Redundant Memories

[Royston]

This is probably quite an odd topic, but I was wondering if any of you have any utterly useless information stored away in your memory banks, where you can't fathom why you remember it, e.g an advert, or song lyrics or anything at all, where you can't pin down why on earth you have that information stashed away...but you can remember that information implicitly. I'll give you an example, and I promise you I havn't looked this up...

 

For some reason, and I didn't even like the advert, or find the jingle particulary catchy, but I know all the lyrics for the Alphabites ad, that was out in the 80's...

 

A is for Alpha, B is for bites, C for yourself, 'cause they taste just right.

D is for dinner, E is for eggs, letters so tasty from A through to Z.

Crisp golden potato, and fluffy inside, oven baked, grilled or fried, and made by Birdseye, so you can't buy better, and called Alphabites, cause each one's a letter.

 

I guess on retrospect, I can see why an impressionable young child would remember this, but it does seem odd why this ad in particular has stuck in my mind so vividly. Anyone else ?

[iNow]

Whatever it is I think I see... becomes a tootsie roll to me... That one tends to the fore of my thoughts more than I'm comfortable admitting.

[curiouslou]

Well I dont think that we have enough information about memory storage of the human brain to answer anything like this. Perhaps when your brain is converting yur short term memory into long term it somehow associates this particular phrase or whatnot with a more significant stimulus. Or, taking a very Freudian approach, you have feelings for your mother.

 

(The Freud comment is a joke, but when talking about the human mind he always comes to my mind)

[Phi for All]

This is probably quite an odd topic, but I was wondering if any of you have any utterly useless information stored away in your memory banks, where you can't fathom why you remember it,

Welcome to my world.

 

I have bits of plays, passages from books, sonnets, comedy routines, commercials, movies and even disconnected telephone numbers sloshing around in there. Some were part of work I did 20 years ago, some were memorized 35 years ago, some were seen on TV 40 years ago.

 

There are a lot of useful things. I can't spell "encyclopedia" without Jiminy Cricket's song from the Mickey Mouse Club running through my head, but I always get it right (shut up, UK-people). But much of it is total trash like the 800# from a company I worked for that's been out of business for 10 years.

 

I think my subconscious is predicting we'll somehow get involved in an uber trivia game and all the crap will make my brain and I rich.

[Royston]

Well I dont think that we have enough information about memory storage of the human brain to answer anything like this.

 

Umm, I wasn't asking why, just asking for examples. I just find it amusing that the brain does hold on to redundant information, tis all (especially silly ad lyrics...although I have recited my example at parties, to impress the ladies )

 

 

I think my subconscious is predicting we'll somehow get involved in an uber trivia game and all the crap will make my brain and I rich.

 

That's true, I guess any information, however trivial or pointless it may seem can have it's uses...even for pure entertainment value...except of course your 800# of a company example. That's just not entertaining at any level, though there's probably someone out there who might disagree, you know, the stamp collecting sort. No offense to any stamp collectors on here.

[DrP]

I have phone numbers of freinds I had back in Junior School and haven't talked to for years (30 years in fact! ). Oh - yea, and old bank account numbers where I acctually don't know my current one (If I concentrate on it and use it 2 or 3 times from memory then it stays there).

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

I have a nasty tendency to spontaneously remember three or four notes from a song I've heard at some point in the past, which then of course means I have to sit around trying to figure out what song they belong to.

 

Very irritating.

[iNow]

I have phone numbers of freinds I had back in Junior School and haven't talked to for years (30 years in fact! ).

How funny. Me too. I can still remember my dad's work number from like 25 years ago.

[Sayonara]

I have a strange habit of retaining metadata for longer than the hardcore information. Like, I might forget the exact phrasing of some lines in a film, but I will remember the precise inflection given to each word by the actor, the camera angles, and the musical score playing at the time

 

HOW USELESS IS THAT?

[Royston]

I hereby declare, Phi and Sayo as the 'Kings of Useless Information.'

[bascule]

"Why ask why? Try Bud Dry."

 

By the time I was old enough to even try Bud Dry, the product was already long defunct, and really, I don't think I'd want to even try it.

[Royston]

A is for Alpha, B is for bites, C for yourself, 'cause they taste just right.

D is for dinner, E is for eggs, letters so tasty from A through to Z.

Crisp golden potato, and fluffy inside, oven baked, grilled or fried, and made by Birdseye, so you can't buy better, and called Alphabites, cause each one's a letter.

 

Well I've just found the ad on youtube, prompted by Bascule's reply. Annoyingly my memory made a couple of mistakes i.e C for yourself that they taste just right...as opposed to 'cause they taste just right', and there's no 'and' before 'made by birdseye'. I guess that's me filling in the gaps, as it were, because I couldn't fully remember the lyrics.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1Mgq929HEM

 

I warn you, watching this ad will prompt you to do something drastic.

Edited July 20, 2008 by Snail