For this episode, we talked to Daniel Schacter, professor of psychology at Harvard and the author of The Seven Sins of Memory: How the Mind Forgets and Remembers.

Our conversation focused on the three “sins of omission” outlined in his book on memory. The big bad memory sins, in order of badness, are: absent-mindedness, transience, blocking. Tune in for Schacter’s insights on how to remember what you have to remember and forget what you need to forget.

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Highlights:

"We tend to think of memory as being all about the past...But remembering the past has a lot in common with imagining the future."

"The most dangerous [of the seven sins] is absentmindedness: absentmindedness is the breakdown at the interface of attention and memory."

"The take-home message for everyday life: when you know there's something you want to remember...elaborate on that information. Try to relate it to other things you know."

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That excellent intro and outro music you heard is by Nico Guiang. You can find more of it on SoundCloud [@niceaux] and Facebook [www.facebook.com/niceaux].

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