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Memory

How to Make Your Memories Stick

This is what scientists say about how we remember.

Monkey Business Shutterstock
Source: Monkey Business Shutterstock

One of my favorite activities to do with students when I’m teaching them about memory is to ask them to tell me about a penny. Seems easy, right? Try it! Here’s what I want to know:

  1. Who is on the front of the penny?
  2. Which direction is that person facing? Left or right?
  3. Is there something written above his head? What is it?
  4. Is there something written below his head? What is it?
  5. Is there something written to his right? What?
  6. Is there something written to his left? What?

At first blush, most students think this is an easy task. I did too the first time I tried it myself. Once you try, you realize it’s not as easy as you thought. Performance is typically abysmal. But the big question is why? Why is memory so bad for something we’ve all seen a million times?

Unfortunately, as much as we’d like them to be, memories aren’t like photographs we file away in our brains. According to memory expert and author of Why We Remember, Charan Ranganath, memories are more like paintings, where some aspects of the memory are like a photograph, other parts are fuzzier, more akin to a painting—colored by our beliefs, desires, and interpretations. Luckily, Ranganath and other researchers who have studied memory for decades have some solid, evidence-based recommendations for improving your memory.

Attention and Intention

In the case of a penny, part of the reason we can’t remember its details is that we’re not exactly paying attention to them. Ranganath points out that our brains are not designed to remember everything, and that attention and intention are necessary for accurate recall. Attention focuses us on one thing, and then once we are focused, we need to be mindful if we want to remember it. No one has ever asked us to memorize a penny; even though we’ve seen the coin thousands of times, we’ve never focused hard enough and intentionally enough to remember its details. Try the same quiz with a quarter, nickel, or dime; I bet you’ll fail just as badly. My students sure do. But now that you’ve paid attention and had to intentionally answer these questions, you may do better if you retake the quiz tomorrow.

Context Is Everything

Have you ever walked into a room and forgot what you walked in there for? Yeah, me too. It happens because most memories are encoded along with context, or where you learned something. In this example, let’s say you’re in the living room, and you thought about something you needed. Then you walked into the kitchen to get it, effectively changing the context where you thought about it in the first place. If you walk back into the living room, you bring yourself back to the context where you first thought of the thing you needed and will likely remember it again.

If you’re trying to learn something new, this can be really useful to know. Classic studies in social psychology show that if you study in a certain room, you’ll do better at remembering the material if you are asked to recall it in the same room. Let’s say you’re learning about something in a class or seminar; you will do better on the exam if you’re in the same room where you first learned the material. This is because context (that classroom) is part of your memory of the material (Liu and colleagues, 2021). However, what if your final exam is administered in a different room? Now you might be in trouble. The solution according to science is to take breaks between studying and move your study location around a bit. If you study in a different place over and over again, the brain will be less and less able to tie those memories to the context, eventually, you can remember it context-free. Mix it up, go to a coffee shop one day, a library another day, and then maybe your living room. By separating learning from context, you’ll be better able to recall those memories anywhere.

Antoni Shkraba/Pexels
Source: Antoni Shkraba/Pexels

Not All Memories Are Created Equal

If you think back to your earliest memories, what comes to mind? For me it was a birthday party, the first time my parents brought my baby brother home from the hospital, and opening gifts on Christmas morning. What these moments have in common is that they each elicit a strong emotional response. Emotions can make things easier to remember. In particular, research suggests that events that elicit some form of surprise can be especially memorable. Scientists hypothesize that this is likely because our brains are set up to make predictions about the world around us so that we can anticipate any threats that might pop up around the corner. As a result, surprising things get more of our attention than other events, and as a result, are easier to remember (Antony and colleagues, 2021). The same could be true for events paired with other similar emotions, like fear or excitement. This makes practical sense: It’s easier to remember events that spark wonder, excitement, and curiosity than events that are expected and boring. Trying to inject a little emotion into learning will likely help you remember better, for better or for worse.

Get Some Rest

If you want to maintain a good memory, you have to get a good night's sleep. Research has shown that slow-wave sleep is important for helping us consolidate or store our memories, which is vital for learning. As I mentioned in a previous post, research has shown that sleep benefits overall speed and accuracy of performance on various tasks, and learning and memory (Souabni and colleagues, 2022). Make sure you are getting a good night's sleep, and perhaps even schedule learning or studying you need to do so that you have time to get a little shuteye afterward.

Sharing Is Caring

I wish our brains stored memories like data files we can access at any time, but as we’ve learned, that isn’t our reality. It takes effort to remember things, and that effort will vary based on how exciting or boring an event is, and where and when you first experienced it. But it also means that memories aren’t static—instead, they change over time with the telling and retelling of our favorite stories. If you want a more colorful memory of a happy event, retell it with others who share the memory. Their telling of the same story can add details and highlights to your favorite memories just from hearing other perspectives of the same event. This holiday season, if you want to make long-lasting memories, be intentional about it, get some rest, and try to fill those memories with as much joy as possible. On top of that, don’t be afraid to reminisce about memories—talking about them and filling them with joy can help them stay alive for years to come.

Here are the answers to our quiz. How did you do?

  1. Who is on the front of the penny? Abraham Lincoln.
  2. Which direction is that person facing? Left or right? The right.
  3. Is there something written above his head? What is it? “In God We Trust."
  4. Is there something written below his head? What is it? No.
  5. Is there something written to his right? What? The year.
  6. Is there something written to his left? What? “Liberty."

Facebook image: Gorodenkoff/Shutterstock

References

Antony, J. W., Hartshorne, T. H., Pomeroy, K., Gureckis, T. M., Hasson, U., McDougle, S. D., & Norman, K. A. (2021). Behavioral, physiological, and neural signatures of surprise during naturalistic sports viewing. Neuron, 109(2), 377-390.

Liu, X. L., O'Reilly, R. C., & Ranganath, C. (2021). Effects of retrieval practice on tested and untested information: Cortico-hippocampal interactions and error-driven learning. Psychology of learning and motivation, 75, 125-155.

Ranganath, C. (2024). Why we remember. New York, NY: Doubleday.

Souabni, M., Souabni, M. J., Hammouda, O., Romdhani, M., Trabelsi, K., Ammar, A., & Driss, T. (2022). Benefits and risks of napping in older adults: A systematic review. Frontiers in aging neuroscience, 14, 1000707.

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