Improving Memory

7-19 How can you use memory research findings to do better in this course and in others?

THINKING AND MEMORY What’s the best way to retain new information? Think actively as you read. That includes rehearsing and relating ideas and making the material personally meaningful.

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Biology’s findings benefit medicine. Botany’s findings benefit agriculture. Can psychology’s research on memory benefit your performance in class and on tests? You bet! Here, for easy reference, is a summary of research-based suggestions that could help you remember information when you need it. The SQ3R—Survey, Question, Read, Retrieve, Review—study technique introduced in Chapter 1 includes several of these strategies:

Rehearse repeatedly. To master material, use distributed (spaced) practice. To learn a concept, give yourself many separate study sessions. Take advantage of life’s little intervals—riding a bus, walking across campus, waiting for class to start. New memories are weak; exercise them and they will strengthen. To memorize specific facts or figures, Thomas Landauer (2001) has advised, “rehearse the name or number you are trying to memorize, wait a few seconds, rehearse again, wait a little longer, rehearse again, then wait longer still and rehearse yet again. The waits should be as long as possible without losing the information.” Rehearsal will help you retain material. It pays to study actively.

Make the material meaningful. You can build a network of retrieval cues by taking text and class notes in your own words. You can increase retrieval cues by forming as many associations as possible. Apply the concepts to your own life. Form images. Understand and organize information. Relate the material to what you already know or have experienced. As William James (1890) suggested, “Knit each new thing on to some acquisition already there.” Restate concepts in your own words. Mindlessly repeating someone else’s words won’t supply many retrieval cues. On an exam, you may find yourself stuck when a question uses terms different from the ones you memorized.

Activate retrieval cues. Mentally re-create the situation in which your original learning occurred. Imagine returning to the same location and being in the same mood. Jog your memory by allowing one thought to cue the next.

Use mnemonic devices. Associate items with peg words. Make up a story that uses vivid images of the items. Chunk information for easier retrieval.

Minimize interference. Study before sleeping. Do not schedule back-to-back study times for topics that are likely to interfere with each other, such as Spanish and French.

Sleep more. During sleep, the brain reorganizes and consolidates information for long-term memory. Sleep deprivation disrupts this process.

Test your own knowledge, both to rehearse it and to find out what you don’t yet know. Don’t become overconfident because you can recognize information. Test your recall using the Retrieve + Remember items found throughout each chapter, and the numbered Learning Objective questions and Chapter Test questions at the end of each chapter. Outline sections on a blank page. Define the terms and concepts listed at each chapter’s end before turning back to their definitions. Take practice tests; the websites and study guides that accompany many texts, including this one, are a good source for such tests.