatigue, and a mere lack of attention all can trigger temporary memory glitches in people of all ages. Here are some common types and strategies for minimizing difficulties.

“It’s on the Tip of My Tongue.” You start to introduce an old friend to someone, and suddenly you can’t remember that someone’s name-even though you sense it just beyond the grasp of your memory. Or you can’t quite retrieve the name of a movie you just saw. Such tip-of-the-tongue – or TOT – incidents happen to most everyone, notes Deborah Burke, a psychologist at Pomona College in Claremont, Calif. Theses lapses have nothing to do with remembering the meaning of a word, but rather with its sound, “Often, the sound of a word is arbitrary and senseless,” says Burke. This sheer arbitrariness sometimes can make word retrieval challenging. The best way to prevent the problem is to use the name of a person or object as frequently as possible. “I tell clients to do what salespeople often do-repeat people’s names several times just before you plan to see them,” says psychologist Liz Zelinski of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. A TOT experience can seem worse when a similar-sounding, but in-correct, word pops into your head and stays there. Burke tells the story of a student who was trying to remember the name of a particular recreational vehicle. The student wanted the word Winnebago, but she could only come up with rutabaga. When this happens, shift your focus to something else, suggests Burke. “If you stop fretting about it, the correct word eventually will come to you.” “Where Did I Put My Keys?” Most episodes of absent-mindedness-forgetting where you left something or wondering why you just entered a room-are caused by a simple lack of attention, says Harvard’s Schacter. “You’re supposed to remember something, but you haven’t encoded it deeply.” Encoding, Schacter explains, is a special way of paying attention to an event that has a major impact on recalling it later. Failure to encode properly can create annoying situations. If you put your cell phone in a pocket, for example, and don’t pay attention to what you did because you’re involved in a conversation, you’ll probably forget that the phone is in the jacket now hanging in your closet. “Your memory per se isn’t failing you,” says Schacter,. “Rather, you didn’t give your memory system the information it needed.” Lack of interest can also lead to absent-mindedness. “A man who can recite baseball scores from 30 years ago,” says Zelinski, “may not remember to drop a letter in the mailbox.” Women have slightly better memories than men, possibly because they pay more attention to their environment, and memory relies on just that. Visual cues can help prevent absent-mindedness, says Schacter. “But be sure the cue is clear and available,” he cautions. If you want to remember to take a medication with lunch, put the pill bottle on the kitchen table-don’t leave it in the medicine chest and write yourself a note that you tuck in a pocket. Another common episode of absent-mindedness: walking into a room and wondering why you’re there. Most likely, you were thinking about something else. “Everyone does this from time to time,” says Zelinski. The best thing to do is return to where you were before entering the room, and you’ll likely remember.

“That’s Not the Way I Remember It.” Most of us occasionally experience a memory error called “misattribution.” You correctly remember something that happened but attribute it to the wrong source. For example, you share a story with a friend and credit it to your mutual acquaintance Jim. In a similar way, people often come up with ideas that were someone elses’s to begin with-a phenomenon known as unintentional plagiarism. At dinner one night, a friend related “her” recent experience at a store: Seeing a mother carrying her baby in a backpack, she remarked on the cute toy clutched in the infant’s fist. “Oh, no-that’s not hers!” the mother exclaimed. “She must have grabbed it from a shelf.” Then my friend’s daughter piped up: “Mom, that happened to me. I told you about it last month.” False memory, another trick the mind can play, is closely related to misattribution. You may “remember” that you fell off the pier when your father took you fishing, though in reality you only witnessed such a scene in a movie many years ago. As annoying as these kinds of memory lapses can be, there’s a positive side, says Schacter. If our brains did store all that we saw, heard, or read, we’d be overwhelmed. Our ability to splice together bits of necessary information and throw out the rest is essential for sound thinking. I find this theory reassuring. Now when my husband forgets where the car is, I tell myself that he’s busy selecting and storing information that’s really important to him-like ordering tickets to a sporting event-instead of concentrating on trivial stuff. And when we pass the restaurant that he insists we dined at years ago, I just smile and let him savor his memory of a delectable-and obviously unforgettable-dinner. UNDERSTANDING DETAILS

1. What exactly is Schneider classifying in this essay? Explain her three categories. 2. What is the positive side of memory lapses, according to Schneider? 3. Which of these memory problems have you experienced? How did you solve the problem? 4. What are some of the main causes of memory lapses?

ANALYZING MEANING

1. Are you surprised to know that experts agree that lapses in memory don’t “necessarily signal trouble” (paragraph 3)? Explain your answer.

2. Which of Schneider’s categories do you suppose is most common among students? 3. Why do you think Schneider cited so many experts in this essay? What do these authoritative

voices add to her essay? 4. What do all the solutions Schneider proposes for each type of memory lapse have in common?

DISCOVERING RHETORICAL STRATEGIES

1. In what ways does Schneider use division and classification in this essay? How does she give significance or value to her system of organization? What other rhetorical techniques does she use to accomplish her purpose?

2. What types of memory lapses do you experience in a typical day? How would you classify these lapses?

3. What is Schneider’s point of view toward forgetfulness in general? 4. Why do you think Schneider opened and closed her essay with references to her husband? Are

her beginning and ending effective? Explain your answer. MAKING CONNECTIONS

1. Examine the tricks memory plays on us by contrasting Schneider’s essay with Malcolm Cowley’s “The View from 80,” Russel Baker’s “The Saturday Evening Post,” and Robert Ramirez’s “The Barrio.”

2. Compare and contrast the way Schneider organizes her advice with the organizational techniques of Edwin Bliss’s “Managing Your Time,” Paul Robert’s “How to Say Nothing in Five Hundred Words,” and Mark Hansen’s “E-Mail: What You Should-and Shouldn’t-Say.”

3. Schneider defines encoding as “a special way of paying attention to an event that has a major impact on recalling it later. “What advice do you think Ray Bradbury (“Summer Rituals”) and Russel Baker (“The Saturday Evening Post”) would give us about “encoding” important events in life?

IDEAS FOR DISCUSSION/WRITING Preparing to Write Write freely about various memory lapses you have experienced: What activities do they involve? Are they easily classified? Do they occur frequently in your life? When do they happen? Choosing a Topic

1. Your English teacher has asked about the accuracy of your memory. Respond to this question by classifying for this teacher all the different types of memory work you do in a typical day. Remember that each memory task you do should fit into a specific category. Decide on a point of view before you begin to write.

2. Speculate about the memory of a close friend or relative by analyzing that person’s behavior and preferences. Remember that analysis is based on the process of division. Divide this person’s behavior and preferences into logical parts; then study those parts so that you can better understand the person’s reasoning techniques. Decide on a purpose and audience before you begin to write.

3. If the mental activities we perform say something important about us, analyze yourself by writing an essay that classifies the different mental activities you have carried out in the last week. Discuss your choices as you proceed.

Before beginning your essay, you might want to consult the checklists on pages 216-217.