Part - 5
Memory Needs Every Method Of
Nurture Its Capacity
.................................................................................................…“Every day I used to wake up and see
in the mirror to remind me who am I. I used to believe that there is a world
outside my mind. The shape of the room, the color of car, and every fine detail
had some meaning and one day I realized that I was wrong. Nothing was there
outside. Everything was inside.It was my
Memory……………………………………………………..”
We have two decision making systems in our
head: Mind and Brain. Mind and Brain both have their separate memories. Mind’s
memory is called Implicit Memory. Brain’s memory is called Explicit Memory.
Let’s talk about Explicit Memory
You are sitting in a classroom learning
subjects or you are in a birthday party or travelling in bus or watching a
movie, every moment you are recording the information and storing in the
memory. Some information you immediately forget, some information you keep
remember for days and some for years all it depends upon how do you encode
information, how do you store them and how efficient you are retrieving the
information. In this article I will talk about relationship between brain and
memory and how brain encode, store and retrieve the information and by
understanding the basic system how we can improve our memory.
Memory is one of the most important aspect of
our decision making system since we are completely dependent on the information
stored in past in our memory to make decision for present. Your phone might
have 16 GB or 32 GB memory, your computer might have 360 GB memory, your
personal hard disc might have 1 TB memory but have you ever imagined, what is
the capacity of your own memory that is located in your head? No scientist
could have ever found it. Theoretically it is infinite. Your all senses
continuously capture the information even your eyes capture 1 MB data per
second so you could just estimate how much data you already have stored in your
memory.
Our five senses continuously capture the information in the form of
physical and chemical stimuli and send it to brain for encoding. Brain can
convert this information into visual form or acoustic form or semantic form or
elaborative form. It depends upon context and individuals. Encoding is very
important part and how memory will be stored is dependent upon encoding. There
are some people who have very good memory and it is due to their efficiency in
encoding the information. Below digram shows the process how brain encode the information in visual or acoustic or different format and store into Memory.
When brain has encoded the information then
it goes to next process: storing. Consider your memory a big library and there
are lots of sections. Memory is stored in a particular section and it is
decided by how did you encoded it. You all must have encoded the information
colors of rainbow as “VIBGYOR” in your memory. I normally use visual and
elaborative encoding to store information in my memory. Now the question is why
we forget the information that is stored in our memory? Is each and every
detail stored in our memory?
The Answer is No.
We don’t store each and everything in our
memory. Suppose you ask someone phone number and you those number were in your
memory for sometime but after some minutes you forget that number so how does
it happen? Basically Brain has two type of memory that are called:
- Short Term Memory (Working Memory)
- Long Term Memory
Information processed by your brain at first
stage goes to short term memory. It has very limited capacity around 7±2
elements and information stays here for some seconds to some minutes. Normally
information is stored here as audio form or visual form and it will be there
till you keep rehearsing it and after some time it will be moved to long term
memory or will be lost forever. If you want to feel your short term memory than
take any 9 digit numbers like 825763907 now exercise for you is to leave your
laptop/mobile and keep remember this number for 1 minute and check this page
again after 1 minute.
Now check this number again. So what happened
with you in last 1 minute? You were continuously speaking mentally this number
or visualizing this number after some time you will lost this number if you
could not save it into long term memory. If you were distracted in last one
minute you might have lost this number. Since short term memory has limited
capacity so as new information come it automatically delete old information. So
how information goes from short term memory to long term memory? Key is rehearsal. After rehearsal ling for some time
information goes to long term memory and stored permanently. Long term memory
is infinite and information stored there is permanent so how to check
information is stored in long term memory or not? The simple trick is if you
can recall the information after some minutes that means if has been stored in
long term memory. Now the next question must come in mind when a memory is
permanently stored in long term memory. Now the question is why we can’t recall
the information that we read in our school time ?
To know the reason for this, again imagine
your long term memory as a big library where you have placed lot of books. You
did not access some books from long time and you forget where you put the
books. Same happens with our memory. Everything we learnt in our school time or
college time is still in our memory but we have lost the connection with that
information so we are not able to recall that memory. When we keep retrieving
same information our connection with that information becomes strong but if we
don’t use the information after some time we lost connection with that
information so it is advisable for students to keep revising the lesson to keep
remembering what you have learnt. Below diagram shows how neural connection become strong with the information that is retried very frequently and connection is almost lost when information is not retrieve in the span of long time.
Research has proved that we lost 80% of
information in 24 hours so best revision is within 24 hours of learning. An individual is likely to
remember more like a list of item when rehearsal is spaced over an extended
period of time than intensive rehearsal of one time (Cramming). Even we have
lost the old information but when we get related information to the old
information we automatically retrieve the associated information. You must have
observed that when you go to old place like your old school or old home you
automatically retrieve the information related to that place easily. So if you
have forget to old information and not able to recall then go to the place or
recall related information.
Long Term Memory
Long time memory is the place where we store
all the details processed by short term memory permanently. There are four
sub-divisions in long term memory where different types of information are
stored. These four subdivisions are:
Episodic
memory
Episodic memory refers to
memory for specific events in time, as well as supporting their formation and
retrieval. Some examples of episodic memory would be remembering someone's name
and what happened at your last interaction with each other. Experiments conducted indicated that
older adults have worse episodic memories than younger
Semantic
memory
Semantic memory refers to
knowledge about factual information, such as the meaning of words. Semantic
memory is independent information such as information remembered for a test In
contrast with episodic memory, older adults and younger adults do not show much
of a difference in semantic memory
Autobiographical
memory
Autobiographical
memory refers to knowledge about events and personal
experiences from an individual's own life. Though similar to episodic
memory, it differs in that it contains only those experience which directly
pertain to the individual, from across his lifespan.
