The Help Desk
Get Your Memory in
Gear!
It’s safe to say that everyone has
experienced an occasional lapse in memory. You forgot
to pick up milk on the way home from work, or you
can’t remember someone’s name. Trivial
memory losses such as these are regular events for
many people. Of course, the situation gets more
problematic when you’re standing in front of a
group and can’t remember part of your speech,
or you forget to attend a critical meeting.
Many people assume that they are forgetful or have
trouble memorizing, believing that their brains lack
the capacity to retain information effectively. In
fact, however, very few humans actually have a
physiological basis for their memory issues. Instead,
most memory problems can be traced to the process
used to get information into their memories.
There are specific techniques to use for improving
your ability to retain information, and a quick
introduction on how your brain commits information to
memory will help clarify why those techniques
work.
Much like a computer, memory is an
information-processing system that involves three
components, as follows:
- Encoding—getting
information into the brain.
- Storage—retaining
information.
- Retrieval—getting
information out of the brain.
Unlike a computer, however, human memories are
less literal and more susceptible to loss. Also, they
are compiled more slowly but multiple memories can be
accumulated at one time (unlike a computer that
builds memories sequentially).
 Figure 1 shows Richard Atkinson
and Richard Shiffrin’s three-stage processing
model of memory (1968). It includes three types of
memory:
- Sensory memory—a
fleeting memory that records sensory inputs (sight,
sound, touch, smell, and taste).
- Short-term memory—where
information is encoded for storage.
- Long-term memory—where
stored information is retained and made available
for retrieval.
There are two particularly significant aspects of
this model that are important to note. First, your
brain makes specific decisions about whether or not
sensory inputs should be transmitted from sensory
memory to short-term memory. This decision is based
on your brain’s analysis of the importance of
the information. Because our senses are constantly
bombarded with inputs, our brains must have a
mechanism for limiting how much we store. As is true
for many other physiological processes, importance is
weighted toward information that affects biological
functions (Darwin would have said, “Functions
related to survival and reproduction”). This
means we are more likely to retain information
related to safety and health.
Second, remembering involves retrieving
information from your long-term memory and bringing
it back into your short-term memory. Since this model
was developed, research by Engle (2002) and Alan
Baddley (1992, 2001, 2002) has clarified concepts
related to short-term memory, which now is called
working memory. The idea of working memory is key to
understanding how new memories are associated with
prior memories, as well as how memories are used to
assist with decision making, problem solving, and
other cognitive processes. Much like the
random-access memory (RAM) on a computer, information
is brought into working memory to become part of your
current mental consciousness. Rehearsal, or conscious
repetition, is essential to retention.
Your ability to remember information is
demonstrated in two ways. You either recognize
information that you learned in the past, or you
recall information. Recognition is easier; you are
presented with information, and you remember that
you’ve previously learned it. On the other
hand, the ability to recall information requires you
to access your long-term memory without the
presentation of specific cues.
In fact, cues are the key to retrieval, and cues
are established during the encoding process. Each
time information is brought into your working memory
and sent back to your long-term memory, new cues are
established. The process of moving information into
your working memory, consciously cogitating on it,
encoding it, and sending it back for storage in
long-term memory is called learning. Having more cues
associated with a certain piece of information makes
it easier (and faster) to remember it. Those cues are
like the tabs on folders in a filing cabinet; they
guide you directly to the required information.
Of course, information that moves in and out of
working memory and has many cues may still be
difficult to access if it’s been a long time
since those cues were established. Herman Ebbinghaus,
a pioneering researcher in verbal memory, developed a
“forgetting curve” that shows the rate of
decay of stored information. This curve has a fairly
steep drop after learning stops, but it flattens out
without dropping to the point where the memory is
totally forgotten. In other words, memories
aren’t actually lost; they just become harder
to retrieve. There is some good news here. Once
something is learned and the memories decay, it is
much easier to learn it the second time because the
original memories just need restimulation.
