Chapter 6. Memory: “I Studied All Night for This Exam, But I Can’t Remember a Thing!”
6.1
You spent all of last night cramming for your psychology exam. You were sure that you had learned all the necessary information after all that studying. You made it to the test on time, but you struggled to remember a lot of the material. You are frustrated and pretty sure you received a bad grade on the exam despite pulling an all-nighter.
6.2
What can you do to improve your performance on the next exam? To help you out, we’ll introduce you to some helpful study skills and help you think through the best way to use those skills. To get started, read the following paragraphs from an article in Scientific American titled “Why Testing Boosts Learning.”
6.3
Next, read the following paragraph from the same article, then answer the questions about what you have read in the first two paragraphs:
As expected, students in the practice test group were better at remembering the word pairs during a final exam a week later. But Rawson and Pyc also asked students to tell them their keywords—for instance, “bird” might serve as a bridge between wingu and cloud—and they revealed that the people in the practice test group not only remembered more of their keywords, but they were more likely to have changed their keyword before restudying the word pairs than those who had not been tested. As the researchers reported in Science last October, these results suggest that testing improves memory by strengthening keyword associations and weeding out clues that do not work.
Anderson, A. (2011, January 1). Why testing boosts learning: Getting quizzed strengthens memory-jogging keyword clues. Scientific American Mind. Retrieved from Why Testing Boosts Learning - Scientific American
6.4
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6.5
Rawson and Pyc’s research gives only one example of the ways that psychology helps us to remember the information we have learned. As you will remember from reading the memory chapter (see what we did there?), there are many ways to improve your memory when studying, which also should improve your test scores.
Some of these techniques include mnemonic devices, the method of loci, and using hierarchical structures to arrange the information in a way that makes sense to you. Perhaps most important is using effortful processing through techniques such as elaborative rehearsal. These techniques will help you to use encoding to enhance both storage and, perhaps most importantly, retrieval of the information. The figure below illustrates how elaborative rehearsal works.
Select each type of processing to see how likely it is that the memory is stored for you to retrieve later. After all, what good is it to have the information in your memory if you cannot retrieve it and use it when you need to do so, such as on your exam?
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6.6
Now that you’ve reviewed the concepts behind encoding and the retrieval of information, you want to know what steps to take so you can succeed on your next exam (and retain that information to use in future psychology classes). To get you started, watch the video below of Dr. Katherine Rawson, whose work you read about earlier in this activity.
DOCTOR KATHERINE RAWSON: Students have an immense amount of information that they're expected to learn across several different classes, but coupled with the fact that they have a limited amount of time and energy that they can spend learning the information. So the question is, what is the most effective study strategy for students to use to maximize both of those goals, to be able to learn everything they have to learn, but in the most efficient way possible? And, when I say learn everything they have to learn, ultimately, what we're shooting for is long term learning; a durable learning, acquisition of a knowledge base, and not just transient familiarity with information that then you forget shortly after you've taken an exam. So, that makes the problem even trickier, not only what is an efficient way to learn, but what's an efficient way to learn for the long term?
A common misconception that students have, or a common strategy they report using, at least, is what we refer to as cramming. That is the night before an exam, spend four hours poring over everything, and then walk in, and take your exam the next day. Actually, research suggests that that's not a bad strategy, if you are going to take your exam in a relatively short amount of time right. The problem is it's very, very bad for long term retention. You'll do OK on your exam, but you're not going to remember that information for much beyond that exam.
A better use of your time is to take the same four hours and spread it out. Say, do an hour on four different days. It's the same exact amount of time, but the payoff is huge. The advantage for memory is much greater if you spread that time out across days, rather than doing it all in one fell swoop right before an exam.
What Dr. Rawson is describing is what psychologists call distributed practice, which is much more effective than massed practice, or cramming for an exam.
