Firstly let me begin this section by telling you that
your memory is excellent. Yes you read correctly. I did
say excellent! What do you mean you don’t believe me?
The plain and simple fact of the matter is that it has
been proven, with the aid of such techniques as
hypnosis, that everything that an individual sees,
hears, thinks, or does in his or her life, leaves some
trace (no matter how small) somewhere in their brain.
And unless someone’s brain suffers some kind of physical
trauma – for example an haemorrhage, tumour, or some
other form of injury or disease that results in the
permanent destruction of certain regions of the brain.
Then the memories will leave some record for the rest of
their life.
Now at this point you are probably asking yourself
that, if everything that you have experienced in your
life is stored away somewhere in the depths of your
brain – then why is it that you appear to forget things?
Well there are a number of reasons why people seem to
lose memories (or forget) and the primary ones shall be
discussed in the next section. However for now, I will
offer a simplified explanation for how human memory
operates. I will do this with the aid of a simple
analogy.
Imagine if you will, that your memory is an enormous
multi-floor library. Now visualise each one of your
memories as but a single paragraph, on a single page, of
a single book, in this vast library.
In the untrained memory these books are not indexed, and
in fact they are not always placed on shelves with books
that contain similar memories. So unless you have made a
note of which floor and which row ‘specifically’ you
placed a particular book, and upon which page of that
book the required memory was written. Then finding any
piece of information in this labyrinth of shelves,
becomes a next to impossible task.
Now I would like you to consider for a few moments, a
particularly rare kind of human being. Namely someone
who possesses total recall, or to use the generic term –
a ‘photographic memory.’
There are not many such individuals around. Also, of the
few people that are gifted at birth with a photographic
memory, most loose it by the time that they reach
adulthood. But nevertheless, enough of them do exist to
carry out research with. So, going back to my library
analogy. It would seem that in a photographic memory (or
library), the books of memories are both indexed and
catalogued. Each book is also placed in a section and
sub-section, with books of similar content. As a result
of this, memories from any part of such an individual’s
life are immediately accessible to them.
Now I will be the first to admit that my analogy is
(to put it mildly), a little crude. However, it does
serve to illustrate that (as will be made abundantly
clear throughout the course of this book), an organised
memory operates far more efficiently, than does a
disorganised one!
The process of remembering
The process of memorising information can be split
into four distinct stages. These are:
- The registering of information by the five
senses – sight, hearing, smell, touch and/or taste.
- The interpretation by the brain of the impulses
that are generated by the five senses. This is what
is termed understanding.
- The temporary storage of the information in the
so-called short-term memory.
- Finally, the transfer of the information from
the short-term, to the long-term memory. This is
where a (theoretically) permanent record of the
memory is stored.
All of the above stages are important and all of them
can be used by most people far more efficiently than
they generally are. This efficiency may be accomplished
with the aid of the many mnemonic techniques, which will
be outlined in section two of this site.
The biological basis of memory
In this site, I do not intend to delve to deeply into
the biological basis for memory. The reason for this, is
that whether or not you have an exact understanding of
how your memory functions ‘biologically.’ I find it
highly improbable that this knowledge will in any way
improve your ability to recall information. Which is
after all the purpose of this site. Nevertheless, I
shall offer a brief description of how the human brain
‘physically’ processes memories.
Collectively the areas of the brain that
appear to be linked with memory are known as the limbic
system.
One of the widest held explanations of how memory operates,
is that impulses from different areas of the brain and from
the senses, enter the limbic system (situated in the central
area of the brain), and are then passed through the
mamillary body. These memory impulses then travel around the
fornix, to terminate at the hypocampus and the cingulate
gyrus.
These limbic structures are the ones that it would seem are
responsible for the recording and the retrieval of memories.
It also has been found, that damage to these structures is
the cause of many of the more acute forms of amnesia.
Learning curves
A useful phenomenon to understand as a prelude to
mnemonics, is that of learning curves. These are best
explained with the aid of a diagram.
Basically what the above diagram illustrates, is that
information studied at the beginning and at the end of a
study period, is far more readily recalled than is
information studied in the middle.
This phenomenon can be explained by the Primacy and the
Recency effects. I will now proceed to go into a little more
detail regarding the exact significance of these two
effects.
Primacy and Recency effects
It has been noted in several studies, such as those
conducted by Ley in 1972 and Ley, Bradshaw, Eaves and Walker
in 1973, that when important information is presented to
subjects at the beginning of a study period, it is far more
readily recalled than information from the middle of the
same study period.
This phenomenon, which is known as the Primacy effect, is
very useful to keep in mind when studying for exams, or when
trying to recall any large quantity of information. Other
observers have also noted that information from the end of a
particular study period is also recalled far more readily
than that from the middle. The Recency effect.
Through further research, it has been found that the optimum
period of time for memory or information formation, is the
first and last ten minutes of any study period.
From the above example learning curve and from the
previously defined Primacy and Recency effects, we may
conclude that it is better when attempting to study, to
divide your study period into several small and easily
manageable segments. Say of around about twenty minutes or
so each. These should be followed by a break of
approximately five to ten minutes. This is so that you can
allow your mind a chance to pause.
Studying in this way, you should find that you are able
to absorb more information and will be able to recollect it
far more readily than you can using more traditional
cramming techniques. By the way, the peaks in the middle of
the diagram represent information that is familiar in some
way, or that for some reason stands out from the rest of the
text being studied. This kind of information grabs the
reader’s attention, and as a result is more readily absorbed
and recalled than the information contained in the rest of
the text.
State dependent learning
A study by a psychologist called Overton in 1972, showed
that people under the influence of alcohol, could recall
events that they had experienced whilst in a similar state
of inebriation, far more readily than they could when they
were sober.
What may be concluded from this study, is that individuals
are able to recall information or events that they
experienced whilst in a certain physiological state, far
more easily when they are once again in such a state.
This also seems to be true for a number of other drugs,
besides alcohol. Such as various Amphetamines and
Barbiturates. Certain emotional states also appear to play a
role in recollection. Collectively this phenomenon is known
as ‘State dependent learning.’
State dependent learning seems to operate by providing a
context for information to be remembered in. And a number of
studies have shown that the context that we set our memories
in, is indeed very important with regards to their
subsequent retrieval.
An example of this, would be the way in which hearing a
particular song can in some cases bring forth a whole set of
memories to an individual.
This phenomenon occurs because the song is a part of the
context that the memories were recorded in. Specifically the
song in the above analogy, is a part of the ‘external
context.’ Whilst the alcohol in Overton’s study, is a part
of the ‘internal context.’
Context is the most important aspect of memory formation.
This is because it is the context that forms the chain,
which links together memories (or pieces of information),
which might otherwise seem unrelated to each other. And it
is this linking together of memories, or groups of memories,
that lies at the very heart of all of the major memory
improvement systems
Bronwyn
Ritchie's
