Transactive Memory and the Psychology of "My Heart Will Go On"
Our brains are constantly looking for short-cuts in order to increase efficiency. In our infancy we actually have more neural pathways than we do as adults. The process of maturing actually involves a pruning of sorts where pathways that are used are strengthened and those that are not are discarded. A less is more kind of approach. Another curious example of how we look for ways to lessen the load on our poor brains is by something that Daniel Wegner called 'transactive memory' which he describes as a "shared system for encoding, storing, and retrieving information". The gist is that we outsource certain cerebral tasks to people with whom we have some kind of close relationship. Let's look at a work example first. I don't know how to change my default printer but I know who can. I don't have every severe allergy of the children in my building memorized but I know who does. There are certain pieces of information that do not need to take up my valuable ...