That’s a really tough question, spacenut! Human memory is a hugely complex thing, and we’re still learning lots about it (there’s a number of people in my department who spend all of their time research memory!). Basically, there are three parts to memory, and some people can be better than others at different bits:
1) The first step is encoding a memory. This basically means that your brain has received some information (like a picture, say), and is processing it.
2) Next is storage. Your brain needs to create a permanent record of the information that it’s been given.
3) The last bit is retrieval. At some point, you might want to remember what that picture was of, so you have to find the record of it in your brain and process it.
So, you can be really good at storing information, but not very good at retrieving later on (I was like this during exams). Alternatively, you might be bad a storing information, but what you do manage to store you can quite easily retrieve later on (actually, maybe my revision was like that…). In both cases, you’d think of yourself as having a ‘bad’ memory.
There are lots of brain areas involved in memory, including the hippocampus, amygdala, and prefrontal cortex. So obviously, if you have damage in these areas, your memory will be affected. But generally, some people might have better memory than others, because they’ve developed really effective ways of helping the brain at each of those three stages I mentioned before. For instance, you might have an easy-to-understand way of presenting yourself with information (like notes, instead of big essays of text), which will help your brain process it all. Some people think that repeating information helps your brain to store it more easily, as you’re reinforcing those records that have already been created. When it comes to retrieval, some people find that going to the place where you initially remembered the information will help you to bring it back (so ideally, it’s best to revise in the place where you’re going to have the exam!).
That’s a really simple overview of memory, but I hope it gives you an idea of the processes involved!
That’s a really good question, spacenut. Brain training games do (sort of) work, but there is some research to suggest that it only helps you to get better at the game itself, rather than making you generally better at memory tasks. As for how you can generally improve your memory, different things work for different people! Eating healthily (including lots of oily fish) and keeping yourself hydrated will definitely help, and there are lots of memory techniques like mnemonics which can help in memorising difficult things. Mnemonics are things like the sentence “Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain” to remember the order of colours in the rainbow – Red Orange Yellow Green Blue Indigo Violet. Lots of studies have shown that we can only hold a certain number of items in memory (usually about 7), so if you can group things to be remembered into about 7 categories, you might have a better chance of remembering them!
Photographic memory is pretty controversial! Lots of people claim to have it, but none of these people have so far been able to pass any scientific tests to verify that they actually do have a photographic memory. In most cases, I think people use it when they really mean that they just have incredibly good memories.
Comments
mrgenius commented on :
What is photographic memory then?
spacenut commented on :
Wouldn’t know!!! How can you improve your memory and to brain training games actually work?
Pete commented on :
That’s a really good question, spacenut. Brain training games do (sort of) work, but there is some research to suggest that it only helps you to get better at the game itself, rather than making you generally better at memory tasks. As for how you can generally improve your memory, different things work for different people! Eating healthily (including lots of oily fish) and keeping yourself hydrated will definitely help, and there are lots of memory techniques like mnemonics which can help in memorising difficult things. Mnemonics are things like the sentence “Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain” to remember the order of colours in the rainbow – Red Orange Yellow Green Blue Indigo Violet. Lots of studies have shown that we can only hold a certain number of items in memory (usually about 7), so if you can group things to be remembered into about 7 categories, you might have a better chance of remembering them!
spacenut commented on :
That’s taught me something!:)
Pete commented on :
Photographic memory is pretty controversial! Lots of people claim to have it, but none of these people have so far been able to pass any scientific tests to verify that they actually do have a photographic memory. In most cases, I think people use it when they really mean that they just have incredibly good memories.
spacenut commented on :
I sometimes think I do but other times ,could you prove it??
Pete commented on :
There are memory experiments that we could run you through to see if you do! I’m not a memory expert, but I have friends in my department who are.
spacenut commented on :
Now that is cool!!!!