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Tracking Down the "Embarrassing Memory" Noise
Merlin Mann | Jul 23 2008
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.
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 YouAnyone 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. 26 Comments
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Others do it too?Submitted by ccots on July 23, 2008 - 10:43am.
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... » POSTED IN:
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