Memory and Behavior

We are constantly exposed to information about the world around us. We share claims about new products and experiences, offer opinions and advice, and retell stories told to us by friends and colleagues. But humans are forgetful, especially in such information-rich environments. We often forget what we learned.

What affects memory performance? Memory for information can be consistent across people (e.g., people have better memory for information that stands out in a cluttered environment). Memory can also vary across people (e.g., as people age, memory both worsens due to cognitive decline and also changes to value different aspects of information).

On a daily basis, we rely on the information we remember to make important decisions about how best to allocate our limited resources: our time, our money, our votes. We will discuss how memory for information affects our behaviors and beliefs.

My aim is to: (i) introduce some of the theories of how memory works (e.g., the role of attention, context, claims, sources, and age); (ii) present a few results of why this matters (e.g., how memory affects decisions and choice).