Talk to yourself: it helps

We have always thought of people who walked around talking to themselves as having gone nuts.

But when you’ve misplaced something, talking to oneself helps.

A team of psychologists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Pennsylvania reported a study showing that talking to yourself when you’re looking for something actually helps you find it.

In the research, they asked participants to see 20 images and then asked them to find a specific one. Ocasionally, there was a label telling them what to look for; example, a mug.

Subsequently, the participants were asked to search again while saying the word of the object they had to find. In another experiment the participants were asked to find photos of common supermarket items like oranges or cheese.

In both experiments, the participants who repeated the names of the objects they were searching for found them faster.

Just talk to yourself the next time you are unable to find your keys or your glasses; it may be worth trying to recover the misplaced object.

Dr. Ajay Sati.