Memory is generally poorly understood, which is why many
people say they have ‘bad memories’. That’s partly because the analogies we
have to hand—like that of computer memory—are not helpful. Human memory is
vastly more complicated and quirky than the memory residing in our laptops,
tablets or phones.
1.
Memory does not decay
Everyone has experienced the frustration of not being able
to recall a fact from memory. It could be someone’s name, the French for ‘town
hall’ or where the car is parked.
2.
‘Lost’ memories can live again
There’s another side to the fact that memories do not decay.
That’s the idea that although memories may become less accessible, they can be
revived.
Even things that you have long been unable to recall are
still there, waiting to be woken. Experiments have shown that even information
that has long become inaccessible can still be revived. Indeed it is then
re-learned more quickly than new information.
3.
Memory is unstable
The fact that the simple act of recall changes memory means
that it is relatively unstable. But people tend to think that memory is
relatively stable: we forget that we forgot and so we think we won’t forget in
the future what we now know.
4. When
recall is easy, learning is low
We feel clever when we recall something instantly and stupid
when it takes ages. But in terms of learning, we should feel the exact reverse.
When something comes to mind quickly, i.e. we do no work to recall it, no
learning occurs. When we have to work hard to bring it to consciousness,
something cool happens: we learn.
5.
Memory, reloaded
If you want to learn to play tennis, is it better to spend
one week learning to serve, the next week the forehand, the week after the
backhand, and so on? Or should you mix it all up with serves, forehands and
backhands every day?
All in all, our memory isn’t as poor as we might imagine. It may not work like a computer, but that’s what makes it all the more fascinating to understand and experience.
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