It is very common to be introduced to a new person, to hear their name, and to rapidly forget the person’s name. The question is why?
Is this experience a reflection of you having a poor memory? It actually might represent an attention problem. When we meet new people for the first time there is a tremendous amount of information being processed, outside factors that may be distracting, and each person is generally concerned about him or herself.
Word finding difficulty or the inability to derive a name that was just presented to you is not a sign of disease, but a probable indication that you can benefit from specific tips to remember the names.
As an example, when someone introduces himself or herself to you recite the name aloud and repeat it in every sentence you communicate to the person. This will facilitate a deeper encoding of the name initially which helps to store the information more permanently.
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