Although there are many more interesting facts
about how the brain creates, accesses, and uses
memories, this brief introduction to the components
of memory and the information-processing model are
sufficient to provide a foundation for understanding
several techniques to improve memory. Because the
ability to remember information effectively and
efficiently is tied most directly to the encoding
process, many of these tips relate to how the
information is organized for encoding, as well as the
environment that exists when encoding is under
way.
Tips for Encoding Information
- Encode information in a way that
makes it meaningful to you. If
you’re trying to learn the definition of a
new vocabulary word, you can look it up in the
dictionary and find the author’s words. You
will be more likely to remember the definition if
you mentally rewrite it, using your own
phraseology. You’ll improve your ability to
remember it if you create an example that
associates the word with something meaningful from
your life.
- Keep rehearsing after you think
you’ve learned the information.
The adage, “practice makes perfect,” is
true. The amount learned depends on the time spent
learning. Actually, it’s best to overlearn
critical information.
- Space rehearsals over time.
That’s why cramming for tests doesn’t
work. It’s interesting to note
that the longer the space between practice
sessions, the better the retention. Start by having
short intervals between rehearsals and gradually
increasing the intervals. You’ll transition
from active initial learning to relearning, and
your memory will improve.
- Rotate the order of the information
you’re trying to learn. All
items in a list aren’t remembered equally.
Memory research has identified a serial-position
effect; it indicates that humans remember the first
and last items better than those in the middle. If
individual items you’re trying to learn
occasionally come at the beginning and end of the
study sessions, you’ll be more likely to
remember them.
- Use as many senses as possible to
build the memory. Trainers often
comment that it’s easier to learn by doing
than by hearing or seeing. This is true because
learning by doing involves more senses. As each
sense gets involved in the learning process, it is
encoded separately and associated with the other
encoded information, providing more cues for
retrieval.
- Use mnemonic devices (memory
aids). Rhymes and jingles are two
types of memory aids. Do you still remember the
number of days in each month by mentally reciting,
“Thirty days hath September, April, June, and
November?”
Another mnemonic device involves taking the first
letters of key words and connecting them into a
summary word. For instance, the word
“CHEER” can be used to remember five
steps in active listening—concentrate, hear
completely, empathize, elicit information, and
remember.
- Chunk information into familiar,
manageable units. When learning a
telephone number, it’s easier to split it
into three sections—the area code, prefix
number, and the main number. Chunking works so well
that most humans do it naturally.
- Organize words or concepts into
hierarchical groups. Outlining
information is one method of organizing it into a
hierarchy. Think about organizing the information
that moves from the lowest level of detail to the
highest level of detail—like drilling deeper
into the topic.
Tips for Retrieving Memories
- Back into the memory.
This is called priming, and it involves connecting
with the required information through associations.
For instance, suppose you were trying to remember a
specific species of tree, and it wasn’t
coming to mind quickly. You begin by remembering
that you first encountered the tree while on a
picnic. You imagine yourself at the picnic, eating
a sandwich and sitting under the tree. You look up
and see its branches and leaves. One leaf falls off
and drifts down. You see it has five points, and
you recognize its shape as coming from a maple
tree.
- Put yourself in the context of where
you originally learned the information. If
you’re trying to remember where you put the
apple corer, stand in the kitchen and look around.
You probably will mentally go back to the last time
you put the apple corer away. This is called the
context effect. Research shows that a familiar
context stimulates memories. You can use the
context effect to improve encoding, too, by
conducting practice sessions in the same place you
expect to use the information.
- Tap into emotional
cues. Words, events, and contexts are
not the only retrieval cues. Memories are state
dependent; in other words, it’s easier to
remember something that you learned when you were
happy when you’re currently happy. The
emotions that existed become retrieval cues.
- Manage interferences.
It’s not possible (or even desirable) to
limit learning to one topic. Each practice session
is mingled among other events that affect your
memories. These interfere with your ability to
remember specific information. Researchers have
determined that forgetting is less related to decay
than to interference of new information. If you
must remember something, learn it well and practice
it close to the time you’ll use it to
minimize interferences.
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