Strategies for Memory Improvement

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Strategies for Memory Improvement

• LO Discuss suitable ways to improve memory

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How do you remember things/revise??
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Verbal Mnemonics

• Word or sentence is formed from the initial
  letters of other words
• Acronyms (ROYGBI)
• Acrostic (poem or sentence i.e. Planets)
• Rhymes group of words with identify and rhythm
  i.e. How many days has September?

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Memorise this

• TVCIALTMSTMNASABBCITV
• 20 seconds!!

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Now try this...

• TV CIA LTM STM NASA BBC ITV
• Is it easier??
• What is this called?

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Chunking

• Postcodes
• Chase et al 1981
• One mnemonist SF managed to remember more than 80
  digits because he could give meaning to groups of
  digits due to his knowledge of running times
  though he had to practice lots!

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LOCI (visual Mnemonic)

• Identify a set of places that you can imagine
  walking through, e.g. rooms in your house.
• Number of places used depends on what needs to be
  remembered.
• Convert each item that needs remembered into a
  mental image and place it mentally in a location.
• When you are ready to recall, you imagine walking
  through the various locations you used.
• The locations act as retrieval cues because you
  already know them well.

An example WMM
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Keyword method (visual Mnemonic)

• Atkinson Raugh (1975)
• For associating bits of information i.e.
  picturing the two things together
• A (weird) example...
• Horse in Spanish is caballo pronounced
  cab-eye-yo
• Picture a horse with a giant eye on its back
• Conjuring up the visual image should help recall
  the word
• Can you think of any examples you have used?

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How do these techniques work?

• Organisation
• To improve your LTM it is helpful to create
  hierarchies to organise material into meaningful
  patterns.
• Putting items in order
• Organisation makes memories more accessable
• Bower (1969)
• asked participants to learn a list of words. The
  experimental group saw the words organised in
  conceptual hierarchies, while the control group
  saw the words presented randomly.
• In a total of four trials, participants saw 112
  words and the experimental organised group
  recalled on average 65 correctly whereas the
  control group recalled only 19 correctly.

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Conceptual Hierarchy
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Elaborative rehearsal

• The information must be made elaborated on
  making them meaningful
• e.g. linking it to pre-existing knowledge.
• Elaborated memories are easier to recall because
  several routes can be used to reach items in
  memory.
• The amount of rehearsal is important but the
  nature (elaboration) is more important!

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Narrative Chaining

• Involves linking otherwise unrelated items to one
  another (chaining) to form a story/narrative

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Page 405 Bower Clark

• Narrative chaining is useful when you want to
  remember information in a particular order

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Peg Words

• Involves memorising a rhyme that includes mental
  pegs on which you hang the material to be
  remembered
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vBwBr5URS5qw

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Your task

• Design a leaflet for year 11 students giving them
  advice on successful memory improvement and
  revision strategies.
• WHAT TO DO
• Select at least 3 strategies that you think would
  work and for each
• Explain how it works
• Apply it to a subject (e.g. you could use this
  when revising your History work by)
• Why it is a good strategy.
• Put your information together in a user-friendly
  leaflet. The best one will be distributed to my
  year 11 students.