Strategies for memory improvement

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Strategies for memory improvement

• Memory

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Introduction

• The study of memory has always been an important
  research area for cognitive psychology.
• In this slide we consider how the research into
  memory can have real world applications through
  the use of memory techniques, the section will
  also consider how these techniques can be
  explained using current psychological theory.

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The method of loci

• To remember something like the working memory
  model you imagine a journey through a familiar
  landscape or location, such as your house.
• Imagine walking into your bathroom and finding an
  executive sitting in your bath ( the central
  executive).
• In the next room there is a record player and
  your grandmother is listening to a record over
  and over again ( phonological loop), and so on.
• In each room or special location in the room
  place a piece of information.
• Practice walking around the house and you should
  recall the different pieces of information .
• Have fun with revision making up journeys.

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Chunking information

• Consider
• bbcADSTMrsvpbmx
• Difficult to learn in one go, however, if you
  chunk it, it becomes much easier.
• Watch..
• bbc, AD, STM, rsvp and bmx.

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Mnemonic techniques

• Mnemonic techniques are memory techniques used to
  help people remember information. They can be
  verbal or visual and rely on the ability of the
  mind to make associations. The more associated a
  piece of information the more likely it is to be
  remembered.
• We use these techniques when we have to recall
  large amounts of unfamiliar information, or to
  make associations between a number of things that
  are not otherwise associated.

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Verbal Mnemonics

• A variety of memory improvement techniques focus
  on words.
• An acronym is where a word sentence is formed
  from the initial letters of other words.
• e.g. ROYGBIV colours of the rainbow.
• 2. An acrostic is a poem or sentence where the
  first letter in each line or word forms the item
  to be remembered.
• My Very Easy Method just speeds up naming
  Planets.
• 3. Rhymes are groups of words 30 days have
  September, April, June and November.
• 4. Chunking involves dividing a long string of
  information into memorable chunks or bits.

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Visual imagery mnemonics

• Some mnemonic techniques are visual images.
• By combining a visual image with a piece of
  information you can remember the information by
  association.
• Try to recall you lotus car crash experiments.
• Mind mapping makes use of distinctive visual
  appearance.

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Explaining how mnemonic techniques work

• The role of organisation
• Probably the most important explanation is
  organisation.
• By organising data we establish links that help
  recall.
• Word associations and visual images create links
  or associations in the brain.
• Normally, the brain remembers new information
  through a self organising process that builds
  associations among the most naturally occurring
  fitting pieces together.
• For example, you may find that whenever you
  smell bacon it makes you salivate. This is
  because, in the past you have eaten bacon and
  enjoyed the taste, thus your brain has learned a
  link between bacon and nice taste and both now
  make you salivate.
• This is usually a time consuming process.
• Mnemonic techniques accelerate the process by
  actively linking the new information with memory
  hooks artificial constructs created specifically
  for the stated purpose.

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Organisation

• Organisation also refers to literally putting
  items in order, such as writing notes in a clear
  hierarchy.
• Its the same as trying to find things in your
  room if your room is a mess it is harder to
  find them than if you have had everything neatly
  ordered.
• Memory works in the same way, if it is organised
  you can find information much more quickly.
• The benefit of organisation was shown in a study
  by Bower at al ( 1969)

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The role of elaborative rehearsal

• A second explanation relates to the idea of
  elaborative rehearsal.
• Memory research has shown that enduring memories
  are created through the process of elaboration.
• Mnemonic techniques make us elaborate the
  information to be remembered, for example when
  creating a mind map or developing the method of
  loci.
• The amount of rehearsal is important but the
  nature of rehearsal is more important.

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Dual coding hypothesis

• Paivio ( 1971) proposed that words and images are
  processed separately, on the basis of his studies
  of patients who had damage to their temporal
  lobes and could not process images.
• According to Paivo, concrete words, which can be
  made into images, are double encoded in memory.