The Biggest Bluff: How I Learned to Pay Attention, Master Myself, and Win

by Maria Konnikova

Back in 1890, William James described emotional memories as “so exciting emotionally as almost to leave a scar upon the cerebral tissues.” High emotion, high impact, high recall. According to that logic, all of my knowledge should have come out with flying colors in the intensity of the moment. I should have risen to the occasion, recalled what I’d been learning, and performed. But we now know that’s not exactly true. Not only do memories change over time, but the more emotional the landscape, the less we’re able to engage them with any specificity. Put us in a situation where emotions are running high—a beginner in a poker tournament, say—and no matter how certain we may be that we’re in full command of everything, specific details will evade us. We’ll be able to access the gist of the thing, but not the intricacies of the thing itself.