How to improve memory? It’s been a curious question rush into the head of a myriad of people. They read blogs, watch videos on different platforms to satisfy their urges, take different classes, and buy different courses, in the hope of improving their memory. Some may get results out of it as human efforts never go in vain, a person learns something out of something.
Hi dear friends, I think first we need to understand memory types, and how it processes. And if you want to read the memory improvements point directly then you can just scroll it down and read them but I suggest you read the memory failure before jumping to the improvements points.
Cognitive psychologists used a framework called the “Information processing model” to spell out and represent the mental process. They believe that human brains work just like computers. It takes information in from different senses, properly organizes it, and retrieves a particular memory when needed but human brains can’t recall something picture-perfect as we change memories in small ways according to our mood, goals & environment.
We take information in our brain through our senses like seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, and smelling which is why they are known as sensory memory or often known as sensory register. The information goes to the working memory which is also known as short-term memory. It is not defined by time but by quantity. Working memory has two separate parts named Visual-spatial memory where pictures and maps are processed and the second phonological loop where words and numbers are processed.
How brain processes verbal and visual information altogether? This is where the Central executive comes into the picture, It plays a major role and processes both verbal and visual memory and transfers the information to the episodic buffer which works as a connector to long-term memory.
Long-term memory is unlimited. There are two types of long-term memory, Explicit memory is also known as declarative and Implicit memory is also known as non-declarative memory. First, Explicit memory covers semantic memory – Facts and events are clearly described (e.g., vocabulary, math, science or state capital) and episodic memory – It refers to memory coming from events (e.g., Birthday, wedding or any party, old memories of school, etc.). Second, Implicit memory- Involves the memory that you cannot articulate. It also covers two memories, Procedural memory- Like riding a bike, wearing a watch, riding a horse, etc. Priming memory – Recent experience stayed in the memory and influenced behavior (e.g., a kid sees a candy in a black car, the kid might be looking for a candy when he/she will see a car next time again)
You must have worked on your nutrition, sleep pattern, meditation, music therapy, relaxation techniques, and the list goes on. Why are you reading my blog? Are you going to get something different here? How this blog is different? Let’s start it but before talking about improving memory, I am going to talk about “why we fail to retrieve from memory?” even though we know about a piece of the information. Why do we fail to recall it?
Let’s dive into the details:
1. Transience– It’s a retrieval failure due to time
First, you attend a 45 minutes lecture on a specific subject and with time you will forget it. It will fade away slowly day by day if you do not revise it. Secondly, if you cram topics a night before the examination you will surely mix up the description of different topics with one another, and it leads to confusion because your brain needs time to process any information and sends it to the long-term memory, and whenever you try to recall something you engage your long-term memory and asks it to send particular information to your short-term memory. How come your brain recalls something which is not in the long-term memory, if it’s not there then how can it transfer it to short-term memory? It’s where you fail to recall and then you start blaming your memory.
2. Absentmindedness– Failure of attention, not a memory failure
You are sitting in a restaurant with your friends, and you all left after some time. When you reach your apartment you remember that you left the keys on the table of the restaurant. You forget the object and you remember it later. It’s not like you lost the memory, It’s simple you failed to retrieve it on time. It’s not that your memory is weak. There is an amazing way to reduce the effect of absentmindedness which is prospective memory- Future memory, It’s the memory for the future and I am sure you must have used it in the past. Isn’t it strange remembering things that have not happened yet? For instance, tomorrow you have to return a book to your friend that you borrowed a few days back. Either you will put it in the bag or you will put your vehicle’s key on the book. So, you won’t forget the book and it will catch your attention when you leave tomorrow even though you will be in rush for whatsoever reason.
3. Blocking– Temporary inability to retrieve a memory. We can also name it the “Tip of the tongue phenomenon
We encoded information properly and it is stored properly in our long-term memory. We just cannot recall/retrieve it at the moment. You are sure that you have a particular memory but you can’t access it when you needed it. We often say it was right on the tip of my tongue but I can’t say it. Why does this happen a myriad of times? It happens with memories that we have that we do not access frequently. We do not retrieve it very often. You have to put effort to bring that memory from long-term memory to short-term or working memory. It usually happens with infrequently accessed memory. If I wanted to put you in the tip of the tongue phenomenon, you probably have the memory but you probably have not thought about it for a very long time, for instance, if you met a class fellow after 12-15 years, you recognize him/her but you can’t remember the name.
