“Close your eyes and remember” is likely a phrase that you have
heard before. To some, closing your eyes to remember information or events may
be considered intuitive, while to others, the idea may simply resemble some
mythical folk statement that could not possibly be true. Either way, you have
hopefully started to wonder yourself whether or not eye-closure really can
benefit your memory, and if it can, why such a phenomenon occurs. With that in
mind, let’s get to what the scientific literature has to say on the subject.
Starting with a
general overview, it is often found that eye-closure can indeed benefit a person’s
ability to remember both visual and auditory details of events. As to why what
is termed the “eye-closure effect” occurs, scientists usually employ what is
known as the cognitive load hypothesis in their explanation. The cognitive load
hypothesis, which is grounded in Glenberg’s (1997) account of embedded
cognition, says that eye-closure helps improve memory by freeing cognitive
resources that normally would have been used to monitor the environment
(Vredevelt et al, 2011). Put simply; when you close your eyes, your brain is
receiving less incoming information, and thus is able to devote more of its
processing capabilities towards other tasks, which in this case would be
memory. Those with pessimistic views of the eye-closure effect however, would
state (after reading the literature) that these findings were only obtained in
lab settings, and thus are not generalizable to read world scenarios. Luckily
enough, recent research at the University of York tackles just this issue.
In
this study, Vredevelt and Penrod (2013) looked at whether memory for a forensically
relevant live event was influenced by both eye-closure condition (i.e. eyes
open or closed) and location (i.e. inside or outside) at the time of the
subsequent interview about the event. In the experiment, 96 students witnessed
a staged verbal altercation between two confederates. After witnessing this
altercation, participants were interviewed about the events they just witnessed
in one of two locations: the sidewalk next to a busy street, or inside a quiet
corridor. The interview consisted of both a free recall (i.e. tell me
everything you remember about the event) and a cued recall (i.e. “what did the
male say” or “who started the argument”) questions. During the interview, the
participants were instructed to either keep their eyes open or to keep their
eyes closed.
For
free recall conditions, it was found that overall, those who closed their eyes
(in comparison to those who kept their eyes open) reported more correct and
detailed information in both visual and auditory modalities. Furthermore, these
increases in recall were not accompanied by decreases in overall testimonial
accuracy (i.e., they did not report more correct answers because they gave more
responses, correct or incorrect, in general). One caveat of these findings
however, was that these benefits were only significant in the quieter, inside
interview condition (vs. the noisier outside viewing condition). For the cued
recall condition, it was found that participants who closed their eyes reported
more detailed information with regards to only the visual aspects of the
witnessed event, an improvement that was again accompanied by no decreases in
overall testimonial accuracy.
 |
| Close your eyes, you may not have to remember this moment because of it. |
So
what do these findings mean for you? For starters, it means that closing your
eyes can benefit your memory in real world conditions (especially in free
recall). Furthermore, it also suggests that if you are going to try to benefit
from closing your eyes to remember, you should try to do so in a quiet, less
busy environment (which is consistent with the cognitive load hypothesis, as
noisy environment would only create more things for your brain to process). Regarding
the practical uses of these findings, a readily apparent application could be
police interview strategies. Asking witnesses to close their eyes while they
try to freely recall an event is something simple. It requires no complex
training and takes no more time than any current measures, yet despite this
simplicity, it has the potential to increase both how much the witness recalls,
and the detail to which the witness can go into. As far as how this information
can benefit you in your daily life, just think of how much frustration you go
through when, for example, you lose your keys/phone/other important object. Instead
of taking 15 minutes to reacquaint yourself with anxiety, you might consider
taking a minute or two of your time to close your eyes and retrace your steps,
as it may help you keep your cool and your keys. At the end of the day, the
research in this area goes to show that sometimes old sayings can indeed have
some merit, and regardless of whether or not you are fully convinced, at least
you have another topic to talk about to intrigue your relatives.
-Rylan Waring
Glenberg, A. M. (1997). What
memory is for. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 20, 1–55. doi:10.1017/S0140525X97000010
Vredeveldt, A., Hitch, G.J., &
Baddeley, A.D. (2011). Eyeclosure helps memory by reducing cognitive load and enhancing
visualisation. Memory & Cognition, 39,
1253-1263. doi: 10.3758/s13421-011-0098-8.
Vredeveldt, A., & Penrod, S, D. (2013).
Eye-closure improves memory for a witnessed event under naturalistic conditions. Psychology, Crime & Law, 19 (10), 893-905
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