How do we aim for perfect memory for examinations?
All students are faced with problems of memory and wish they had a photographic memory, but instead of wishing that, we must try and understand how the memory system works. Then maybe we could develop a sharper memory. ‘Memory’ is a label for a diverse set of cognitive capacities by which humans and perhaps other animals retain information and reconstruct past experiences, usually for present purposes. Our particular abilities to conjure up long-gone episodes of our lives are both familiar and puzzling. We remember experiences and events which are not happening now, so memory seems to differ from perception.
We remember events which really happened, so memory is unlike pure imagination. Memory seems to be a source of knowledge, or perhaps just is retained knowledge. Remembering is often suffused with emotion. It is an essential part of much reasoning. It is connected in obscure ways with dreaming. Some memories are shaped by language, others by imagery. Much of our moral life depends on the peculiar ways in which we are embedded in time. Memory goes wrong in mundane and minor, or in dramatic and disastrous ways.
How does the mind store information? What kinds of memory do people have? How easy is it for you to remember certain things? In the following experiments, you can learn something about human minds. It’s thought that humans have two major types of memory: short-term and long-term.
What makes us remember a detailed story that had occurred in the past? Why don’t we ever forget how to drive a car? How do we naturally let flow complicated phrases of long songs?
In these examples, the memory appears as a process of information retention in which our experiences are archived and then recovered when we recall them. Memory is intimately associated with learning, which is our ability to change behavior through experiences that are stored in memory. In other words, learning is the acquisition of new knowledge, and memory is the retention of this learned knowledge. There are different categories of memory -
Declarative memory (memory for facts and events), is the memory of dates, historical facts, telephone numbers, etc.
Procedural memory (memory for procedures and abilities), is the ability to drive a car, to play football, to tie your shoe strings or your tie, etc.
The memory for dates (historical or other events) is easier to build, but it is easily lost or forgotten, while the memory for skills learning might require a repetitive practice.
Did you know that every time you learn something or acquire a new experience your brain’s cells suffer a modification, and that modification will be reflected in your behavior?
For example, if you have ever walked through a street during the night and perceived that there were people looking like criminals, you would have avoided going through that street again. Or, a child who gets an electrical shock after inserting his or her finger in an outlet, will never repeat that behavior again. In these examples, the behavior was modified as a result of an experience.
Donald Hebb, from Montreal, and Jersey Konorski, from Poland, some of the major experts on the phenomenon of learning and memory in the 40′s, were the first ones to believe memory should involve changes or increases of nervous circuits.
How Does Memory Work?
Hermann Ebbinghaus a German psychologist pioneered the experimental study of
memory, and is known for his discovery of the
forgetting curve and the
spacing effect as well as his research on the
learning curve. In 1885, he vividly explained the process of memorizing. He split the memory process into
recollection, recall, recognition, and relearning.
Preparation for examinations starts with proper collection of material for examination and rearranging it in a way so that the material can be stored in short term memory, and from there gets transferred into permanent long term memory.
These four types of memory together help all people to remember anything from the states’ capitals to your best friend’s birthday party from second grade. Some researchers say that there are specific sites dedicated to memory while others say that all the brain works together.
The material should be elaborate, colourful, big, in bright striking colours and arranged in a way so that it can be recollected easily. Relearning is very important in memorizing.
Moving, coloured material is always better than still, black and white. The matter should be in the form of maps, charts, strips; aided with diagrams. The person should be well motivated to learn. Sigmund Freud, the world’s most renowned psychologist said; “We remember what we want to remember ” Memory of difficult, unwanted learnt material goes into repression. Learning should be fast and repetitive. It should be measured.
Material memorized is better remembered with introspection i.e, the meaning of the material should be well understood and its application in practical life should be paid importance. Recitation and rhyming or anything with rhythm is better remembered. Rhythm added to the material or material made in the form of poetry or song is better remembered. Probably, that’s why we tend to remember ad jingles pretty much very easily.
Using fingers, maps and diagrams makes the material more interesting and it is better remembered. Forming links is very important to remember. For example, to remember the reasons for heart failure; remember SHOES
S- SUGAR
H – HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE
O – OBESITY OR OVER EATING
E - EXERCISE (THE LACK OF IT)
S - SMOKING
What Works, What Doesn’t
While remembering in the form of poetry the last word of each line should rhyme; this is very useful in memorizing Sanskrit prayers. Unusual words are better retained. Learning motor skills is always by practice and takes longer than learning theory.
In learning motor skills, over learning is very necessary e.g in learning maps, drawing and redrawing the maps prior to exams, many times is necessary.
Memorizing is easier when a long work or a big number is broken up. While learning a picture figure or map, contents of the picture should be listed & the list learnt by heart. To learn a formula or number which is difficult, the method of chunking is used. In chunking, a sequence is broken up into several parts. The speed increases the capacity for remembering, the learning should be fast & repeatedly learnt.
Anxiety, mental tension and depression reduces the speed of learning. It also depends on the genetic IQ of the person. The material learnt eg. in a story, abstract things like ghosts should be avoided. A figure should not be in pieces, a person is better learnt if it is whole and meaningful as it provides stability and is better remembered. Students on drugs of any kind are unable to retain material efficiently.
