Why We Forget and How to Remember Better, page 28
• Create sensational mnemonics. You can also use your sensations creatively to help you remember information. For example, did you just meet Barbara wearing a bright pink dress? Imagine her name written in bright pink letters to match her dress. You can also use sounds to remember information—for example, “Because I knew just what to do, I parked my car on level two,” or “If I want a beautiful rose, I must remember to water it with the hose.”
Organize, Cluster, and Chunk
Material that is organized or clustered together in a logical way is easier to remember than information that is random or ordered in a non-useful way. To use an obvious example, you’ll have a more difficult time remembering your groceries if they are ordered like this:
• Apples
• Burger rolls
• Corn (canned)
• Dental floss
• Eggs
• Frozen peas
• Green tomatoes
• Honeydew melons
• Ice cream
• Jarlsberg cheese
• Krispy Kreme donuts
• Lima beans (canned)
• Mouthwash
• Napa cabbage
than if they are clustered by category:
• Apples
• Honeydew melons
• Green tomatoes
• Napa cabbage
• Eggs
• Jarlsberg cheese
• Burger rolls
• Krispy Kreme donuts
• Corn (canned)
• Lima beans (canned)
• Frozen peas
• Ice cream
• Dental floss
• Mouthwash
Similarly, if you’re reviewing the names of your old high school friends for your upcoming reunion, try to remember them by the different groups or social circles in which you knew them, rather than the order in the yearbook.
You can also impose organization on material by chunking it. Few people can remember long unbroken lists of numbers or letters, such as the credit card number 1350246791181012. But if you break numbers or letters down into “bite-size” chunks you may find patterns that are helpful, such as odd (1 3 5), even (0 2 4 6), odd (7 9 11), even (8 10 12). You can also turn numbers into other information that may be meaningful to you and/or easier to remember. For example, this number could also be remembered as: 1/3/50 (January 3, 1950); 2/4/67 (February 4, 1967); 9/1/1810 (September 1, 1810); and 12 (December). Even turning it into two-digit numbers will make it easier, as eight numbers are easier to remember than 16: 13 50 24 67 91 18 10 12. You can also relate the chunked two-digit numbers into those you are more familiar with, such as basketball scores or perhaps baseball players’ jersey numbers. In this way you can picture the eight two-digit numbers of your credit card assigned to eight different ballplayers in the infield and outfield. We’ll also describe other ways to remember numbers in Chapter 25.
Understand
It’s almost impossible to remember details, events, or experiences if you don’t understand them. So, if you’re learning something new, make sure that you understand it well. Extract key ideas, build the ideas into a mental model, and connect the model to your prior knowledge. Giving a presentation on the material (or just preparing to) is one way to ensure that you have truly mastered it. If you’re living through an experience that you want to remember forever, think about the meaning of what is happening around you, whether it is a special celebration, an election night, or the birth of a child.
• Build from the foundations up. Remember that to understand the new material you are learning, you must first understand the prior material as a foundation. You need to crawl before you walk, master arithmetic before algebra, and understand normal physiology before the diseases that affect it. Make sure that you have mastered the basics. Once you have, work to understand how the new knowledge you are learning fits in with your prior knowledge. Reflect upon the key ideas you are learning. Think of different examples. See how these ideas and examples relate to what you already know. Continue the process of comparing and contrasting the new learning to your existing knowledge as your mastery of a topic grows, making associations as you go.
• Generate content. One way to use effort to aid your understanding when learning new information is to force yourself to generate the content in your own words. Distill the key points and say them aloud to yourself or to someone else. Follow the Latin proverb Docendo discimus, “by teaching, we learn.” Remember, when learning is harder, it’s stronger and lasts longer.
Relate—Make Associations
Making associations between the new information you are trying to remember and older information you already know is one of the most powerful memory strategies. You can also make other associations as well. For example, if you tend to lose your reading glasses and you’re setting them down on your book, try associating the two so you’ll remember. You can imagine a book made out of glass, or perhaps imagine the book wearing the glasses. Even verbally stating the association can help you to remember it later. Say aloud, “I’m putting my glasses down on my book.”
Trying to learn a new computer program or smartphone application? Think about how the electronic steps might relate to things you’re more familiar with, such as moving paper or other physical objects around and manipulating them.
If you’re trying to remember an address, try relating the street name to the number. Below are the some of the most common street names in the United States, each paired with a random number from 1 to 100. Let’s see how you can make associations to help you remember the numbers that go with them.
