>> Closing ThoughtsHuman memory is at once both perfectly ordinary and quite extraordinary. Withnext to no mental effort, you form and recall countless memories as you go throughdaily life. Psychologists have made enormous progress in explaining how thosememories are encoded, stored, retrieved, and forgotten.

Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of human memory is its fallibility. Memory issurprisingly susceptible to errors and distortions. Under some conditions, com-pletely false memories can be experienced, such as Elizabeth Loftus’s memory ofdiscovering her mother’s body in the swimming pool. Such false memories can beso subjectively compelling that they feel like authentic memories, yet confidence ina memory is not proof of the memory’s truth.

Many mysteries of human memory remain, including exactly how memories arestored in and retrieved from the brain. Nevertheless, reliable ways of improvingmemory in everyday life have been discovered. In the Application we provide sev-eral suggestions to enhance your memory for new information.

284 CHAPTER 6 Memory

APPLICATION

Superpower Memory in Minutes per Day!

Yes, that’s what many memory self-help programs promise you.But after you cut through all the hype, what are you left with?Mostly what we’re going to give you in this application—somewell-established and effective but less-than-magical strategies tohelp boost your memory for important information.

1. Focus your attention.Problems in absorbing new information arise when distractingthoughts, background noise, and other interruptions sidetrackyour attention. Television is one common culprit (Armstrong &Sopory, 1997). Rather than studying in front of the tube, locatea quiet study space that’s free from distractions so you can focusyour attention. If distracting thoughts are competing for your at-tention, start your study session by reading aloud part of whatyou need to study.

2. Commit the necessary time.The more time you spend learning material, the better you willunderstand it and the longer you will remember it. Budgetenough time to read the assigned material carefully. If you readmaterial faster than you can comprehend it, you not only won’tunderstand the material, you also won’t remember it.

3. Space your study sessions.Distributed practice means that you learn information over sev-eral sessions, which gives you time to mentally process and in-corporate the information (Son, 2004). Students who take thedistributed-practice approach to learning retain significantlymore information than students who use cramming, or massedpractice (Rohrer & Taylor, 2006).4. Organize the information.We have a strong natural tendency to organize information inlong-term memory into categories. You can capitalize on thistendency by actively organizing information you want to remem-ber. One way to accomplish this is by outlining chapters or yourlecture notes. Use the chapter headings and subheadings as cat-egories, or, better yet, create your own categories. Under eachcategory, list and describe the relevant terms, concepts, and

ideas. This strategy can double the amount of information youcan recall.

5. Elaborate on the material.You’ve probably noticed that virtually every term or concept inthis text is formally defined in just a sentence or two. But we alsospend a paragraph or more explaining what the concept means.In order to remember the information you read, you have to dothe same thing—engage in elaborative rehearsal and activelyprocess the information for meaning (see page 253). Activelyquestion new information and think about its implications. Formmemory associations by relating the material to what you alreadyknow. Try to come up with examples that relate to your own life.

6. Use visual imagery.Two memory codes are better than one (Paivio, 1986). Ratherthan merely encoding the information verbally, use mental im-agery (Carretti & others, 2007; Sadoski, 2005). Much of the in-formation in this text easily lends itself to visual imagery. Use thephotographs and other illustrations to help form visual memoriesof the information. A simple way to make text information visu-ally distinct is to highlight different concepts in different colors.

7. Use a mnemonic device.A mnemonic device is a method or strategy to aid memory.Some of the most effective mnemonic devices use visual im-agery. For example, the method of loci is a mnemonic device inwhich you remember items by visualizing them at specific loca-tions in a familiar setting, such as the different rooms in yourhouse or at specific locations on your way to work or school. Torecall the items, mentally revisit the locations and imagine thespecific item at that location.

Another mnemonic that involves creating visual associations isthe peg-word method. First, you learn an easily remembered listcontaining the peg words, such as: 1 is bun, 2 is shoe, 3 is tree,4 is door, 5 is hive, 6 is sticks, 7 is heaven, 8 is gate, 9 is vine, 10is a hen, and you can keep going as needed. Then, you create avivid mental image associating the first item you want to remem-ber with the first peg word, the next item with the next peg

CHAPTERREVIEW MEMORY

Key Points

Introduction: What Is Memory?

• Memory refers to the mental processes that enable us to acquire,retain, and retrieve information. Key memory processes are en-coding, storage, and retrieval.

The Stage Model of Memory

• The stage model of memory describes human memory as theprocess of transferring information from one memory stage toanother. The three stages of memory are sensory memory, short-term memory, and long-term memory.

word, and so on. To recall the list, use each successive peg wordto help retrieve the mental image.

8. Explain it to a friend.After you read a section of material, stop and summarize whatyou have read in your own words. When you think you under-stand it, try explaining the information to a friend or family mem-ber. As you’ll quickly discover, it’s hard to explain material thatyou don’t really understand! Memory research has shown thatexplaining new material in your own words forces you to inte-grate the new information into your existing knowledge base—an excellent way to solidify new information in your memory(Kornell, 2008).

9. Reduce interference within a topic.If you occasionally confuse related terms and concepts, it may bebecause you’re experiencing interference in your memories forsimilar information. To minimize memory interference for relatedinformation, first break the chapter into manageable sections,then learn the key information one section at a time. As you en-counter new concepts, compare them with previously learnedconcepts, looking for differences and similarities. By building dis-tinct memories for important information as you progressthrough a topic, you’re more likely to distinguish between con-cepts so they don’t get confused in your memory.

10. Counteract the serial position effect.The serial position effect is our tendency to remember informa-tion at the beginning and end of a sequence. To counteract it,

spend extra time with the information that falls in the middle.Once you’ve mastered a sequence of material, start at a differ-ent point each time you review the information.

11. Use contextual cues to jog memories.Ideally, study in the setting in which you’re going to be tested. Ifthat’s not possible, when you’re taking a test and a specificmemory gets blocked, imagine that your books and notes are infront of you and that you’re sitting where you normally study.Simply imagining the surroundings where you learned the mate-rial can help jog those memories.

12. Sleep on it to help consolidate those memories.It’s been shown that sleep helps consolidate new memories.(Don’t try this as an excuse in class.) Non-REM sleep (nondream-ing) seems to help consolidate declarative memories, whiledreaming REM sleep seems to help consolidate procedural mem-ories (Marshall & Born, 2007; Wixted, 2004). All-night cram ses-sions just before an exam are one of the least effective ways tolearn new material.

13. Forget the ginkgo biloba.Think you can supercharge the memory banks by taking the herbginkgo biloba? If only it were that easy! Researcher Paul R.Solomon and his colleagues (2002) pitted ginkgo against aplacebo in a randomized, double-blind study for six weeks involv-ing over 200 participants who were mentally healthy. The bottomline? No effect. The ginkgo biloba did not improve performanceon tests of learning, memory, attention, or concentration.

285Chapter Review

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