According to a recent research, love makes you mix up other's people names. This is the scientific explanation why your mom often mixes up your name with your siblings, and sometimes with the pet dog. It does not mind she is losing her mind, it means that she puts all the names of her loved ones in one folder in her brain.
It's amazing how relationships can drive people to do many things. This is the highlight of a recent NPR interview with psychologist Samantha Deffler who worked to find the scientific reason why most people make the mistake of mixing up people's names. The findings of her study is published in the journal Memory and Cognition.
According to Deffler, this common mistake is called a "brain glitch". It is a normal and irregular cognitive malfunction which signifies love rather than a memory problem or aging. We basically use the same area of the brain to keep information of all those we love, such as their names.
When we prepare to utter the name of the person we want to call, the love makes the mind work by pulling out information of the same folder where we store data of all significant others. According to the NPR, this folder not only includes names of immediate family whom we love, but could also extend to romantic relationships, and even pets' names. And that's why your mother can sometimes call you by your family dog's name.
According to the Cosmopolitan, this also explains why Ross in Friends, said the name Rachel instead of Emily when he was at the altar. Deffler further explains that in all of her subjects for the study, mothers are the most prone to demonstrating this kind of brain glitch. In situations where a mother needs some help with the groceries, her brain rapidly goes through all the names in her "loved ones" folder and that's why love makes her prone to utter the wrong name.