• 65 Park Avenue: 65 is the traditional age that being a “senior citizen” begins. You can therefore picture a white-haired senior citizen parking their car in a special “senior” spot next to the park.
• 76 Main Street: You may know the song that starts, “76 trombones led the big parade.” And you almost certainly know that the U.S. Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776. So, you can picture 76 trombones parading down Main Street during an Independence Day celebration.
• 25 Oak Street: Since 25 cents is one quarter, try picturing an oak tree, but instead of acorns, there are quarters hanging off it, and each quarter has an image of acorn on it instead of a face.
• 24 Clear Street: Maybe imagine a forest with two dozen pine trees giving way to a clearing with a house made of glass.
• 99 Washington Street: Perhaps picture a 99-year-old George Washington on his horse riding down the street.
• 54 Lake Street: If you know that 54 is considered a perfect score in golf, you can picture yourself hitting 54 golf balls into a lake.
Did you notice that most of the associations we described involve creating images? This wasn’t by accident. One of the best ways to make an association that will be remembered is to make a mental image, which brings us to one of the best ways to relate information: Create visual images.
Human beings are visual animals. We probably devote more of our brain to processing visual information than we do to processing all other types of information combined. For this reason, one of the best ways to remember information and relate it to other information is to turn it into a mental image. If you’ve just met a new colleague at work and you happen to discuss that you both enjoy swimming, picture yourself talking to them underwater—still in your work clothes—and that will help you remember that association.
Note that you can use images for both concrete and abstract information that you want to remember. Look again at the examples we used in the last section. In some, we used concrete examples, such as an image of George Washington for Washington Street, and a lake for Lake Street. But in others we took something abstract, such as the number 25 or the word “Clear,” and turned it into a visualizable item, such as a quarter or a clearing and a house made of glass.
You can also create images for abstract concepts based upon what the word sounds like if you are learning new vocabulary words in English or a foreign language. For example, to remember that jentacular means related to breakfast, you can picture your friend Jen tacking you to a large glass of orange juice (a glass so large you can barely reach the top of it). (Note that this method can also be helpful for remembering the million passwords we all need to keep track of.)
Did it seem like a lot of effort was involved to just remember that one word? That’s great! As you now know, effort is the key to memory, so anything that gets you to use effort will help you to remember. What’s that you’re saying? It’s a rather silly image you made? That’s good, too: The more silly and distinctive the image is, the more likely you will remember it.
Take Ownership of Your Learning
If you’re studying, we have every confidence that you will succeed at learning the material. Just the fact that you are taking the time to read this chapter to improve your studying skills tells us a lot about you. You are taking ownership of your learning. You want to study smarter, not just harder. You know that when you put in effort, use the techniques we describe, and are persistent, you are forming new connections in your brain that will actually improve your ability to learn the material you’re studying. In a very real sense, you are improving your intelligence for that subject.
Part of taking ownership of your learning is that you may not be satisfied by simply studying the textbook, your homework assignments, or a company’s prospectus. If these sources are sufficient for you to excel in your course, prepare for your presentation, and achieve your goals, great! But if you find these techniques are not allowing you to master the material as well as you would like or get the grade you’re looking for on the exam, you know that means you need to explore additional methods to achieve success. Studying in small groups with your classmates, attending office hours with your professor, or meeting with clients and other stakeholders may all help you to better master the material. If you thought you mastered the material but you’re being asked about it from an angle you didn’t expect, you may want to seek out additional textbooks, problem-solving books, websites, or colleagues that will give you information (and perhaps practice) from other perspectives. You and your classmates or colleagues might even have fun designing quizzes or job scenarios for each other that are as clever and devious as you can imagine to help you prepare for the next test or business meeting. Explore other ways to be successful as well.
Make It Distinctive
Distinctive things are memorable. In fact, one reason that visual images are memorable is that, just by their visual nature, they are generally distinctive. But there are many other ways that you can make the information you’re trying to remember distinctive.
• Involve the senses. As we discussed earlier in this chapter, you can use real or imagined sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and tactile feelings associated with the information to make it more distinctive and thus more memorable.
• Use humor. Silly things are distinctive. That’s one reason that many of us can remember jokes, cartoons, and silly slogans so well. One way to remember information is to turn it into something silly. Want to remember 1222 Deer Valley Drive? Picture a deer driving through a valley while waving at a dozen (12) startled hunters with .22-caliber guns.
