Improving Your Memory (11 page)

Create a visual image to help you remember the following:

1. Mrs. Hammerman’s name

2. The car model called the Accord

3. Parkinson’s disease

4. Lane 5B in a parking lot

5. Buying a new windshield wiper blade while at the gas station

Active Observation: Actively Observe and Think about What You Want to Remember.

It’s often difficult to remember things that you haven’t looked at carefully or with much interest. Active observation is the process of consciously paying attention to the details of what you see, hear, or read. By using active observation, you can find meaning and vibrancy in a photograph, a new face, a nature scene, a conversation, an occurrence on the street, or a piece of artwork. Active observation contrasts with passively letting life go on around you without much thought or interest. To actively observe a subject think about the meaning of the subject, how you feel about it, how it affects you, and whether you want to remember it. Ask yourself questions that will reinforce its meaning. A key to remembering anything is being interested in it.

This technique can be used to remember such things as

• The design of a quilt you saw in a store (you can also use your smartphone or digital camera to record the quilt design)

• The way to play a new game your friend is teaching you

• The faces of people you see in the hallway of your apartment complex

• The difference between a fir tree and a juniper

EXAMPLES

Steve: I parked in a parking garage at a shopping mall. There were several up and down ramps on each level and no letters or numbers designating the area where I parked. I realized that I could easily misplace my car. I carefully observed the route I took to the exit stairway and, when I got there, looked back to reinforce the image of the location of my car. When I returned several hours later, I had a strong visual memory of where my car was located and how to get there.

Jane: I went to our local museum and spent some time looking at a painting of two women by Monet. Instead of just glancing at the painting as I usually do, I looked at the details as well as the whole painting and asked myself some questions: Did I think it was beautiful? What time of year was it? Did the women look happy or sad? What were they wearing? Was there anything unusual about the painting? Would I like to have it hanging in my living room? When I left the museum, I knew that I would remember that painting. This trip to the museum would be more than just the usual blur of pictures.

EXERCISE: ACTIVE OBSERVATION

Look at the picture below, consciously paying attention to the details. Ask yourself questions about the picture’s meaning and its effect on you as you look at it.

Now, cover the picture and see if you can answer these questions:

How many people are in the picture?

What is the boy doing?

What is the woman doing?

What is leaning against the house?

What is on the steps?

What is the number on the house?

What is the man doing?

If you are able to answer most of these questions, you have used excellent powers of observation.

Elaboration: Elaborate on the Details of the Information You Want to Remember.

A brief and unexamined thought is fragile and easily forgotten. But when we elaborate on the details of the thought, we encode the idea more deeply. We experience this depth of processing unintentionally when something interesting or controversial occurs, such as a bridge collapse. Without recognizing what we are doing, we comment on an unusual occurrence in our minds: we try to understand what happened; we relate it to what we know of the situation; we ask ourselves how we feel about it. This process of elaboration, which happens unconsciously in unusual circumstances, can be used intentionally as a strategy for encoding even everyday information that we want to remember.

Try this technique if you want to remember such things as

• The instructions for using your new espresso machine

• The platforms of the two mayoral candidates

• The courses that your son is taking in college

• The directions to the new recreation building

• The plot of a book you want to discuss with a friend

EXAMPLES

John: I recently got a new smartphone. I decided that I wanted to keep my calendar on the phone. My son showed me briefly how to do it. When I got back home and started to transfer my paper calendar to my phone, I realized that I had forgotten what he said. The next time I saw my son, I asked him to show me again. While we were still together, I talked myself through the steps, repeated his instructions a couple of times aloud, and practiced it. After elaborating on the details of this task, I found that when I returned home, I could do it on my own.

Jill: I took the trip of a lifetime to the Hawaiian Islands. I visited three of the islands—all of which are gorgeous and different from each other. I wanted to be able to talk about the islands without mixing them up. I had read in the newspaper that if you elaborate on the details of what you want to remember, you will encode the information more deeply. I thought about the different physical characteristics of the island, what I did on each island, and where I stayed. I made some associations between these details and the names of the islands. For several days I repeated these details, and now I find it easy to remember.

EXERCISE: ELABORATION

Every state has a nickname. Here are the nicknames of three states:

Minnesota: The Gopher State

Missouri: The Show Me State

Montana: The Treasure State

See if you can use elaboration to encode these states and their nicknames so that you can remember them tomorrow. When you wake up tomorrow, ask yourself if you can remember this information. If not, try elaborating on it more fully. (You will probably automatically use visualization to remember these nicknames as well.)

Repetition

Have you ever needed to keep something in your working memory long enough so you can act on it? Have you ever wanted to reinforce some information so that it is more easily available to you?

Repetition is a useful strategy for remembering such things as:

• The thing you wanted to get in another room

• A song you hear and want to add to your playlist

• The title of a book you hear reviewed on the radio while driving

• The instructions for doing a task with sequential steps

• The names of people you will be seeing at a gathering

• The items you want to get from the store

EXAMPLES

Patty enjoys walking around her neighborhood. She knows most of the people in the homes she passes but often can’t recall their names. She begins naming the families in the homes as she passes each house, and through repetition, she reinforces the information.

Rob spends a lot of time on his computer. He is learning to use Photoshop. As he works on resizing photos, he repeats the sequential steps until it becomes an automatic process.

Natasha is on the way to a New Year’s Eve party. She knows the names of all her friends who will be there but wants to be sure she can greet them all by the correct name. On the way to the gathering, she repeats the names so they are fresh in her mind.