54 Ways to Enhance Memory
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
- Recognize and apply memory-enhancing strategies
- Recognize and apply effective study strategies
Most of us suffer from memory failures of one kind or another, and most of us would like to improve our memories so that we don’t forget where we put the car keys or, more importantly, the material we need to know for an exam. In this section, we’ll look at some ways to help you remember better, and at some strategies for more effective studying.
Memory-Enhancing Strategies
What are some everyday ways we can improve our memory, including recall? To help make sure information goes from short-term memory to long-term memory, you can use memory-enhancing strategies. One strategy is rehearsal, or the conscious repetition of information to be remembered (Craik & Watkins, 1973). Think about how you learned your multiplication tables as a child. You may recall that 6 x 6 = 36, 6 x 7 = 42, and 6 x 8 = 48. Memorizing these facts is rehearsal.
Another strategy is chunking: you organize information into manageable bits or chunks (Bodie, Powers, & Fitch-Hauser, 2006). Chunking is useful when trying to remember information like dates and phone numbers. Instead of trying to remember<PHONE_NUMBER>, you remember the number as<PHONE_NUMBER>. So, if you met an interesting person at a party and you wanted to remember his phone number, you would naturally chunk it, and you could repeat the number over and over, which is the rehearsal strategy.
Link to Learning
Try this quick activity that demonstrates a memory-enhancing strategy to learn more.
You could also enhance memory by using elaborative rehearsal: a technique in which you think about the meaning of new information and its relation to knowledge already stored in your memory (Tigner, 1999). Elaborative rehearsal involves both linking the information to knowledge already stored and repeating the information. For example, in this case, you could remember that 520 is an area code for Arizona and the person you met is from Arizona. This would help you better remember the 520 prefix. If the information is retained, it goes into long-term memory.
Mnemonic devices are memory aids that help us organize information for encoding (Figure M.25). They are especially useful when we want to recall larger bits of information such as steps, stages, phases, and parts of a system (Bellezza, 1981). Walker needs to learn the order of the planets in the solar system, but is having a hard time remembering the correct order. Walker’s friend Kelly suggests a mnemonic device that will make it easier for Walker to remember. Kelly tells Walker to simply remember the name Mr. VEM J. SUN, and they will be able to easily recall the correct order of the planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. You might use a mnemonic device to help you remember someone’s name, a mathematical formula, or the order of mathematical oper