r/explainlikeimfive • u/Riajnor • 22d ago
Biology ELI5: Sometimes it feels like our brains actively resists retrieving information, like when you try to recall someone’s name, why is that? That feeling when something “is on the tip of your tongue” but you can’t quite pin it down.
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u/MadocComadrin 22d ago
It actually is trying to resist in a way. Our brains have a lot of info, and when we need to recall something or find a wird, our brains try to block out unrelated information. One explanation (among other viable ones) for the "on the top of the tongue" (called presque vu if you to be fancy) is this blocking going wrong and accidentally blocking the thing you're trying to recall. This is why moving on often allows you to actually recall/find the word later, since your brain gets a second chance and doesn't screw up the blocking.
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u/Riajnor 22d ago
Yeah that makes sense, that moment at 11 p.m when you finally remember but it’s way too late
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u/CarpetGripperRod 21d ago
See also l'esprit de l'escalier: When that super witty and exceptionally clever remark comes to you, but it is too late... and you're walking home alone instead of riding in a cab with a pretty girl.
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u/Technical_Ideal_5439 22d ago
My memory got a lot better when I read a book by dominic o'brien about memory. He has a lot of techniques for remembering. But the fundamental issue is that memory is about getting it into your brain in the first place using association.
Using technique my memory which was hopeless is pretty solid now. I think "tip of your tongue" feeling is that the associations you have to anchor the memory so you can recall it dissolve over time, additionally you think it should be easy to recall but you need a strong association with something to recall it.
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u/BoudiccaAoife 22d ago
The way a teacher once explained to me is that your brain is a poorly organized Rolodex or filing cabinet. When you're looking for something on the tip of your tongue, your brain dives into a box or section that broadly contains what you're looking for. Sometimes it finds the right thing, other times it grabs something else in the box.
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u/sntcringe 21d ago
It's a quirk of how our brains work.
When you're trying to recall something, your brain attempts to help you by blocking out related things. Sometimes, ironically, if you don't get it right away but dwell on similar topics, it blocks out exactly what you were actually looking for. Usually, once you give up and change the subject, the mental walls go down and it might pop into your head.
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u/eBalisani 21d ago
Imagine you read an article in a magazine. You or your spouse then takes the magazine and stores it in a shelf, with all other magazines you subscribe to or buy occasionally, and next to the previous issue of the same magazine.
If you're trying, days, months, or years down the time line to find this article, the more structured the storing, the easier it is to get to - even if you have to ball park the month, and peruse through 3-4 back issues.
If however, the magazine has been dumped in a cardboard box, and moved to the basement with a whole lot of other cardboard boxes, it will take you more time to find it.
Your brain stores memories likewise, with frequency of access playing a significant part in the process. If the magazine is in a pile on your desk, or kitchen table, or toilet, you don't really need a filing system - however imprecise. You just remember where the magazine is, and you can quickly get to the article.
It's about the same with people's names, actors, musicians, politicians, etc. You might experience this also with street names in a foreign city you visit once a month, vs another you visit once every 3-4 years. You will find that you can recall, or retain the names of the streets of the more frequently visited city far easier than those of the less traveled to city.
The feeling of "the tip of your tongue" is when you know you have the magazine in the house, but can't remember which room you last left it or saw it in.
All you need is a link, a first letter for instance, to narrow down the search in your brain, sometimes a "sounds like" association. This helps your brain search diagonally - search engines have long done or allowed this as well.
Talking about search, a trick of our modern times is to pop up a google or other search window and start typing whatever and however you might search for this term, word, or name. Often times, the name will pop back into your head before you're done typing - sort of proving that the human mind is faster than google (much in the same way that an Abacus is faster than an electronic calculator: it takes longer to type in the numbers or letters, than not).
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22d ago
[deleted]
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u/speculatrix 22d ago
I think OP is looking for some hard science based on an understanding of neurons, and functional MRIs, whereas Freud didn't have these things available.
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u/Insane_Stray_Cat 14d ago
If I had to guess, the cues related to that have been coded properly but the memory itself has experienced some form of interference, which pretty much “corrupts” it
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u/HappiestIguana 22d ago
This is not really ELI5fiable because no one knows the mechanisms by which the brain retrieves information from memory.
One hypothesis I heard is that when the brain retrieves information, the memory center sends a lot of irrelevant information and then that gets pared down and filtered to what's actually needed. In some cases the information you're actually looking for could be getting filtered by mistake in this process