{"id":651074,"date":"2017-02-03T08:27:34","date_gmt":"2017-02-03T08:27:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/enterpriseam.com\/egypt\/2017\/02\/03\/the-cognitive-science-behind-why-we-scramble-names\/"},"modified":"2017-02-03T08:27:34","modified_gmt":"2017-02-03T08:27:34","slug":"the-cognitive-science-behind-why-we-scramble-names","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/enterpriseam.com\/egypt\/2017\/02\/03\/the-cognitive-science-behind-why-we-scramble-names\/","title":{"rendered":"The cognitive science behind why we scramble names"},"content":{"rendered":"

It happens to the best of us: You mean to call your kid from the next room, but for some reason call out your dog\u2019s name instead.<\/strong> According to cognitive scientist Samantha Deffler, mixing up names is \u201ca normal cognitive glitch,\u201d and actually has nothing to do with having a bad memory or aging. Instead, Deffler says that our brain organizes names into special folders, and the names we scramble are likely to belong to the same category<\/strong> (i.e. friends, family, colleagues, etc).<\/p>\n

\u201cLike in the <\/strong>classic scene<\/strong><\/a> from the TV show, Friends. When Ross says his wedding vows<\/strong>, he is asked to repeat his fianc\u00e9e\u2019s name, Emily. He says his former girlfriend\u2019s name Rachel instead. Now Ross probably had both Rachel\u2019s and Emily\u2019s names in his mental folder of loved ones and a mental mix-up ensued,\u201d NPR<\/a>\u2019s Michelle Trudeau writes. Deffler and her colleagues studied<\/a> the phenomenon, known as \u201cmisnaming,\u201d by asking more than 1,700 participants about their personal experience with either misnaming or being misnamed, and found that misnaming is a common phenomenon and is most likely to occur with \u201csemantically similar\u201d (i.e. individuals within the same category) names.<\/p>\n

Also, if this doesn\u2019t settle the dog vs. cat dispute, we don\u2019t know what will: Deffler et al. found that the inclusion of a pet\u2019s name in a misnaming incident is significantly more likely to occur with a dog\u2019s name than with a cat\u2019s<\/strong>, suggesting that \u201cdogs may be a central part of (at least some) families \u2026 as human-like members, whereas cats and other pets, although they may be part of the family, are not categorized as \u2018human-like.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It happens to the best of us: You mean to call your kid from the next room, but for some reason call out your dog\u2019s name instead. According to cognitive scientist Samantha Deffler, mixing up names is \u201ca normal cognitive glitch,\u201d and actually has nothing to do with having a bad memory or aging. Instead, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"single-feature.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":false,"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","ep_exclude_from_search":false,"_primary_brand":0,"newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_show_updated_date":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12043],"tags":[72,12042],"brand":[],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"class_list":["post-651074","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-read-this","tag-enterpriseam","tag-read-this","wpautop","entry"],"acf":{"mongo_id":"c93df9f2-c4ec-4759-8c0b-919eb7677f76","order":"0","is_powered_by":true,"story_type":"1","photo_url":"","photo_position":"above","related_issue":[651060],"teaser":"","voice_url":""},"yoast_head":"\nThe cognitive science behind why we scramble names - EnterpriseAM Egypt<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/enterpriseam.com\/egypt\/2017\/02\/03\/the-cognitive-science-behind-why-we-scramble-names\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The cognitive science behind why we scramble names\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It happens to the best of us: You mean to call your kid from the next room, but for some reason call out your dog\u2019s name instead. 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