Material learnt immediately after a night’s sleep in the morning is best remembered. Material studied just before going to sleep is also remembered as there is no retro-active inhibition i.e there is no disturbance between the material learnt and sleep. Therefore, the matter is better retained. There should not be any immediate disturbance before or after the matter is memorized.
Obliteration of memory or loss of memory of material learnt occurs the most if there is disturbance between matter learnt & examinations. Sleep after learning is found to be very beneficial as the matter goes well into the memory system. After a lesson is learnt a student is able to recall 60-65% of the learnt material; about 40% is forgotten.
After learning the material several times, 80% is retained and after repetitive memorizing up to 90-95% can be remembered. According to Galton- “Written matter is less remembered than heard or read material. Visual aids also help in learning “.
While we are always focused on learning let us also learn about forgetting. On the first day, forgetting is rapid-65% is lost in 24 hours, then there is a gradual loss and forgetting becomes slower. Forgetting occurs most for prose and nonsense syllables and then for poetry. Motor skills are forgotten with difficulty and perceptual skills are better retained than verbal memory. Meaningful words are better retained and recovery for recognition is better. Matter recognized is better retained.
Factors affecting forgetting- Forgetting depends on the strength or the depth of traces of material. Material that is over learnt is better retained. Retention is better with repeated learning. After several repeated learnings, success in learning depends on “READINESS OF RECALL”
Theories of retention & forgetting – Lapse of time makes it easier to forget the material. Disuse or not repeatedly learning or practicing a motor skill makes it difficult to remember the motor skill. Forgetting is intentional, i.e “ we forget material because we want to forget it”- According to Freud’s psychoanalytic theory forgetting is a psycho- physiological process as in old age memory becomes poor, forgetting is less if sleep comes just after the learnt material. After learning a material, a student needs to sleep at least for 8 hours.
How to improve memory?
There are many things you can do to improve your memory, among them the use of certain mental techniques, as well as special care with nutrition and medicines.
- Stimulate your memory. Use your memory to the utmost. Learn new skills. If you work in an office, learn to dance. If you are a dancer, learn to deal with a computer; if you work with sales, learn to play chess; if you are a programmer, learn to paint. This could stimulate your brain’s neural circuits to grow.
- Pay attention. Don’t try to memorize all the facts that happen, but focus your attention and concentrate in what you consider more important, avoiding all other thoughts. Exercise: take any object, as a pen, and concentrate on it. Think on its various characteristics: its material, its function, its color, its anatomy, etc. Don’t allow any other thought to occupy your mind while you are concentrating on that pen.
- Relax. It is impossible to pay attention if you are tense or nervous. Exercise: hold your breath for ten seconds, then release it slowly.
- Associate facts with images. Learn mnemonic techniques. They are a very efficient way to memorize large quantities of information.
- Visualize images. See figures with the “eyes of your mind”. Exercise: Close your eyes and imagine a big and juicy apple. Smell it and feel the smoothness of its skin. Imagine yourself cutting it with a knife, then tasting it. If your mouth is filled with saliva while you visualized this scene, then you have done good work! Do these exercises with other objects, like a bowl of vegetables an ice-cream cup, a chocolate cake anywhere, at a dental office, an examination room, etc.
- Foods. Some vitamins are essential for the proper working of memory: thiamin, folic acid, and B12 vitamin. They are found in bread and cereal, vegetable and fruits. Some experts say that synthesized vitamins improve memory, but others have doubts about this, arguing that the studies have not confirmed these nutrients do work.
- Water. Water helps maintain the memory systems working, especially in older persons. Lack of water in the body has an immediate and deep effect on memory; dehydration can cause confusion and other thought difficulties.
- Sleep. To be able to have a good memory, it is essential that we allow the brain to have enough sleep and rest. While sleeping, the brain disconnects from the senses, and proceeds to revising and storing memory. Insomnia would produce fatigue and would impair the ability to concentrate and store information.
- Medication. Some medicines can cause loss of memory: tranquilizers, muscular relaxants, sleep pills, and anti-anxiety drugs, particularly the benzodiazepines that include diazepan and lorazepan. Some medicines for the control of high blood pressure (hypertension) may cause memory problems and depression.
- Smoking and Alcohol. It is already well known that smoking lowers the amount of oxygen arriving in the brain, and this fact many times affects memory. Studies show that, when compared with non-smokers, individual smokers of one or more packs of cigarettes a day had difficulties remembering people’s faces and names in a test of visual and verbal memory. Alcohol interferes specially with short-term memory, which impairs the ability of retaining new information.
- Caffeine. Coffee and tea have a very positive effect to maintain attention and end sleepiness, but the excitation promoted by these drinks may interfere with the memory function.
- Herbal medicines. Herbal medicines made from the herb Brahmi is said to improve memory by improving central circulation to the brain.
Repression – Shameful incidents are willingly erased from memory. Material that can cause a person anxiety is willingly not remembered or forgotten.
Psychologists say that memory is also genetic; parents with good memory have children with good memory too. But remember, that there are no short cuts to success. The harder you learn, the luckier you get in examinations.
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