Easy Memory Techniques for Better Test Results

April 16, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Is there a student out there who isn’t looking for easy memory techniques for better test results? One of the factors that seems to interfere with well-prepared students doing less than their best is test anxiety. Dr. Sian Bielock at the University of Chicago has conducted a number of studies that look at anxiety and test scores.

Easy Memory Techniques for Better Test Results

THE REALITY

Many capable, hard-working students perform poorly on exams because they’ve overtaxed their “working memory” — the mental scratchpad on which we combine information from our long-term memory with the specifics of the problem in front of us, in the service of finding a solution.

THE PROBLEM

“When students are anxious about how they’ll do on an exam,” says Sian Beilock, a professor of psychology at the University of Chicago, “their worries use up some of their working memory capacity, leaving less of this cognitive horsepower to apply to the task at hand.”

She suggests two strategies that reduce anxiety and as a result improve the test scores.

Easy Memory Techniques for Better Test Results #1

The first involves shifting how they interpret their bodies’ cues. Faced with a high-stakes situation, almost everyone has some physical symptoms of stress: sweaty palms, a racing heartbeat. But people interpret these cues differently, with important consequences for their performance.

…

Dr. Beilock recommends consciously adopting positive self-talk. Dr. Beilock recommends consciously adopting positive self-talk. Remind yourself that damp palms and a pounding heart accompany all kinds of enjoyable experiences: riding a roller coaster, winning a sports match, talking to someone you have a crush on.

Easy Memory Techniques for Better Test Results #2

A second approach involves a simple exercise just before a test. For 10 minutes, write about your feelings regarding the exam to clear your mind of test-related concerns, freeing working memory that can be applied to the exam. In a study published last year in the journal Science, Dr. Beilock and her co-author, Gerardo Ramirez, said the technique worked both in the lab and in classrooms. Used by a group of ninth graders facing a biology final, the expressive writing task effectively eliminated the relationship between test anxiety and poor test performance: even highly anxious students performed just as well as non-anxious classmates.

Easy Memory Techniques for Better Test Results

easy memory techniques for better test results

You can read the entire article here.

Recognizing one’s own test anxiety is key to using these easy memory techniques for better test results. If you’ve prepared for that big exam, worked hard, and studied until the cows came home, don’t let last minute anxiety cancel all that out. Give these techniques a try.

In the comment section, tell us about your experience with these methods.

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Celebrities Help Us Remember Names Better

April 16, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Celebrities help us remember names better. Who can forget some of the wild and wacky names they give their children — names such as Rumer, Dweezil, Apple, Jett?

I’ve always disliked my name. People would often say to me, “I had an aunt named Ida or my grandmother’s name was Ida.” Clearly I was born into the wrong generation. I wanted to be called Susan or Judy or Karen — some other normal name so I could fit in better with my peer group. There were those people who thought they were being extraordinarily funny and clever by calling me “Idaho potato”, “I da know”, or my all-time favorite (not), “I declare”.

When I met my husband, he told me he was glad that my name wasn’t Susan. He had dated so many of them in high school. “Ida” was memorable. (So why did he once, mistakenly, introduce me to someone as “Susan”? Oops!)

celebrities help us remember names better

celebrities help us remember names better

In a blog post of Feb. 2011, Ed Cooke, a Grand Master of Memory, describes how celebrities help us remember names better by giving their children memorable names.

Celebrities Help Us Remember Names Better

A while ago, a New Zealand judge called Robert Murfitt ruled that a girl who’d been named ‘Talula Does the Hula from Hawaii‘ should be placed in his court’s guardianship until ‘appropriately’ renamed. He felt that the name ‘makes a fool of the girl and sets her up with a clear social disability and handicap’.

This is judge-mental. The child was blessed, not handicapped, with this wonderfully memorable name. Our magistrate should have realized that it is neither necessary nor desirable that we sport names that are, like his, mere collections of sounds.

Considering how easy it is to forget names, we have something to gain from imaginative memorable examples.

