[apparent]

I recently participated in a research study, and at one point, the researcher told me I was going to be given 3 minutes with a list of 20 words. I was to memorize as many of the words as possible. I would then be asked to perform a specific task, and then repeat back as many of the words as I could.

When I was given these instructions, I realized it's been many years since I had to memorize anything of meaningful length. I spent the first 20 seconds trying to remember as much as I could about how to memorize things, and the rest of the time actually memorizing. It truly is a muscle, and I was very out of practice.