A Hormone to Remember Oxytocin emerges as a key player in our facility for social memory.

"We consider faces the most basic class of social stimulus," says Ulrike Rimmele, who led the study at the University of Zurich. Oxytocin's ability to exclusively enhance the recollection of faces points to an important distinction between different types of memory. Social memory — which we use to remember people — is distinct from other types of memory required to store dates, numbers, and objects."

"Social recognition is an essential prerequisite for more complex social behavior," she says. For instance, around those we know to be trustworthy, we instinctively feel safe in acting more relaxed; with those who are unfamiliar, we know to be cautious."