4. Misattribution– Incorrectly identify memory source
Sometimes we do not correctly identify the source of our memory even though we may have accurate memory. We don’t usually remember where our memories come from you have probably experienced it, If you narrate an incident to your peer and asked did you hear about it and your peer reminds you that I told it to you over a call a few days back. So, you have a memory for the story you just do not remember where that memory came from. Lack of factual knowledge leads to failure in retrieving the source of that particular piece of information like where did you get that information? You think I read somewhere, or someone told me or I must have watched a video somewhere. You failed to recall the information’s source and does the false recognition. Deja vu- the present experience that happened before and cryptomnesia- You sometimes think of memory as an original idea that also happens with people. Eyewitness testimony is greatly affected by misattribution and you can read this article for a better understanding of misattribution click here.
5. Suggestibility– External information influences a memory
Our memories are pliable which means external information that’s not a part of memory can change that memory. Our memory is influenced by external information. This can be easily understood by the study conducted by Loftus and Palmer you can read this article for a better understanding click here.
6. Bias– A strong feeling in favor or against an individual/group
There are different kinds of biases we have let’s talk about egocentric bias- People tend to remember good deeds and things about themselves but they forget their bad deeds/things. We recall our positives and failed at negatives. Let’s rewind a clock a few years back and recall what kind of grades you got in college or school. Let’s move towards consistency bias- We think we are as same as we were in past in terms of thinking or opinion but that’s completely wrong. Today you are not like you were in your 20s or 30s or 40s, etc.
7. Persistence– Memories are frequently recalled
This happens when memories are frequently recalled especially traumatic negative emotional memories. Those who have been through these negative experiences in life cannot stop these thoughts hammering their mind, these memories keep haunting them. This is seen in disorders like PTSD (Post-traumatic stress disorder) in this case, we can generally see such experience with a military person who had been on a mission where he experienced traumatic negative emotions or a normal person who had been through such kinds of emotions. You will get the idea if you have watched the movie American sniper. If you didn’t watch it then do watch it to get the idea.
Now, we have a better understanding that how we fail to retrieve a memory and it’s good to know that we do not have poor memory, it’s just a failure to recall. After taking this burden off your chest we can learn how to improve memory with ease:
1. Organization– Chunking and structural information
Chunking- putting pieces of information into different meaningful groups. It is something that we do in our day-to-day life. For instance, you got a list from your family to buy a few things from a market and the list contains rice, baked beans, red lentils, yellow lentils, garden peas, kidney beans, sugar, tea, coffee, bread, spices, wire, electric tape, hammer, screwdriver, chisel, knives, measuring cups, etc. Now if you read the list you have grocery items, tools, and kitchen items. What did you do, you just separated the list and chunked it, and categorized it in a structural way to remember it properly that you have to purchase 11 grocery items, 5 tools, and 2 kitchen items. You must have encountered one situation where you remember the first and last few items on the list. When you remember the first few items it’s called the primacy effect and when you remember the last few items it’s called the recency effect and the items you forget in the middle it’s known as the serial position effect.
2. Testing effect– Testing is more effective than reviewing
There is a myriad of students who will not like this idea but it works wonderfully which is testing yourself on the subject, topic, or any material you studied instead of just reviewing it. Testing yourself on the material will help you to recall it better than simply reviewing it.
3. Overlearning– Review known information frequently
Overlearning simply focuses on reviewing information even after you remember it which will help you to recall it easily. Why would you review something that you already remember isn’t it inefficient? In a way, it’s way more efficient because when you learn something new you can easily connect it with your previous knowledge and make sense of it, and helps to learn new information faster. Ok, let’s remember our college/school teacher, How they can easily answer almost every relevant question about the subject? Because overlearn a subject year by year while teaching students helps teachers to remember and recall almost every terminology easily. Reviewing also helps you to score well on tests and tests help you to work on your loopholes.
4. Level of processing– How well you process any information
This includes the deep level of processing- The word itself reveals that a piece of information must be processed deeply. Whenever you process something deeply you make it a part of your knowledge rather than just an isolated fact. What do you do?- You reflect upon it, consider it, and connect it with your previous knowledge to give meaning then later it becomes a part of your knowledge. Second, comes the self-referential effect- You try to connect a piece of information with yourself or with your life’s events in short a sense of self. For instance, you learned any theory and you think that how this theory applied to me? After learning it you reflect upon your past. ok, this thing happened to me and ok this makes such and such sense or how it’s going to apply right now or maybe in the future. You can go back and read the memory failures that you had been doing yourself, you would surely relate.
