What occupations have good short-term memory?

[FatOtt]

I was driving somewhere recently and realized that every time I drive and someone else is giving directions, I have to ask them where I'm going next at least three times. It's as if I ask what the next turn is and decide to ignore the next thing they say. Then I realized that I feel exactly the same way when I learn someone's name for the first time.

I've never had a taxi driver ask me to repeat where I'm going (other than if he* didn't understand me the first time). I wonder if they're also good at remembering names. I was trying to think of other occupations that might have above-average short-term memories. Bartenders? Barbers?



*I was wondering if I should type he/she, but then I realized that I don't think I've ever had a female taxi driver. Weird.

[housenuts]

porno stars

[diebitter]

Bartenders for sure, and shopkeepers where you buy lotsa small things (sweetie shops).

[tolbiny]

Its pretty easy to improve your short term memory if you want to. Just use it regularly. Learn to play chess, you don't have to play very well to improve it if you are actually trying 2 hours a week. Heck just remembering your golf score without using a card will help.

Servers

Uh, what was the question again?

[tonypaladino]

Fat,

If you have to use your short term memory for a certain type of information over and over again as a Cab Driver, you will get used to it fairly quickly.

Regards,
Tony P

[Spaded]

A court reporter.
A translator.
A signer for the deaf.
They have to remember what the person is saying, then repeat it flawlessly.

[Blarg]

Bartenders was a good one, waiters and waitresses even better.

Poker dealers have to have pretty good short-term memory, too, or it's hard to keep track of the table and resolve disputes. Players will claim anything that gets them the pot, and sometimes their friends will chime in too to help them out, or people will just remember falsely. A poker dealer with a bad short-term memory can take a lot of well-deserved crap from players.

Any lawyers who actually try cases have to have good short-term memory, because their whole cases can rely on one or two tiny facts brought out in live testimony. If they don't remember something, they can screw their client pretty bad.

[mason55]

Ok, everyone keeps saying servers (ie waiters/waitresses). I know there was a study done awhile ago about the ability for experienced servers to remember your order exactly and then the second they give it to you it's gone from their brain forever. Does anyone know the name of this phenomenon? I've been searching for a bit now and can't find a single reference to it. I used to know the name and it's driving me crazy.

[Landon_McFly]

[ QUOTE ]
Ok, everyone keeps saying servers (ie waiters/waitresses). I know there was a study done awhile ago about the ability for experienced servers to remember your order exactly and then the second they give it to you it's gone from their brain forever. Does anyone know the name of this phenomenon? I've been searching for a bit now and can't find a single reference to it. I used to know the name and it's driving me crazy.

[/ QUOTE ]

I also forget what it's called, but you hit the nail on the head. I'll try to search for the term used for it

[FatOtt]

[ QUOTE ]
A court reporter.
A translator.
A signer for the deaf.

[/ QUOTE ]

These are good ones.

I have no short term memory. Years of smoking something... But when I bartended, since it was my livelihood, I could remember every freakin drink order no problem.

The mind is a strange and wornderfull thing.

[ QUOTE ]
I have no short term memory. Years of smoking something... But when I bartended, since it was my livelihood, I could remember every freakin drink order no problem.

The mind is a strange and wornderfull thing.

[/ QUOTE ]

Thats odd, I just had a discussion with my buddy last night, he is a bartender, and we both drink heavily 5 nights a week, we both agreed that our short term memory is completely [censored] up beyond belief.

Besides the ones already mentioned...air traffic controller. I looked into doing this (you know, make $80K, be a federal employee, get work in any major city, etc.) You have to remember what runways are open, what flights are leaving, what flights are incoming, where bad weather is, all that...and it's continually changing while you put the puzzle together. Damn. And of course, if you screw up bad enough, people can die.

ScottieK

[dcasper70]

What was the question?

[vexvelour]

[ QUOTE ]
It's as if I ask what the next turn is and decide to ignore the next thing they say.

[/ QUOTE ]

I do the same f'in thing, man. It drives my boyfriend [censored] crazy because he has to repeat his answer like 4 times. It's probably just a mild form of retardation. loling still, because it's so true.

[JonPKibble]

professional p*ker player

[mason55]

[ QUOTE ]
Ok, everyone keeps saying servers (ie waiters/waitresses). I know there was a study done awhile ago about the ability for experienced servers to remember your order exactly and then the second they give it to you it's gone from their brain forever. Does anyone know the name of this phenomenon? I've been searching for a bit now and can't find a single reference to it. I used to know the name and it's driving me crazy.

