学进去

Memory professor Jemima Gryaznov answers some of the mast common questions about memory.

Why can I remember events in my childhood but not what happened last week? We remember things that have strong connections (联系) in our mind, especially emotional (情绪的) connections. Childhood memories are often very emotional. This is because when we experience things for the first time we often have strong feelings of fear or excitement. Also, interesting or funny stories from our childhood are often told again and again. As a result, we remember them much better, as retelling events helps fix experiences in our memories. So when remembering something new, try to connect it to our emotions. Also we can try to retell what we have learnt to a few others.

Do some people really have a photographic memory?

A person with a photographic memory could remember every detail of a picture, a book or an event many years later, but no one has proved that there are people who really have photographic memories. Yet, there are some people who do have amazing memories. For example, Daniel Tammet can remember the first 22,514 digits of pi (π) and Stephen Wiltshire can draw a detailed picture of a city from memory after flying over it in an airplane. They are both good at remembering things for a limited time. As most of us do not have amazing memories like them, an effective technique (技巧) to remember things is to group similar ideas or information together so that they can be easily connected to things that are already known.

Why do I forget the new words that I learnt yesterday?

Don’t worry. This is natural for many people. In 1885, Hermann Ebbinghaus published a book called Memory and presented a famous forgetting curve. According to him, the quick loss of memory happens during the very early period after learning. This means timely review during this period, with a few revisits to what is learnt, can help us to remember the information better. Therefore, one of the golden rules to increase how much we remember is to review the material periodically, especially during the first day after learning.