London It is an age-old problem that can baffle even the most dextrous of minds on an almost daily basis.
Now scientists suggest our ability to find where we left our car keys or put down our wallet may be significantly increased by saying the object's name out loud.
Research, published in the Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, indicates that hearing an object's name can improve our effectiveness in searching several places for a particular item.
In some instances the technique of talking out loud helped a ‘visual search' to such an extent that seemingly ‘invisible' objects suddenly became ‘visible'.
Assistant professor Gary Lupyan and associate professor Daniel Swingley, who co-wrote the research, said: "When participants are asked to find a visual item among distractors [other objects], hearing its name immediately prior to searching improves speed and efficiency of searching for the object.
"Hearing an object name can improve the ability to attend simultaneously to multiple regions of space containing the named objects and even make an otherwise invisible object visible."
