Shifty eyes may be a sign of good memory

[Jess]

Moving your eyes from side to side for 30 seconds can boost your power of recall, researchers say. Horizontal eye wiggles are thought to cause the two hemispheres of the brain to interact more, improving the ability to retrieve memories. Scientists at Manchester Metropolitan University found people who made horizontal eye movements recognised significantly more previously studied words than subjects who did not make such eye movements. They also had fewer errors in their recall. Dr Andrew Parker, whose findings are reported in the latest issue of the journal Brain and Cognition, said: "That such a straightforward experimental manipulation can bring about enhanced memory for studied information and lower the number of memory errors is quite exciting." The work suggests horizontal eye movements could be helping people to remember. "We are conducting more research to clarify and extend the current findings," Dr Parker said yesterday. "It may help someone recall an important piece of information for an exam." http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main...05/neyes05.xml This may equally help with prospective memory as well - MILD.

[TeaSea]

That sounds cool. So should I do that before I go to sleep or should I do it in the morning when trying to remember? But thanks.

[Moonbeam]

That is fascinating. I am definitely trying it. Wouldn't that be great to have such an easy memory aid? Thanks for sharing that. P.S. I just tried it to help me remember to do it when I want to remember something. Made me a little dizzy. I'll see if it works.

[pj]

Eye movement has been tied to memory and other mental functions. In NLP, there is an area of study called "eye cues," where you can actually learn to tell whether a person is accessing a real memory, imagining something, and a lot of other things. I had learned to do it years ago... you have to "calibrate" it to each person, but once you've established the patterns they are remarkably accurate. Interesting thought to reverse it! Do this some time; try to remember, for instance, the pattern on the quilt you had on your bed when you were very young. Doesn't matter if you remember it - but where did your eyes go? Perhaps consciously moving your eyes in that same direction will stimulate memory?

[carcharoth]

That sounds handy. And it fells a bit dizzy after 30 times :p Thanks for the info pj , i was just wondering today how i could search the net to learn the eye movements. Where did you learned them? You know any kickass giude? Also for NLP?

[pj]

That sounds handy. And it fells a bit dizzy after 30 times :p Thanks for the info pj , i was just wondering today how i could search the net to learn the eye movements. Where did you learned them? You know any kickass giude? Also for NLP? You are welcome. There are some pretty extensive threads here on NLP, if you search for them. Ranma and a couple others are a lot more up on it than I am. I posted some book suggestions there - can't remember them off the top of my head right now, but anything by Joseph O'Conner is going to be really good and readable. Also, searching on NLP and "accessing cues" (I mistakenly called it "eye cues" up there) will get you some quick info on it.