The Art and Science of Remembering

 his week’s article summary is The Art and Science of Remembering.

I have always been fascinated by how and why we remember things. This article summary from last year focuses on the difference between episodic and semantic memories. 

Why is it that I can easily recall the theme song of Gilligan’s Island and the starting line-up of the 1967 Cardinals baseball team, but I struggle remembering Trinity parent first names?

As you’ll see in this article, remembering isn’t about how intelligent we are. Rather it’s about employing strategies that over time transfer information from working (or temporary) memory to long-term memory.

The essence of remembering is to frequently practice recalling the content over a period of time. (Proof that cramming the night before an exam doesn’t work.)

I remember the Gilligan’s Island theme song because I watched the show so often as a kid and probably sang it with my buddies and hummed it to myself on the bus to and from school. 1967 was the year I began to follow baseball and as the Cardinals won the World Series that year, their starting line-up (Lou Brock, Curt Flood, Orlando Cepeda, Julian Javier, Tim McCarver, Dal Maxvill, Mike Shannon, and Roger Maris) became my standard of a winning team.

Beyond frequent practice, pneumonic devices are an effective strategy in helping us remember a lot of information by organizing it into a concise, connected pattern. We often use pneumonic devices to help us remember things in our working memory;  for instance, when my wife asks me to pick up multiple items at the grocery store, I often create a goofy story with the 5-6 items to help me remember them. But pneumonic devices can also assist us in being able to frequently practice and recall information so it has time to ‘stick’ in long-term memory. Think of HOMES for the Great Lakes or ROYGBIV for the color order of the rainbow.

These techniques hold true in schools. As the linked article discusses, the content we learn, i.e., it’s stored in long-term memory, results from frequent practice over time like asking students to remember what was discussed the previous day, week, etc. Similarly short, periodic assessments on what’s been previously been covered helps content stick in long- term memory.

The biggest point for kids to know about remembering is that, except for a few vivid episodic memories that result from big emotional events, none of us remembers things without employing memory strategies and techniques. 

So, ideally, none of our current students when they get to college will ever have to cram for a final exam!

Joe 

-------

Cramming for the exam, repeating someone’s name: experts say they’re not that effective at solidifying a memory.

Memories don’t just happen — they’re made. In the brain,  the process involves converting working memory — things we’ve just learned — into long-term memories. Scientists have known for years that the noise of everyday life can interfere with the process of encoding information in the mind for later retrieval. Emerging evidence even suggests that forgetting isn’t. failure of memory but rather the mind’s way of clearing clutter to focus on what’s important.

Other research shows the process of imprinting memories is circular, not linear. “Every time a memory is retrieved, that memory becomes more accessible in the future,” says Purdue University psychologist Jeffrey Karpicke, who adds that only in recent years has it become clear just how vital repeated retrieval is to forming solid memories. This helps explain why people can remember an event from childhood — especially one they’ve retold many times — but can’t remember the name of someone they met yesterday.

Karpicke and colleagues have shown that practicing retrieval, such as taking multiple quizzes, is far superior in creating solid memories than doing rote memorization. Self-quizzing — with flashcards or other means — can be an effective way to solidify new knowledge into memories, but the best way is to space those quizzes out, rather than doing them all in one sitting.

One key to memorization as referenced in a TED Talk is associating the mundane with the interesting or even the bizarre. People have exceptional visual and spatial memories and the crazier, weirder, more bizarre, funnier, raunchier the image is, the more unforgettable it’s likely to be.”

Researchers have scanned the brains of World Memory Champions while they were memorizing facts and detailed images. The results showed that “superior memory was not driven by exceptional intellectual ability or structural brain differences; rather, superior memorizers used a spatial learning strategy, engaging brain regions such as the hippocampus that are critical for memory and for spatial memory in particular.” It’s not that memory champions are smarter than everyone else. They just work hard at remembering, and therefore apply more of their brains to the task.

If creating a Memory Palace seems too involved or absurd, there are simpler strategies you can try, like taking a nap or doing nothing at all for a period of time. Studies have shown that sleep is important for memory formation, and naps function just like overnight sleep.

Several studies show that sitting quietly and doing nothing — what’s called “awake quiescence” — helps people remember more. The idea is that when you learn something new, what you do next is crucial in helping you retain that information, and taking a pause might be the best choice to let the brain process new information.

The formation of new memories is not completed within seconds; rather activities engaged in for the first few minutes after learning new information really affect how well we remember this information after a week.

The ultimate takeaway is that improvements in recall may require the adoption of a process, even if it’s a conscious effort to spend some time not doing much thinking at all.