Memory and Memory Strategies

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Memory and Memory Strategies

• Presented by
• Colleen Klein
• Chris Henry

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Types of Memory

• Working Memory (a.k.a. short term memory)
• Long Term Memory

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Working Memory

• Component of memory where new information stays
  while it is mentally processed
• It is where much of our thinking, or cognitive
  processing occurs
• Does most of the work of the memory system

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Working Memory continued

• Two noteworthy characterstics
• 1. Short duration- 5 to 20 seconds
  (e.g. L. R. Peterson Peterson, 1959)
• 2. Limited capacity- works for a moment

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Long Term Memory

• Final component of human memory system
• Holds information for a relatively long time
  (day, week, year, lifetime)
• Has three characteristics-long duration,
  essentially unlimited capacity, and a rich
  network of interconnections

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Techniques to help refine our long term storage
methods for faster more accurate retrieval
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Using Rehearsal to enhance retention

• Rote rehearsal
• -simple repetition
• -cumulative repetition
• - learner rehearses the first few items
  then the next set of items and so on

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Other rehearsal strategies

• Paraphrasing
• Selecting and note taking
• Predicting
• Questioning
• Summarizing

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Chunking (grouping) to enhance retention

• Example
• 3421941621776

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Breakdown of previous number

• 342 (address)
• 1941 (year U.S. entered WWII)
• 62 (fathers age)
• 1776 (Declaration of Independence)

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Categorical Chunking

• Learner establishes various types of categories
  to help classify large amounts of information
• Example
• -similarities/differences
• -arrays (observable features like shape, size,
  etc)

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Mnemonics

• Useful for remembering unrelated information,
  patterns, or rules
• Two types-
• Rhyming
• Reduction

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Rhyming mnemonics

• Example
• Columbus sailed the ocean blue in fourteen
  hundred ninety-two
• The Spanish Armada met its fate in fifteen
  hundred and eighty-eight

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Reduction Mnemonics

• Reduce a large body of information to a shorter
  form and use a letter to represent each shortened
  piece

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Examples of reduction mnemonics

• HOMES
• Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, Superior
• BOY FANS
• Coordinating conjunctions
• But, Or, Yet, For, And, Nor, So

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One more example for the Science Guy

• King Phillip Came Over From Greece Sailing
  Vessels
• (the descending order of zoological
  classifications Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order,
  Family, Genus, Species, Variety)

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Visual Association-

• The ability to recall a word depends on how
  meaningful and concrete a word is.
• Concrete words you simply associate the word with
  what it is.
• Abstract words require you to think of a mental
  image that you would ssociate with it (ex.
  intelligenceEinstein).