Right off the bat, know that “forgetting is important when it comes to memory”, so when those keys don’t play ball, tell yourself nicely that “somewhat paradoxically, forgetting is related to the ability to remember more and take a broader, more integrated perspective”.
This advice comes from expert psychologists and scientists, Megan Sumeracki and Althea Need Kaminske, authors of a great new book on memory, called: The Psychology of Memory.
At the beginning of the book, they reassure us that “lapses in memory are extremely common” and write that, contrary to popular belief, “some aspects of memory improve during typical aging”. Vocabulary is one example of this, which the authors say can peak anywhere from our 40s to 70s, while our “general knowledge can also remain the same or even increase with aging”.
What is memory?
William James, a nineteenth century teacher of philosophy, psychology and physiology at Harvard, and the person who coined the phrase ‘stream of consciousness’, gave us this definition for memory: “the knowledge of a former state of mind after it has already once dropped from consciousness”.
Cognitive psychologist, George Miller, in his famous paper, The Magic Number 7, demonstrated that people can remember about 7 things in their working memory. Working memory is only one type of memory, there are many, and they overlap.
Episodic is another, this could be remembering when your first met your partner. While semantic memory is your general knowledge, the ability to remember capital cities for example. Another is procedural, which gives you the ability to do things like ride a bike. Implicit memory, or long-term memory, think your unconscious understanding of the rules of your native language. And there is also prospective memory – hurry, don’t forget to get that pie out of the oven!
Memory champions
“Journalist Joshua Foer in his 2011 book, Moonwalking with Einstein, interviewed memory champions and was told anyone could learn these memory feats with training and practice, so he started training, putting it to the test, and won the 2006 USA Memory Championship.”
The strategy these champions were using, mnemonics, has been “used as far back as ancient Greece and Rome”, Sumeracki and Kaminske explain.
“This method of loci, sometimes called a memory palace, involves visualising a familiar location and interacting with the to-be-remembered information in that location. For example, you might imagine walking through your home and interacting with items on your shopping list. Perhaps you envision walking through your front door and taking a sip of milk from a glass at the hall table, only to then slip on a banana peel. In general, the more interactive or bizarre the imagery, the better it is for your memory.”
When it comes to long-term memory, too often dismissed as a lost cause, the authors say two of the most powerful strategies for long-term learning are: retrieval practice and spacing. The video below, from another leading academic, associate professor of Philosophy at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro, Jeffrey Kaplan, is well worth watching for more on these types of strategies.
The authors also point to a study by Henry Roediger and Jeffrey Karpicke to explain retrieval. It shows what happened when, asked to remember a short passage, groups of university students did so either by using a retrieval technique or by rereading the text.
“The students first engaged with the information across four periods. During the first period, all students read the passage. Then, in one condition, participants reread the passage during the remaining three periods, so they’d read it throughout all four periods (the Read Only condition). Another condition, participants reread during periods two and three, and then during period four they were instructed to write down everything they could remember about the passage (the Read and Retrieval condition). Final condition, participants were instructed to write everything they could remember about the passage during all three periods after the initial reading (the Repeated Retrieval condition). Each period was five minutes long, so that all participants spent a total of 20 minutes with the passage.”
‘Read only’ was the winner in the short-term – when students were tested five minutes after finishing. But when students were tested one week later, it was the ‘repeated retrieval’ technique, at 60%, that outperformed read only, 40%.
“Retrieval practice improves long-term memory by making it less likely that you will forget information over time,” the authors write.
Become an expert
Innovators, like everyone else, want to realise their potential, become experts in their chosen field. To do that, understanding what memory is, how to optimise it, is crucial.
A popular concept related to this, is the 10,000 hour rule, based on research by Anders Ericsson and colleagues, comparing the routines of expert and novice musicians at a German academy. After interviewing the two groups, the researchers calculated that the experts had accumulated roughly 10,000 hours by their early 20s, compared to novices, who had accumulated around 2,000 hours.
The Psychology of Memory
The authors encourage people to monitor and assess how well the strategies in the book are working for them: a process called metacognition. At first, this process relies on feedback, from other experts or coaches but “as you gain experience, you are better able to monitor your own performance”. This makes finding the right mentors an important piece of the jigsaw for innovators.
And in debunking some common myths about memory, providing research-backed strategies on how to make it work better for you, the authors of The Psychology of Memory have created an invaluable manual tool for us all.
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The Psychology of Memory by Dr Megan Sumeracki, a cognitive psychologist specialising in learning and memory; and Althea Need Kaminske PhD, an award-winning educator, author, and science communicator, is available to buy now.
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How to become a truly regenerative leader
Iain is a creative writer, journalist and lecturer, and formerly an editor of two international business publications. Iain is now editor of Innovators Magazine, as well as the strategic content director for OnePoint5Media.
