Ever had that panicked moment at quiz night when you’re adamant amongst your friends and peers that you know the answer to the question being asked? Times pressing and the infamous home made sounds of the countdown clock begin reverberating around the table. Pressure mounts, the next question is imminent and the brain stutters through the veritable plethora of information stored amongst your grey matter.
Well here’s my 2-part theory on this and albeit not scientifically proven does have some semblance of credibility.
Our brain is like a computer hard drive, has a certain capacity but does it’s best to store as much information as possible but at times there’s not enough space to store the new data (information to you and me), so it goes ahead and defragments this. Placing bits of this here and there and will just sit there waiting to be recalled, the computer does its thing and goes and extracts all those broken down bits of information then puts them back into one piece before displaying what you needed onto your screen. Well my theory is the brain tries to do much the same but unfortunately isn’t able to grab every portion of what you need, just what it can and it’s then left for you to decipher what the brain is trying to ‘display’ or in my terms what it’s trying to tell you.
So for example, the question being asked at quiz night is who won the 1997 Eurovision Song Contest for the UK? Your brain kicks into gear and goes trawling for the answer, churning around it finds the word Katrina and feeds that back to you whilst carrying on looking for the rest of the answer. Sitting at the table and in your mind you’re getting the word Katrina. At that moment all you can hear is Katrina and the something, announcing to your team mates “I know this, it’s on the tip of my tongue”! Katrina, Katrina, Katrina whirring around still waiting for the brain to do it’s thing and in the hope it’ll feedback to you before the quiz moves on without you. Now there’s 2 scenarios that play out here, the latter is the brain can’t find what it’s looking for or in fact it never had enough space (see 2nd part of theory) to store the last bit of the answer, just placing what it considered the more important part of the answer in what storage it had got left and losing the remainder! Dooming you to failure and a loss of face and the valuable point needed at quiz night. The better scenario and the one that retains your quizmaster crown is when the brain finds what it’s been looking for, throws that out to you and you suddenly burst out with excitement “and the Waves”!
Now, part 2 of my theory brings in Mr Miyagi but please feel free to use any character name you want for this.
Roll back to the question being asked, the same sticky moment plays out and Katrina is echoing around your mind. Well this time what’s happened is that your brain is at full capacity, constantly absorbing new info day on day. Your brain has had Katrina and the Waves stored for many years, time stamped in your head as to when that little nugget was last recalled. Some time previously you’ve been told something which your brain has decided to store but needs to make room for it. Well Katrina and the Waves is deemed as superfluous now, why not it’s not been of any use for years. So it pushes out “and the Waves”, just leaving the suggestion of Katrina just in case it’s ever needed. Well that moment comes but again just leaving Katrina dancing around on the tip of your tongue. Unfortunately you’re doomed, the remainder of the question is lost forever in favour of something perhaps even less trivial. Your brain doesn’t differentiate between what’s considered important or trivial, so you could be absorbing last night’s Love Island gossip at the cost of losing what you know about the theory of relativity.
So here’s where Mr Miyagi comes into play, remember as a child when your teacher or your parents were telling you something which you didn’t want to hear. Sticking your fingers in your ears, going La La La… well obviously as an adult you don’t want to be seen or heard doing that. Well if someone’s starting to tell you something you immediately recognise as insignificant, just keep reciting in your head and sending the message to your brain “Mr Miyagi, Mr Miyagi” on repeat until the conversation has ended. Thankfully you won’t have retained something you’re never going to need but more importantly you will have preserved that gem of information that sometime in the future will be needed and brought straight to the fore bypassing the tip of your tongue.
Next time I win a quiz, passed an exam or remembered the French for “Where’s the hotel?” I’ve got Mr Miyagi to thank.
Thank you for reading my blog, perhaps you’ve absorbed what I’ve said but ask yourself that now you have what more important bit of information have you now lost ???
