MEMORY FAQ

Question
Does IQ matter most when you are learning and remembering?


Answer
The fact is that little correlation has been found between learning parameters and the IQ and its components.  Motivation seems to play a much higher role in learning than is has been thought.
Also beliefs and what we say to ourselves are the most important factors in memory and learning success:

  • Never say: "I am too stupid to learn it". If you cannot understand something, you probably miss some facts needed to complete the picture or perhaps the book you are studying is just badly written. Do not blame yourself! If you really try and you cannot, it probably is not your fault
  • Never say:  "I have too bad memory to really learn it".  You can improve your brain power easily as you study.. With a bit of time, you will see that your speed of learning does not differ much from the speed of other students.

 

Question
It is well know that people can be divided into late sleepers, owls, and early sleepers, larks. Has there been any research to indicate what sleeping type has better memory?  


Answer:
The conviction that people are inherently prone to be either larks or owls is wrong. The reasons are in the lifestyle and personality (which are both strongly connected). Owls may show lots of excitement for learning as this excitement is the main factor that makes them owls. On the other hand, larks can make better use of early morning hours where they can study in quiet at the time when their brains are most refreshed. The formula for better learning would then probably be to sleep in a way that brings maximum refreshment, i.e. without paying much attention to the actual sleeping hours


Question
How much can be learned in a day and does too much effort led to negative returns. How many items, inputted for the first time, outstrips the brains capacity to consolidate them as memories?


Answer:
There is indeed a limit on how much we can learn per day. However, with a good strategy, there does not seem to be a limit beyond which we should stop learning.


First we need to draw a distinction between procedural learning and declarative learning. Procedural learning is used to acquiring a skill such as riding a bike or typing the keyboard. In procedural learning, we do not tell the brain exactly how it should perform. The brain provides "the answer" on its own by trial and error, while we only "approve or disapprove" of its performance. In declarative learning, as in memorizing a textbook, we tell the brain exactly what to learn, and expect it to encode information in memory. Procedural learning, by definition, is highly repetitive (you repeat the same moves again and again, only with a slightly improved precision). With declarative learning, we want to minimize the repetition.


In procedural learning after a longer practise session, there is less and less improvement in unit time. This makes learning inefficient. It is far more practical to switch to another training procedure to capitalize on higher returns. Fatigue sets in and this degrades our attention.  We may even ‘unlearn’ then.


Declarative learning: As in procedural learning, there are factors that will limit the efficiency with the progress of learning on a given day: repeated review of the same material quickly results in a complete absence of progress.  In declarative learning, unlike in procedural learning, we can accomplish maximum speed of learning if we minimize the review of the material with a view to a selected level of knowledge retention. For each selected retention level, there is an optimum review schedule that can easily be computed.  For excellent long-term results we elect to remember anywhere between 80 to 98% of the learned material. For most important material, we choose higher retention at the cost of lower knowledge acquisition rate (i.e. learning speed).


Conclusion: the key to overcoming the limits on the learning rate and the daily amount of learning is the learning skills. Those vital skills include: understanding optimum knowledge representation (how to formulate questions, what training procedure to choose, etc.), understanding optimum repetition spacing (when to make the review), understanding fatigue and sleep, passion (love of learning), overall fitness, time-management, stress-management,


Question:
Why do we better remember pictures than word combinations?

Answer:
In the course of evolution, humans practiced visual memory a lot. They did not deal much with math or abstractions. That is why there are parts of our brain built specially to serve visual memory. Evolution gives better adapted individuals a better chance for survival. Those who could remember better, e.g. shape of the prey or enemy, could survive better, and pass their "good" genes to the next generation. Calculating a differential was not needed in apes or early humans. That is why evolution did not build a specialized calculator into our brain. It has, however, built a calculator for processing visual data. You "type in" the picture, and get a short answer: "danger!" or "food!". Those simple signals are easier to remember than ... streams of bits of a complex image.

 

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