5. Retrieval cues– A memory can activate other memories
There is a network of memories connected and when you recall a memory the other memories get activated automatically. You must have gone trekking, a famous bike ride of Leh-Ladakh it can be anything. If I remember the single word trekking, it activates all the other memories like how we packed for it, how did we travel to the base camp, how did we reach our first destination, and finally how I fell from a mountain or if we talk about Leh-Ladakh bike ride then it triggers other memories like how we prepared for it then bought first aid kit with essential medicines and other stuff for riding, how I cooked one night for 10 people on a mountain, etc. So, what happened here one memory of trekking or riding triggered a myriad of other memories. Why I remember it even after so many years because it’s connected to the network of other memories. How you can use it? Make as many connections as you can, you do not want to learn an isolated word that would be hard to recall because it’s not connected to any of the present memories.
6. Sleep– Get sufficient sleep
You better know it than me. So, I will skip this part that why sleep is important and how it plays a vital role in memory. In short, just get enough sleep to let your brain function properly.
7. Mnemonic Devices/strategies– A memory aid
There is a myriad of ways by which we recall and retrieve any information. These are the memory aids that help you link what you are trying to learn. Mnemonic devices type:
- Imagery– You use this device already. It refers to creating a vivid mental picture of whatever it is you are trying to remember. Let’s get back to the list we discussed in the first point of tools. You imagine an engineer is standing in a store with a wire bundle hung on his shoulder with an electric tape in his right hand along with a screwdriver in the left hand, A hammer is coming out from his front pocket and a chisel is half-visible from the right pocket of his pants. It can be any weird story that you can come up with. The next two devices are good if you want to remember something in sequence/order. They are Peg-word and Method of loci both are involved in making anchors and linking your new information to those anchors along a specific path.
- Peg-word system– It is more verbal anchors. You start with words that rhyme with numbers like 1 is a gun, 2 is a cue, 3 is free, and so forth, and so on and you will have that setlist. You can combine imagery with a peg-word system and create your own story to remember items in order. The more mnemonic techniques you can use, the more encoding techniques overall, and the greater the likelihood that you will remember this information later.
- Method of loci– It is the same as a peg-word system but it involves using locations instead of verbal anchors. So, if you are familiar with any route and you know it better then you can tie the information that you need to remember to certain stops along that route. It’s crazy but it helps a lot. Let’s get back to our list and put it here. A red bus stops at 50th street and a rice bag boards the bus and sits next to baked beans at Tenth avenue red and yellow lentils get down from the bus, Garden peas board the bus from 65th street, and so on. This is how you can combine items with your known route or location. It could be your home, apartment, society, bus route, train route, etc.
- Acronym– One letter of a familiar word stands for the first letter of the new information. A really popular one is the acronym “HOMES” for the great lakes in the US. H stands for Huron, O stands for Ontario, M stands for Michigan, E stands for Erie and S stands for superior.
- Self-referencing– This is when you process the new information and how it relates to you personally. If you want to learn something about history, you might imagine yourself talking to the general, marching into battle with the troops, or anything about how the information related to you and how you could use it. It involves a great deal of deep processing and you will be able to retain that information. For instance, I take myself as a part of the United States history and it goes like this I was born on July 4, 1776, when the declaration of independence was issued, and after 13 years of my birth, the judiciary act of 1789 established the entire federal judiciary, at the age of 27 the Louisiana purchase from Napolean in 1803, etc. I hope you get the idea you can be your favorite character in history and can form any story which will help you to retrieve particular information.
- Spacing– Structuring the studying, means you must spread out your study sessions over time rather than cramming them all into one massive study session. Researchers found that if you divide the study hours every day instead of studying all in one go will improve your recall.
Note: A thing to remember is that the more you review and use memory improvement techniques, and what you learned, the more you will concrete that memory and that’s not easy to forget and easy to recall when needed which is also known as distributed review. You do not want to cram/massed practice something and fail to recall when needed.
I hope this blog will help you to memorize information better and if it does and you find it helpful and someone in need then do share it with others. You can also read other blogs by clicking here.
Thanks for taking out time and read it till the end.
God bless you and have an amazing memory.
Great