Spatial memory is the
part of memory responsible for recording information about one's environment
and its spatial orientation. For example, a person's spatial memory is required
in order to navigate around a familiar city, just as a rat's spatial memory is
needed to learn the location of food at the end of a maze
Since
explicit memory is also a physical organ so it keeps improving as we use it
extensively. Using memory means keep encoding, storing and retrieving
information. Some people have good semantic memory, some have good episodic
memory and some people like drivers have very good spatial memory.
Amnesia
Amnesia
is loss of memory. The memory can be either wholly or partially lost due to the
extent of damage that was caused. In
some cases the memory loss can extend back decades, while in others the person
may lose only a few months of memory. There are two type of amnesia:
Retrograde
amnesia: It is the inability to retrieve information
that was acquired before a particular date, usually the date of an accident or
operation. Link to used memory is lost so patient lost the old memories but there is still infinite free space in his memory so he
can still make the new memories. You might have seen in lot of movies depicting
retrograde amnesia. Some of the famous movies are The Bourne Identity, Jab tak
hai jaan etc
Anterograde
amnesia: It is the inability to
transfer new information from the short-term store
into the long-term store. That means patient keeps old memory
before accident but cannot make new memories that mean now he doesnt have any free space in his memory. His memory is full now so he is completely dependent on
his short term memory. Hollywood thriller Memento and Bollywood super hit film
Ghajini depicts the case of anterograde amnesia.
Patient
may suffer from one of the above or both type of amnesia or there may be some
different type of variation of these amnesia also like psychogenic amnesia as
it was shown in movies like The Shutter Island and The Machinist and Lacunar
amnesia that is loss of memory about one specific event. Movies based on
lacunar amnesia are “Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind”, mysterious skin
and trance
Study
of Amnesiac patient is very important to study the second type of memory that
is called implicit memory or I call it Mind’s Memory. I will talk about it in
next article.
Techniques
to Improve Memory
When we
talk about improving memory we talk about efficiently recalling the information
after long time that we had stored in our long term memory. It includes
remembering the concepts that we learnt, new words, formulas, to remember names
of person we met, to remember the telephone numbers, to remember the things we
have seen, to remember the addresses, routs, appointments etc. A better memory definitely gives you
advantage over others. There is no universally accepted method for improving
the memory and each and every one develops the technique as par their
convenience. I am sharing
you some of the common techniques:
Rehearsal: One of
the most popular technique, it means keep repeating the information. After
enough rehearsal information from short term memory is stored in long term
memory but keep repeating in fixed time interval is necessary otherwise we can
missed the link and forget the information. Best time to rehearsal is after 24
hours and then keeps repeating it after some days. There are two types of
rehearsal: 1. Maintenance rehearsal (Cramming)
2. Elaborate rehearsal.
Maintenance rehearsal consists of constantly repeating the word or phrase of
words in order to remember without knowing the meaning. Remembering a phone number is one of
the best examples of this. Maintenance rehearsal is mainly used for the
short-term ability to recall information and I don’t like this technique. With
Elaborate rehearsal, one associates old information with new information in
order to remember. An example of
elaborate rehearsal would be remembering the number 007 since it is associated
to James Bond
Method
of Loci: It is ancient Greek
technique and is very useful to remember the list of words. In this technique
we memorize the layout of some familiar building or house. When desiring to
remember a set of items we 'walks' through these building in our imagination
and commits an item to each one by forming an image between the item and any
distinguishing feature of that locus. Retrieval of items is achieved by 'walking'
through the loci. I have used this technique many times and it’s super useful.
The key point is making as weird as possible image.
Visual
Encoding: One of the best
technique and my personal favourite. In this technique we encode information in
visual in such a manner that it is related to already store memory in
pre-defined system. Like Eavesdropping that means to secretly listen of
conversation someone so I made a visual that Eva Green is secretly listening
someone conversation and dropped something and I stored this visual in memory.
Or Galenicals that means an herbal drug so I made a visual that Glem McGrath
wearing a clinical sweater selling herbal drugs. You can learn thousands of new
words by this technique. In same way we can remember numbers also. Suppose my
pin is 3504 so I can take 3 as handcuff 5 as curtain hook, 0 as football and 4
as sailing boat so remembering this I can make a visual that I am standing
handcuffed in ATM from curtain hooks there are lot of football there and a
picture of sailing boat there. This may seem funny but believe me this
technique is very powerful. Male visual as weird as you can. You can make
golden handcuff or big football. You are the king of your imagination, make
whatever you want and store. You can develop your own system and remember
mobile numbers also. I will talk in detail in some other article on this topic.
Mnemonics: Mnemonics
is a memory retention technique that aim is to translate information into a
form that the brain can retain better than its original form. Commonly
encountered mnemonics are often used for lists and in auditory form, such as short poems, acronyms, or
memorable phrases. Their use is based on the observation that the human mind
more easily remembers spatial, personal, surprising, physical, sexual,
humorous, or otherwise "relatable" information, rather than more
abstract or impersonal forms of information. Examples on Mnemonics are like you
remember VIBGYOR for seven colors of rainbow,
To
memories the names of the planets, use the planetary mnemonic: "My Very Eager Mother Just Served Us
Nothing".
The
first 15 digits of the mathematical constant pi (3.14159265358979)
can be encoded as "Now I need a drink, alcoholic of course, after the
heavy lectures involving quantum mechanics"; "Now", having 3
letters, represents the first number, 3. So
you can make your own thousands of mnemonics to remember the information.
If you find the spelling
of Mnemonics difficult then read first line of this article again. You will
never forget the spelling.