…it is only celebrities who seem to name their children memorably: think of Peaches Geldoff and of Sage Moonblood Stallone….

For we can then learn from it- and use our imaginations to bring normal names up to the bench-mark set by celeb-child-naming practices. To see why this is necessary, close your eyes and try to remember the name of the girl and the judge mentioned earlier. The chances are, you can remember the girl’s name and not the judge’s. But had the judge been called ‘the robber with feet made of myrrh’ you’d probably have recalled his name -Robert Murfitt- just as easily as Talula’s.

You can read the entire post here.

I don’t advocate giving children crazy far out names. But I have to say that Ed Cooke’s perspective on how celebrities help us remember names better gave me a new, healthier point of view regarding my own name. To think they’re doing the public a great service by giving their children unique names! What experiences have you had with your name? Tell us in the comment section.

 

 

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Best Foods to Improve Memory

April 16, 2012 By Leave a Comment

I found a great video from an NBC segment discussing the 4 best foods to improve memory. Matt Lauer questions dietition and nutritionist Joy Bauer about fish, berries, leafy greens, and caffeine.

Best Foods to Improve Memory

What is particularly helpful about this video is that we are told the quantities and frequencies we should be consuming of these best foods to improve memory.

How much are you getting in your diet? Tell us in the comment section.

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Do Dairy Foods Enhance Memory?

April 15, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Drink this, eat that. There’s a lot of research on the effect of diet on memory and sometimes it can be a bit confusing keeping it all straight. It’s worth considering, though, the results of a recent study that will answer your question “Do dairy foods enhance memory?”

Do Dairy Foods Enhance Memory?

Do dairy foods enhance memory?

Do dairy foods enhance memory?

In the study, overweight adults having less than 2 serves of dairy/day were recruited for a 12 month trial and were either given a diet which was high dairy (4 serves/day) or a low dairy (1 serve/day). After 6 and 12 months, subjects were tested for measures of cognitive performance.

The researchers found there was some improvement in working memory after following the high dairy diet and concluded that following a high dairy diet may have the potential to improve working memory.

It should be noted that the study was only small with 38 participants and that low fat dairy was used. It’s worth considering though.

Do you know how many serves of dairy foods you are having each day? Are you in the low or high dairy group?

A serve is about:

  • 1 glass (250mL) of milk
  • 1 tub (200g) of yoghurt
  • 2 slices (40g) of cheese
  • 1 cup (250ml) custard

Read the entire article here.

So if you were wondering “Do dairy foods enhance memory?” it appears that drinking/eating them would indeed have a positive impact on your memory. If you’re someone who is lactose intolerant and as a result, aren’t able to consume a high dairy diet, don’t fret, as there are a lot of other foods that are also recommended. Have a look at some of the other food-related posts on this blog. Tell us what you think of this article in the comment section.

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Alcohol Improves Creative Memory

April 14, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Haven’t we always been told that alcohol impairs our abilities — to think, to function safely, to remember, and so on?  Results of a  study at the University of Illinois have surprised us with the conclusion that alcohol improves creative memory in men. (There are several types of memory, two of which, creative memory vs. working memory, are described in the article below, along with an explanation of the study.)

Alcohol Improves Creative Memory

alcohol improves creative memory

alcohol improves creative memory

Working memory capacity is considered the ability to control one’s attention,” says Wiley, a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. “It’s the ability to remember one thing while you’re thinking about something else.” In the past, scientists have found that increased working memory capacity, or better attentional control usually leads to better problem-solving performance—when it comes to analytical problem solving. But the same cannot be said when it comes to solving problems that require creativity.

With that in mind, Wiley and her colleagues tested the effects of alcohol consumption on creative problem solving tasks. Most states consider a person intoxicated if his blood alcohol level is 0.08 or higher. “We found at 0.07 blood alcohol, people were worse at working memory tasks, but they were better at creative problem-solving tasks,” says Wiley.

That’s because the alcohol helped study participants access remote ideas, ideas that develop through association not linear analysis. In fact, linear reasoning can keep people focused on ideas they think are important but really aren’t.

