Learning to Learn: Remembering When We Need It Part II: Memory Techniques

In my last blog on the role of memory in learning, I discussed how the brain formulates memories based on repeated exposure to sensory information in our environment and application of new knowledge in our daily lives.  In this final blog on memory, I will turn to the important subject of improving our ability to remember something when we need it.
As I discussed last time, memory is generally divided into two types: recognition and recall.  Recognition involves comparing a new experience with those previously encountered and deciding if a match exists.  Recall involves recreating a past experience from our memory bank.  The latter is obviously a more difficult task, since it requires us to not only recognize whether we have experienced something in the past, but to reconstruct it from the various locations in the brain where memories are stored.
As an example, if we see someone’s face, we can compare it to our memory and decide fairly easily if we have seen that face before.  That’s recognition.  If someone asks us to describe the face, absent an image of it, we would need to recall specific details about the shape and color of facial features that would prove much more difficult to reproduce.  That’s recall.
Regardless of the type of memory we are using, we have developed effective techniques over time to help us remember when we need to.  I will describe the most common memory techniques in detail below, but in general, memory is enhanced when we can associate something known with something unknown or something simple with something complex.
Among the most common memory techniques are the following:

• Repetition
• Chunking
• Mnemonics
• Acronyms
• Rhymes
• Associations
  • Location
  • Music/Sound
  • Visual/Color
• Note-taking
• Sharing/Teaching

I will briefly discuss each of these techniques below.

Repetition

The most effective means of remembering something is the repeated use of that memory.  The more we access a memory, the more likely we will be able to recall it when needed.  This is known as “rehearsal” in the parlance of cognitive science and translates into practice in the educational world.  If we need to memorize a passage of text or the lyrics of a song or the steps of a new dance, we know the best way is to repeat those things over and over until they become automatic, when we can recall them effortlessly. Thus, actors, singers and dancers rehearse their performances dozens of times before performing them live to ensure that they don’t forget anything.

Chunking

To increase the likelihood of remembering, it helps to break down complex knowledge into smaller, more digestible chunks of content.  The chunking technique involves grouping items, finding patterns in them, and organizing the items. You might group items on your grocery list by aisle, for example, or look for connections between events in a historical period to create chunks of them, such as events in the 1920s that involved the US economy leading up to the Great Depression.
Chunking works because research suggests that on average the human brain can only hold 5-7 different items in its working (short-term) memory at a time. By grouping information into smaller sets, we can work around the limits of our short-term memory.  You probably use it already. To share a phone number with someone, chances are you chunk the numbers so they’re easier to remember: area code (888), exchange (555) and number (4321) –rather than the more memory-intensive string: “8 8 8 5 5 5 4 3 2 1.”

Mnemonics

A mnemonic is any device used to aid our recall.  It is usually a pattern of letters, ideas, or associations that assists in remembering something.  For example, to remember the order of the planets orbiting the sun, you might have learned in grade school “My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas” (where the first letter of each word stands for Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto, respectively).  Another example from musicology is “Every Good Boy Does Fine,” which helps remember the lines of the treble clef in music (EGBDF).
Mnemonics work because they rely on simplification through chunking and association.  In the examples above, instead of memorizing five to nine separate items, we only need to remember one phrase, which we can associate with something we already know.  This lessens the burden of recalling specific details.

Acronyms

An acronym is an abbreviation formed from the initial letters of other words and is usually pronounced as a word (e.g. NASA, RADAR, ADDIE).  As such, acronyms are a special form of mnemonics that have proven valuable in our increasingly complex world.  We have created thousands of acronyms in various specialized fields to help people remember and communicate these concepts more easily.  When I first started working in the utility industry, as an example, my employer provided me with a document that listed over 100 pages of common acronyms unique to their electric utility.  Although the list seemed overwhelming at first, it didn’t take long before I was using common acronyms like kW (kilowatt) and kVA (kilovolt ampere) like an old pro.

Associations

A wide variety of the best memory techniques involve association.  This means connecting a new item we want to remember with an old familiar item that we already remember well.  The associations might involve locations, rhymes, music, visuals, colors or numbers.  The important thing is that the familiar thing we already know helps us to remember the unfamiliar.

Location: Create a Memory Palace

“The number one technique that we top memory athletes use is still and will always be the memory palace. If someone were to learn one thing, it should be that.”– Nelson Dellis, four-time USA Memory Champion.
The memory palace is a mnemonic device that’s as tried-and-true as it gets. Originally invented by orators in ancient Roman and Greek times, the memory palace (or mind palace or “method of loci”) technique is both effective and enjoyable to use, whether you’re trying to remember a speech you have to give, details of a project you’re working on, or your grocery list.
With the memory palace technique, you associate a location you’re familiar with–such as your apartment, the block you grew up on, or the route you take to work or school–with the items you’re trying to remember. It works because you’re visually pegging (or “placing”) representations of what you want to remember in places where you already have strong memories and easy recall.
To use the memory palace technique, follow these steps:

 1. Imagine yourself standing in your memory palace. Your home is a great one to start with, even if it’s not a palace.

 2. Mentally walk through this palace, noticing distinctive features you can use to store things you want to remember. Each stop on that path is a “loci” you can peg an idea or object to. For example, your front door might be one loci, the table in your foyer a second loci, a lamp in your living room another. Commit those features to memory so when you think of your palace, the route and objects in it will be imprinted in your mind.

