Susan Smith Nash, Ph.D.
"How am I ever going to remember everything for my timed exam?" asked Renata. She had just completed a practice quiz and had not done very well. For some reason, she just could not seem to put the information she was studying in a coherent form. Everything seemed clear when she read it, but when it came time for the quiz, her mind felt utterly empty. She drew a blank.
"Renata, don't panic. I can help you. I've got a few memory tricks up my sleeve, thanks to my work with individuals with traumatic brain injury and Alzheimer's," said Renata's mother. Renata's mom was a clinical psychologist, and her work often took her in interesting and quite helpful directions.
"Thanks, Mom." Renata opened up her textbook and showed her mom the biology chapter she had been studying. It contained vertebrates and and also a food web. "Mom, there's too much to try to remember."
"You probably think so now, dear, but let's work on a few encoding and retrieval tactics. First, let's look at remembering the names of people you meet. How do you do that now, Renata?"
Renata sighed.
"Mom. You know I'm horrible with names. I never can remember people's names and it is very embarrassing!"
Renata's mom took out a stack of photographs. They were ones she used with combat veterans who had memory issues.
She went on to explain that there were several ways to remember names, and both were very effective.
1. Remember their salient features.
Renata's mom pointed to a picture of a man with a tattoo of barbed wire around his bicep. "Renata, what is the first thing you notice?"
"The barbed wire tattoo, of course," she said.
"Excellent." She paused. She looked at the card. "Now, if I were to tell you the man's name is Dave, how would you remember?"
Renata sighed again. "I don't know."
"Barbed wire Dave," said Renata's mom. "Repeat it, envision it, think it."
They went through the entire stack of cards -- about 20 cards -- and developed system. Later, when quizzed, Renata was able to remember 12 of them.
"That's 12 more than you could remember before!" said Renata's mom. "Now I'm going to put this with an even more powerful technique."
2. Create a rhyme that includes their name.
"Wave to Dave!" said Renata's mom.
"What?" asked Renata
Renata's mom held up the card of Dave and his tattoo. "Wave to Dave!"
Renata waved reluctantly.
"I feel like such a child," she said. "But, I do see that this will help me remember. I will remember waving and then I'll search my mind for a name that rhymes with "wave." Naturally, I'll come up with Dave."
"You've got it!" said Renata's mom. "That will work."
3. Connect the person to an event in your life or prior knowledge.
"Renata, if you're studying for a test and you need to remember information, sometimes a great way to remember is to relate it to prior knowledge. Ideally, it's something that happened in your life. You'll find it will help you."
Renata looked at her mom and thought of the people her mom worked with.
"What if the person you're working with does not want to remember things in the past? What if they can't?" she asked.
"Well, then, this technique will not work as well as it could," she said.
"But, when it comes to an exam, it's much better for me to remember my own experiences with the activity. You're so right about that!"
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
As Renata and her mom continued to discuss the issue of long-term memory, they also looked at forgetting. Renata was surprised to learn that things could be forgotten simply by means of "proactive overlay" which is to say that an idea or concept could be generated to interfere with one's authentic experience and memories. It was one way to explain the idea of false memories, particularly as they related to such things as people who claimed to remember being abducted by aliens, or traumatic events early in their lives. "Suggested memory" could be a kind of forgetting, said Renata's mom.
"How does that relate to online learning?" asked Renata.
"It relates to discussion forums. If you read something erroneous in the discussion forum, or something erroneous as you're doing online research, you need to make sure that you return to the correct information. Otherwise, it is possible that one memory will be replaced by another."
Renata paused, then looked at her mom. "All the more reason to encode well and when I retreive, be sure to do a reality check."
"That's right," said her mom. "So go out there and ace your test!"