2019 年 06 月真题（第一套）如果有人叫错你的名字 If Someone Calls You by the Wrong Name

If you were like most children, you probably got upset when your mother called you by a sibling's name.

How could she not know you? Did it mean she loved you less?

Probably not.

According to the first research to tackle this topic head-on, misnaming the most familiar people in our life is a common cognitive error that has to do with how our memories classify and store familiar names.

The study, published online in April in the journal Memory and Cognition, found that the "wrong" name is not random but is invariably fished out from the same relationship pond: children, siblings, friends.

The study did not examine the possibility of deep psychological significance to the mistake, says psychologist David Rubin, "but it does tell us who's in and who's out of the group."

The study also found that within that group, misnamings occurred where the names shared initial or internal sounds, like Jimmy and Joanie or John and Bob.

Physical resemblance between people was not a factor. Nor was gender.

The researchers conducted five separate surveys of more than 1,700 people.

Some of the surveys included only college students; others were done with a mixed-age population.