Another thing that can be helpful to consider is context-dependent memory, or the encoding specificity principle. For better performance on tests, try to replicate the test-taking environment while studying—for example, study in a quiet area—and even sit in the same seat during an exam that you usually sit in during class lecture and discussion. In addition, sleep is important to learning and memory, as it increases the potential for retention for newly acquired information.
6.7
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5HziF1EZKGJwBgP/VVa+d33T1pxQMxbwYzcVMA==Using what you have learned so far about study skills and memory techniques, decide whether each of the following behaviors would be helpful or not in preparing for your next exam. Move items by dragging them to the correct location or by selecting an item and then selecting the location where it should move.
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6.8
Your next upcoming exam is your French exam, which entails lots of memorization of vocabulary and the equivalent words in the English language. Watch the following video, where Dr. Rawson explains what her research has found about techniques that may help you study for this exam.
WOMAN: The simplest way to explain our research is with respect to a very common technique that students use, namely flashcards. So the basic idea being that you use that cue on the front to try to retrieve the target information, or the definition, from memory, and then, of course, you flip the card over to check to see if what you've remembered is the right answer. Most students will report using their flashcards, going through the stack until they get an item right once. But then the question is, after you get an item right once, what should you do with it? Well most students say, well, I take it out of the stack and I stop studying it. Our research suggests that that's a mistake, that actually it is time well spent keeping items in the stack of flash cards until you've gotten an answer-- until you've correctly recalled an answer from memory at least three times. After that, there appears to be pretty rapidly diminishing benefit of going beyond three, but at least up to three. It's worth your time.
Another question is, well, how many other days should you pick that stack back up? There again, our research right now is suggesting that the answer is at least three more times. So, after your initial study session with a stack of flash cards, yeah, you should-- it's worth your time to pick that stack back up and practice again at least three more days after that first one, and ideally separated by at least a few days each time.
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6.9
One of the most important things in this activity is learning how to integrate study skills. Take a look at the infographic below, for a nice walkthrough of how to use these techniques together.
6.10
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cM3sBtSTWgSY5urBmoM1rZU0G+jySCvZmZ935g==Question
For your next psychology exam, you are still worried about whether you will remember the Atkinson-Shiffrin model of memory because it consists of so much information. Using what you have learned throughout this activity, match the study technique for this model with the appropriate stage in the infographic. Create matches by selecting the circle next to an option in the left column. Then click on the circle next to the option in the right column where you want to make the match.
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6.11
One of the most controversial issues related to memory in recent years has been concussions in sports. Nationally, concussions have been discussed in football players and other individuals who have experienced head trauma, such as female soccer players. Watch the video below to learn more about the impact of these head traumas:
MAN: And The story is that, back in April of 2010, she's a soccer player and a softball player. She headed the ball. And as soon as she headed the ball, she got a headache, felt nauseated, was unsteady on her feet.
SYDNEY URZENDOWSKI: I used to play sports, soccer and softball, at my high school. I'm going to be a senior. To be honest, I don't really remember much anymore.
My freshman year I played soccer and softball. And I don't really remember either of those seasons. So from what my coach said, there is just a hard ball that just came darting at me. I guess I headed it and I scored so that's good. But I don't really remember-- I don't remember anything, actually.
MAN: She came back to the sideline. They decided that they would hold her out and repeat the baseline test that she had. She actually had a concussion baseline test.
They repeated that and found that she didn't do as well. And she did significantly worse, in fact, than she did at her baseline. So that, plus her symptoms, they held her out.
SYDNEY URZENDOWSKI: Red flags just popped up everywhere. So they knew I had a concussion.
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uNlQDoCiuW7lHajIiEtZy2rApSKeEM4Uo3WQJ9hY8RaAQRJLbXSRfHTd9cn++BpW4e5BlwxYatp27XdyCMlj1MG6BSp2B/nnPooFWmuBEwb7zU3HSJRYs1R8YjBVTS8pcDsZ/mQ0arA=6.12
Remember the three-paragraph article about the work of Rawson and Pyc at the beginning of this activity? Please answer the following questions about it.