Methods to enhance your memory

All of us desire to possess an excellent memory system that is robust and dependable. Who, after all, likes to face situations of memory failures that lead to so much of anxiety and embarrassment? All of us certainly would like to know how your memory can be improved. There are a number of strategies for improving memory called mnemonics (pronounced ni-mo-nicks) to help you improve your memory. Some of these mnemonics involve use of images whereas others emphasise self-induced organisation of learned information.

Mnemonics using Images

This technique require that you create vivid and interacting images of and around the material you wish to remember. The two prominent mnemonic devices, which make interesting use of images, are the keyword method and the method of loci.

• The Keyword Method : Suppose you want to learn words of any foreign language. In keyword method, an English word (the assumption here is that you know English language) that sounds similar to the word of a foreign language is identified. This English word will function as the keyword. For example, if you want to remember the Spanish word for duck which is ‘Pato’, you may choose ‘pot’ as the keyword and then evoke images of keyword and the target word (the Spanish word you want to remember) and imagine them as interacting. You might, in this case, imagine a duck in a pot full of water. This method of learning words of a foreign language is much superior compared to any kind of rote memorization.
• The Method of Loci : In order to use the method of loci, items you want to remember are placed as objects arranged in a physical space in the form of visual images. This method is particularly helpful in remembering items in a serial order. It requires that you first visualise objects/places that you know well in a specific sequence, imagine the objects you want to remember and associate them one by one to the physical locations. For example, suppose you want to remember bread, eggs, tomatoes, and soap on your way to the market, you may visualise a loaf of bread and eggs placed in your kitchen, tomatoes kept on a table and soap in the bathroom. When you enter the market all you need to do is to take a mental walk along the route from your kitchen to the bathroom recalling all the items of your shopping list in a sequence.

Mnemonics using Organisation

Organisation refers to imposing certain order on the material you want to remember. Mnemonics of this kind are helpful because the framework you create while organisation makes the retrieval task fairly easy.

• Chunking : This technique can increase the capacity of short-term memory. In chunking, several smaller units are combined to form large chunks. For creating chunks, it is important to discover some organisation principles, which can link smaller units. Therefore, apart from being a control mechanism to increase the capacity of short-term memory, chunking can be used to improve memory as well.
• First Letter Technique : In order to employ the first letter technique, you need to pick up the first letter of each word you want to remember and arrange them to form another word or a sentence. For example, colours of a rainbow are remembered in this way (VIBGYOR- that stands for Violet, Indigo, Blue, Green, Yellow, Orange and Red).

Mnemonic strategies for memory enhancement are too simplistic and perhaps underestimate complexities of memory tasks and difficulties people experience while memorising. In place of mnemonics, a more comprehensive approach to memory improvement has been suggested by many psychologists. In such an approach, emphasis is laid on applying knowledge about memory processes to the task of memory improvement.

Suggestions to improve memory:

• Engage in Deep Level Processing : If you want to memorise any information well, engage in deep level processing. Deep processing would involve asking as many questions related to the information as possible, considering its meaning and examining its relationships to the facts you already know. In this way, the new information will become a part of your existing knowledge framework and the chances that it will be remembered are increased.
• Minimize Interference : Interference, as we have read, is a major cause of forgetting and therefore you should try to avoid it as much as possible. You know that maximum interference is caused when very similar materials are learned in a sequence. Avoid this. Arrange your study in such a way that you do not learn similar subjects one after the other. Instead, pick up some other subject unrelated to the previous one. If that is not possible, distribute your learning/practice. This means giving yourself intermittent rest periods while studying to minimise interference.
• Give Yourself enough Retrieval Cues : While you learn something, think of retrieval cues inherent in your study material. Identify them and link parts of the study material to these cues. Cues will be easier to remember compared to the entire content and the links you have created between cues and the content will facilitate the retrieval process. Thomas and Robinson have developed another strategy to help students in remembering more which they called the methods of PQRST. This acronym stands for Preview, Question, Read, Self-recitation, and Test.
  • Preview refers to giving a cursory look at the chapter and familiarising oneself with its contents.
  • Question means raising questions and seeking answers from the lesson.
  • Now start reading and look for answers of questions you had raised.
  • After reading try to rewrite what you have read and at the end test how much you have been able to understand.
  • At the end, a note of caution must be sounded. There is no one method that can solve all problems related to retention and bring about an overnight memory improvement.

In order to improve your memory, you need to attend to a wide variety of factors which affect your memory such as your health status, your interest and motivation, your familiarity with the subject matter and so on. In addition, you must learn to use strategies for memory improvement depending upon the nature of memory tasks you are required to accomplish.