Suggestions for Improving memory

Suggestions for Improving Memory

Researchers offer several suggestions for improving memory. Let's suppose that you have to take a test that will require you to regurgitate, at least in part, declarative information. 

• Practice overlearning. Researchers suggest that you repeat declarative information in timed intervals, over and over again until you've memorized it. And have that memorizing finished a week before you're scheduled to take the test. Seven days prior to the test, practice what researchers call oeverlearning, which means continually reexposing yourself to the information you've already memorized. Do it over and over again in spaced intervals.
• Don't pull all-nighters. A great deal of information processing occurs at night.
• Don't cram. Research also shows that regularly timed exposures stretched over a period of days creates learning far superior to cramming for an exam a day before you take it. Let's say that you only have 10 times to study for a test. The memory is much more robust if you studied once a day for 10 days rather than do 100 exposures the day, the night, the hour before you take the exam.

There are many other tricks you can use to help your brain limp past its Serengeti heritage, from doing something we call elaborative rehearsal to mnemonic strategies to using mental imagery.

If you dig down deeper into human memory, things get very complicated fast. Memory is not like a camera on a cell phone. Photo by Elena.