• Imbue it with emotion. If you’re reading, listening, or watching something you want to remember, try to feel and experience the hope, joy, sadness, fear, relief, calm, or other emotion of the people in the article, feature, story, or video. Don’t just read information about a company on their website; think about how it would feel to work at that company or be a client receiving their services. As you’re memorizing vocabulary words, imagine yourself performing the action or using the object, and think about how that makes you feel. If you’re learning biochemical pathways, think about the diseases that affect people’s lives when these pathways go awry, and imagine yourself helping them as a scientist or doctor.
• Make it important to you. If you’re trying to remember the points made by a speaker at a meeting or a conference, think about how each point could be relevant in your personal or professional life. So, if you want to remember, “Begin with the end in mind,” think about a situation in your own life when you didn’t do this and you wish that you had. If you’re trying to remember your company’s 16 regional offices, think about planning a trip to each location and the city-specific activities that you would do there. If you’re trying to learn how to use a new smartphone app, imagine a specific scenario in which you’d implement the steps. (For example, “This is the button I’ll press to schedule a car to take me to my friend’s house. This is where I’ll type in his address. Then, I’ll watch this map so I know when to grab my coat and wait outside for the driver.”)
Acquire Content in the Way You Will Need to Retrieve It
It’s always easier to recall information the same way that you learned it. So, if you’re going to be interviewing for a job as a bartender and you know it is likely that they’re going to name a dozen drinks and ask you how you would make them, you’ll want to make sure that you use the drink name as the cue that triggers your memory for the ingredients—not the other way around. Similarly, if you’re going to a client meeting and you’re expected to know the data or other information inside and out, work on memorizing the material from multiple angles, so that not only can you say “Cleveland” when they ask you where their major supplier is located, but also, “that’s where your major supplier is located,” when they mention Cleveland.
To prepare for exams, don’t just study material the way it is presented in the textbook; think about how your professor is most likely to test you and study the material that way. Not sure how you will be tested? It can only be beneficial to study the material multiple ways, so that however you will be tested, you will be ready. This will also help you when you need to retrieve the material not only on an exam, but in an upper-level elective that builds upon the material or—more importantly—in your career.
Make Acronyms
One tried-and-tested memory technique that has been used to memorize everything from long speeches to anatomical terms is making acronyms. You may have grown up with Roy G. Biv to help you remember the order of the visual light spectrum (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet) or HOMES to recall the Great Lakes (Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, Superior). You can also create acronyms to help you remember your shopping list (BREAD: bread, rice, eggs, apples, dental floss), your errands (SHOP: shoemaker, hardware store, optician, pet shop), and anything else you would like to remember. Note that acronyms don’t have to be pretty; you can use SHoPP for shoemaker, hardware store, pet shop, podiatrist where the “o” has no referent and there are two P’s. The important thing is just that it serves you as a memory aid.
Choose Whether You Will Remember or Forget It
Remember that you have some control over what you will later remember and what you will forget. If you want to remember something that you just heard or saw, think to yourself, “I want to remember this information so I can tell my friend about it later,” or for whatever the reason is. That simple thought will help you remember it—and you might also want to use some of the other techniques described in this chapter.
On the other hand, there are several ways to help yourself forget information. One is to choose to rely on an external memory aid, such as writing down a password or allowing your phone or internet browser to store the password for you; this decision tags the password as something that can be forgotten.
You can also choose to extinguish a memory. To snuff out a memory, every time it pops up in your mind, consciously and deliberately attempt to extinguish the memory as you would a candle flame. Slam on the mental brakes if the details of the memory start to come back into mind, and don’t allow the reminiscence to continue. Picture the memory as a sandcastle being washed away by the waves, or a chalk drawing that you are erasing. Put some effort into this task, and use whatever metaphor seems appropriate.
Beware of Illusions of Mastery
Have you ever studied hard and thought you knew the material only to find that, when faced with the test, meeting, or presentation, you couldn’t remember the content you studied? Although there are a number of reasons this might occur, one of the most common is that you experienced the illusion that you mastered the material when you actually didn’t.
One of the most common methods of studying is to highlight or underline your textbook, notes, or company prospectus and then to study for your test, meeting, or presentation by re-reading them. Unfortunately, this is one of the worst ways to study. Although it’s important to identify the key passages in your reading—and it’s good to highlight or underline those passages—re-reading the same material doesn’t help it to get into your brain. It’s not active enough. It doesn’t take enough effort. And, not only does the material not get into your brain, because it’s easier to re-read a chapter or prospectus than to read it for the first time, you have the illusion that you know the material when you actually don’t.
So, if re-reading is not the right approach to studying, what is?
