Trying to remember something? Just close your eyes, says science

Trying to remember something? Just close your eyes, says science
On the tip of your tongue? Can’t quite remember? Do this (Picture: Getty Images)

A new study has found that you can boost your memory recall by a staggering amount just by closing your eyes.

A research team at the University of Surrey invited 178 participants to watch a film in which an electrician enters a property, carries out jobs and steals items. They were then split into four groups – eyes open, eyes closed, having built rapport with the interviewer and having built no rapport with the interviewer – before answering questions about the clip such as ‘what was written on the front of the van?’.

And the results, which were published in the journal Legal and Criminology Psychology, found that the group who closed their eyes answered 23 percent more of the questions correctly than the group who hadn’t.

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In a second experiment involving a second clip, the test subjects were asked to recall what they had heard from the video as well as what they had seen. Again, the group that closed its eyes had much higher memory recall.

Building rapport also helped to some extent with recall.

‘It is clear from our research that closing the eyes and building rapport help with witness recall,’ said lead author Dr Robert Nash.

‘Although closing your eyes to remember seems to work whether or not rapport has been built beforehand, our results show that building rapport makes witnesses more at ease with closing their eyes. That in itself is vital if we are to encourage witnesses to use this helpful technique during interviews.’

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