 3. Associate what you need to remember with the loci in your palace. If you had a grocery list, for example, at the front door you could picture milk flooding over the door from the inside, like a waterfall of milk. Then you get to the foyer and the table is buckling under the weight of all the chocolate chip cookies stacked on it to the ceiling. And instead of a lightbulb in your living room lamp, you see fluorescent yellow bananas.

It sounds pretty absurd at first, but the more visual, animated, and outrageous you can make your memories, the better you will be at remembering them.  That’s because we are hard-wired to pay attention to the novel and interesting things around us, but not to the mundane and boring.

Music/Sound

Another key type of memory association is with sound.  Music is memorable because it provides a structure for information and encourages repetition through rhythm. It’s a lot easier to remember a catchy song than it is to remember a long string of words or numbers.  That’s why advertisers often use jingles to make their messages stick in our heads.  You probably learned the alphabet through the ABC song.  If we can connect a new bit of knowledge to a piece of music, we will think of one whenever we think of the other.

Rhymes

Perhaps you’re familiar with the rhyme that starts with “30 days hath September, April, June, and November”? Rhymes help us remember because when the end of every line rhymes, it creates a song-like pattern that’s easy to remember.
A specialized form of rhyming is acrostic.  This is a poem in which the first letter of each line spells out a word.  These are easy to remember once you remember the word that the lines represent. An example is Nat King Cole’s classic L-O-V-E:
L is for the way you look at me
O is for the only one I see
V is very, very extraordinary
E is even more than anyone that you adore
Another specialized mnemonic is the Rhyming Peg System, invented in England in the 18^th century.  It involves associating numbers with images of the items you wish to remember.   You probably remember the nursery rhyme:
One, two
Buckle my shoe
Three, four
Shut the door
Five, six
Pick up sticks
Seven, eight
Shut the gate
By using the well-known numbers 1 to 10, we can associate rhyming words to memorize a list of items using the “peg system” (also known as the “hook system”). In this system, for each number, you memorize an image of a word that rhymes with it. That image provides a “hook” or “peg” for things you want to remember, especially in order.  Once you memorize the pegs for each number, you use imagery to associate the item you want to remember with a number.
 

Visualization/Color

Visualization is another key trigger when it comes to memory. Names and numbers are hard to remember because they’re abstract and our brains can’t easily attach meaning to them. But our brains store and recall images much more easily.   Many visual tricks abound to aid memory and recall.  Here are a few of the best:
Turn the sound of names into images:
You meet a stranger who says, “Hi, I’m Mike,” and you say, “Hi, I’m ___.”  Suddenly, moments later – poof –you’ve forgotten his name, because you haven’t really associated that word with anything about that person.  It becomes a fleeting blip in your short-term memory, never to be recalled. You need to connect “Mike” to something more if you want to remember it.
First, if you repeat a person’s name upon introduction, you have at least recorded it in your short-term memory.  Producing the sound “Mike” helps us remember it.  But one repetition is usually insufficient.  Using sound to associate with an image makes it more memorable because we are using more sensory memory to recreate it. In the case of “Mike,” picture a microphone.  When you next see Mike, simply recall the image of a mic and his name pops right into your short-term memory.
Animated imagery:
The more animated and vivid you can make your imagery, the better. Doing this creates stronger, novel connections in your brain between that item and the image. In the example above, imagining Mike standing at a mic and delivering a speech makes the image that much more vivid and memorable.

Note-taking

Back in school, we learned to take notes for two reasons: first, it was going to be on the final exam and second, it would help us remember what the teacher said.  It turns out handwriting notes is preferable to using your laptop when it comes to memory. First, the physical act of writing stimulates cells at the base of your brain, called the reticular activating system (RAS). When the RAS is triggered, your brain pays more attention to what you’re doing at the moment. When you’re writing by hand, your brain is more active in forming each letter, compared to typing on a keyboard where each letter is represented by identical keys.  Because people tend to type faster when taking notes on their laptops, they tend to transcribe lectures verbatim, without much attention to the individual words.
Although note-taking has advantages, there’s also a downside – cognitive overload.  Since we must use precious working memory to take notes, while simultaneously using the same working memory to listen and comprehend a lecture, we cannot possibly keep up both tasks.  So, when taking notes by hand, we tend to reframe the information in our own words–a more active kind of learning that promotes better recall.
Perhaps even better than text-based notes are mind maps.  These combine the visual element with handwritten words and thus helping us create associations that aid in remembering.

Sharing/Teaching

Finally, we remember best what we do.  According to an old adage, “the best way to learn something is to teach it.” This is known as the The Protégé Effect.  Through preparation and presentation of knowledge, the teacher becomes the master of that body of knowledge.  This occurs through several mechanisms, including increased use of metacognition strategies, greater effort on the part of the person due to peer pressure to perform and greater attention to the needs of learners and desire to serve them well.
Though few are naturally gifted with photographic memories, we can all benefit from using the memory techniques outlined above.  Besides improving our memories, we can also enjoy a more satisfying and impactful life.

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Tagged as learning to learn, memory techniques