full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Lisa Genova: How your memory works -- and why forgetting is totally OK

Unscramble the Blue Letters

Number two, "Oh, what is his name?" One day I couldn't come up with the name of the acotr who played Tony Soprano in the HBO series "The Sopranos." I knew his name was stored somewhere in my brain, and I could tell you all kinds of things about him, but I could not produce his name. I eventually gave up and goloegd it. "Actor who played Tony srpnoao." James Gandolfini. Yes, that's it. Blocking on a word, also cealld tip of the tongue, is one of the most common eneexcipers of memory failure. You're trying to come up with a word, most often a proper noun, but you cannot, for the life of you, retrieve it on daemnd. Why does this happen?

Open Cloze

Number two, "Oh, what is his name?" One day I couldn't come up with the name of the _____ who played Tony Soprano in the HBO series "The Sopranos." I knew his name was stored somewhere in my brain, and I could tell you all kinds of things about him, but I could not produce his name. I eventually gave up and _______ it. "Actor who played Tony _______." James Gandolfini. Yes, that's it. Blocking on a word, also ______ tip of the tongue, is one of the most common ___________ of memory failure. You're trying to come up with a word, most often a proper noun, but you cannot, for the life of you, retrieve it on ______. Why does this happen?

Solution

  1. demand
  2. googled
  3. called
  4. actor
  5. soprano
  6. experiences

Original Text

Number two, "Oh, what is his name?" One day I couldn't come up with the name of the actor who played Tony Soprano in the HBO series "The Sopranos." I knew his name was stored somewhere in my brain, and I could tell you all kinds of things about him, but I could not produce his name. I eventually gave up and googled it. "Actor who played Tony Soprano." James Gandolfini. Yes, that's it. Blocking on a word, also called tip of the tongue, is one of the most common experiences of memory failure. You're trying to come up with a word, most often a proper noun, but you cannot, for the life of you, retrieve it on demand. Why does this happen?

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
ugly sister 5
totally normal 4
played tony 3
brain health 3
crossword puzzles 3
word stuck 2
grocery store 2
pay attention 2
tony soprano 2
memory loss 2
prospective memory 2
context helps 2
memory today 2
semantic memory 2
ted talk 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
played tony soprano 2

Important Words

  1. actor
  2. blocking
  3. brain
  4. called
  5. common
  6. day
  7. demand
  8. eventually
  9. experiences
  10. failure
  11. gandolfini
  12. gave
  13. googled
  14. happen
  15. hbo
  16. james
  17. kinds
  18. knew
  19. life
  20. memory
  21. noun
  22. number
  23. played
  24. produce
  25. proper
  26. retrieve
  27. series
  28. soprano
  29. sopranos
  30. stored
  31. tip
  32. tongue
  33. tony
  34. word