TAMPA, Fla. — A University of Tampa professor is researching ways to improve people's memory, with a specific focus on ways to prioritize relevant information, excise irrelevant information and ignore distractions to remembering. 

What You Need To Know

  • University of Tampa psychology professor Sara Festini is studying memory 

  • Festini believes humans have the power to selectively remember or forget information 

  • Through something called "executive functioning," she says humans can prioritize more relevant information 

  • Festini received a $277,536 grant from the National Science Foundation for the research

Sara Festini, an associate professor of psychology at UT, received a $277,536 grant from the National Science Foundation to conduct the research.

“A lot of people think memory is going to be the best if you remember everything,” Festini told Spectrum Bay News 9. “But actually, you’re going to have better memory if you remove irrelevant information from mind. So it’s actually useful to forget, or de-prioritize, information that’s not going to be relevant to you.”

Festini and her students at UT are conducting experiments to confirm her hypothesis.

One involves a challenge to remember words where some words are given higher point values than others. Festini and her students wanted to see if subjects could prioritize remembering those higher-value words.

Another experiment involves trying to remember provided words while continuously saying the word “the” aloud. The experiment tests how well someone can remember things while distracted by something else.

“(It sees) how well we can multi-task while we’re speaking and trying to complete another task,” explained Allison Schultz, a junior at the University of Tampa who is taking part in the research.

Festini says early results have showed people have some control of their memory.

“Our executive functioning is allowing us to strategically control what we remember and what we remove from memory," she said. "Our evidence shows people are able to do this."

Festini is also working on a collaboration with Glazer Children’s Museum in downtown Tampa. Her goal is to create an interactive exhibit that will teach children and their parents about memory.