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Tracking Down the "Embarrassing Memory" Noise

Compelled to Blurt... | Ask Metafilter

Like a lot of people in this Ask Metafilter thread, I thought I was the only person in the universe who made an unconscious little noise when remembering something stupid I did or said.

It's not especially loud, in fact it's often under my breath. The sound is usually just a quiet grunt, or a word/syllable or two. If I remember an embarrassing conversation, I tend to blurt out a random word of the conversation (as in, I'm replaying the dialogue in my head but then all the sudden one of the words pops out of my mouth). If it happens while I'm reading, I tend to blurt out one or two of the words that happen to be under my eyes at the moment.

For context, my tic (which can also be heard when someone near me does something dumb) sounds a little like the noise Leo Bloom makes after he falls on his keys (00:34). "Ooooooom...."

The Question to You

Anyone else do this? Anybody out there qualified to talk about the psychology or neuroscience behind this apparent phenomenon? I’ll bet there’s a cool, scientific name for it.

ccots's picture

Others do it too?

I thought I was just plain weird for shouting "ha!" or "idiot!" or "come on!" whenever I did this.

Least favourite recent moment: asking the checkout guy at the ice-cream shop if the "FTO" on his T-shirt stood for "fatso" (a gene associated with genetic risk to obesity originally in mice, then truncated to FTO when the human connection was made for PC reasons). Then noticing he was, er, portly.

Oh, and the FTO? Stands for "Fair Trade Organisation".

There's a vicious spiral here too: emotional response tends to entrench memories, so every time you haul out the baggage, you're reinforcing the memory.

As an aside, does anyone else think tennis players suffer from this? They always seem to beat themselves up after losing a point...

 
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