[/ QUOTE ]

Booya. Research this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeigarnik_effect

[lapoker17]

I have a friend in Philadelphia, where I grew up. He was not a good student, and if most of you encountered him, you would probably think he was a great guy, but not very smart. As he was trying to get through college, he started a valet parking concession and was able to get a local restaurant to give him their lot. It was a high-end, popular and busy spot, and the parking lot held about 300 cars.

He ran the whole thing himself, and didn't use tickets. He worked 6 days a week, in all weather, and no one ever had to wait for their car or present him a ticket. He could match the face to the car, I guess. He would watch the restaraunt from the outside, and as he saw patrons getting ready to leave he would go get their cars and have them waiting as the diners exited. He was a valet parking savant.

After watching him for a month or two, one of the restaurants regulars, a car dealership mogul in Philly, took an interest in him. The guy was blown away by how good my friend Mike was at his job. So they became friendly, and about a year later, the mogul brought Mike in to run one of the biggest car dealerships in Philadelphia. Not the most glamorous job to many of us, but an amazing opportunity for a guy who barely made it through high school. He's still there today, and runs the dealership as well as he ran his parking lot.

[ QUOTE ]
I've never had a taxi driver ask me to repeat where I'm going

[/ QUOTE ]

There was some sort of scientific study of taxi drivers and they found that the part of the brain that deals with spatial navigation was much larger in their brains than in the general population. I think rather than a generalizable short-term memory ability they possess a specific navigational ability-- so they're not necessarily good at remembering names.

[Landon_McFly]

[ QUOTE ]
Besides the ones already mentioned...air traffic controller. I looked into doing this (you know, make $80K, be a federal employee, get work in any major city, etc.) You have to remember what runways are open, what flights are leaving, what flights are incoming, where bad weather is, all that...and it's continually changing while you put the puzzle together. Damn. And of course, if you screw up bad enough, people can die.

ScottieK

[/ QUOTE ]

I believe they have the highest suicide rate of any job due to the stressful nature of their occupation.

[FatOtt]

[ QUOTE ]

Booya. Research this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeigarnik_effect

[/ QUOTE ]

Holy [censored]. This is awesome.

[JaBlue]

[ QUOTE ]
Its pretty easy to improve your short term memory if you want to. Just use it regularly. Learn to play chess, you don't have to play very well to improve it if you are actually trying 2 hours a week. Heck just remembering your golf score without using a card will help.

[/ QUOTE ]

I would like to see some evidence that chess improves short term memory because I played and studied 10+hrs/wk for 3 years and my short term memory still and always has sucked.

[Blarg]

I think something like chess can work on it indirectly, because you have to memorize a little to think X number of moves ahead. Then next turn the situation changes a little to a lot. Same with Go.

Card counting in blackjack requires very short term memory. You're constantly moving numbers through matrix tables in your mind, very quickly, and then forgetting about them instantly, remembering only the count. Which is itself constantly changing.

I have another one -- the guys who work taking orders in the pit at the stock exchange and commodities exchanges. They hear everybody shouting from all directions and waving their arms, gotta be distracting and intense as hell, and often take down several orders at once, and it might as well be life and death, for the insane amount of money involved that the process every few seconds. And it's all based on your word, basically.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Besides the ones already mentioned...air traffic controller. I looked into doing this (you know, make $80K, be a federal employee, get work in any major city, etc.) You have to remember what runways are open, what flights are leaving, what flights are incoming, where bad weather is, all that...and it's continually changing while you put the puzzle together. Damn. And of course, if you screw up bad enough, people can die.

ScottieK

[/ QUOTE ]

I believe they have the highest suicide rate of any job due to the stressful nature of their occupation.

[/ QUOTE ]

This I believe. If I can't do the job hung over, then I don't want it.

As for chess players and memory...I think most chess players have a better short term and long term memory than non-chess players. My memory's pretty good...not Lord Nikon quality, but pretty good. I think chess trains players to memorize a lot of things, like tactical patterns, checkmate patterns, opening lines, etc. Players also have to remember their lines of analysis when selecting a move to play. FWIW.

Edit: Also found this interesting: Chess and memory study in kids (http://math.about.com/od/reference/a/chess.htm)

ScottieK