For example, if Wiley asked you to tell her what word goes with the following: blue, cottage, Swiss. And you said, “cheese,” you’d be accessing your remote ideas, not linear ones. That is, you associated blue, cottage, and Swiss with cheese, a commendable and constructive thing to do.

“We have this assumption, that being able to focus on one part of a problem or having a lot of expertise is better for problem solving,” says Wiley. “But that’s not necessarily true. Innovation may happen when people are not so focused. Sometimes it’s good to be distracted.”

You can read more here.

You’ve probably experienced it too that creative ideas often materialize when you least expect them – and when you’re engaged in an activity unrelated to the problem you’re working on. My clients tell me that they generate their best ideas when they are involved in activities such as driving, taking a shower, listening to music, jogging, mowing the lawn, and so on.

So now that you’ve read about this study, you may like to keep your eyes and ears open the next time you’re having a drink and check out whether alcohol improves creative memory in men. Share your comments with us.

 

 

 

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Mind Maps Increase Recall

April 14, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Have you ever tried using mind maps? Increase recall of the information you need by taking notes in a way that is more compatible with the way your brain works than the traditional line-after-line note taking. Gordon Dryden and Jeannette Vos advocate drawing mind maps because they say that the brain stores information like branches on a tree.

Although the excerpt from Dryden and Vos below is from 1999, we know that the concept of mind mapping has actually increased in popularity in recent years and spread from student note taking to myriad business uses. It only takes a quick search online to find lots of mind mapping tools.

Mind Maps Increase Recall

Tens of thousands of students around the world right now are taking notes. They’re writing down words line by line. Or in some languages, column by column. But the brain doesn’t work that way. It does not store information in neat lines or columns. The brain stores information on its treelike dendrites. It stores information by pattern and association. So the more you can work in with the brain’s own memory-method, the easier and faster you’ll learn.

mind maps increase recall -- they, just like the brain, look like branches on a tree

mind maps increase recall -- they, just like the brain, look like branches on a tree

So don’t take notes, make Mind Maps. And make them with trees, with pictures, with colors, with symbols, with patterns and associations.

 

The main points are simple:
  1. Imagine your brain-cells are like trees, with each one storing related information on its branches.
  2. Now try arranging the key points of any topic on a sheet of white paper in the same treelike format.
  3. Start with the central topic – preferably with a symbol – in the center of the page, then draw branches spreading out from it. If you’re Mind Mapping New York, use the Statue of Liberty as the centerpoint. If it’s Sydney, use the harbor bridge. If it’s our chapter on the brain, sketch a two-sided brain.
  4. Generally record only one word and/or symbol for each point you want to recall – one main theme to each branch.
  5. Put related points on the same main branches, each one shooting off like a new sub-branch.

You can read the entire piece here .

Creating mind maps takes a little getting used to if you’ve always written your notes in the old-fashioned way. Give them a try and discover whether mind maps increase recall for you too. We’d love to hear about your experience with them. Please share in the comment section.

 

 

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Tricks and Tips for a More Effective Memory

April 13, 2012 By Leave a Comment

I found a great list of tricks and tips for a more effective memory that business folks, students, and everyone else will find helpful. Dr. Douglas J. Mason, also known as the memory doctor provides us with a list of 20 and I have picked out 3 tips to share with you in this post.

#9 of 20 Tricks and Tips for a More Effective Memory

Preparatory Set (Attention Preparation)–Prepare your mind in the same way an athlete prepares prior to engaging in sports. For example, if you have to give a presentation do a mental warm-up before presenting. Rehearse everything that will be involved with making the presentation. Close your eyes and envision what the room will look like; do a mental inventory of all the materials that you will need; imagine some questions that the crowd may ask of you. Mental visualization may not only be empowering, it can help you be prepared and organized.

#15 of 20 Tricks and Tips for a More Effective Memory

Come in Through the Back Door-–Everyone experiences blocks to their memory at times. The more you try to recall a piece of data the further away it seems to get. This becomes more fueled by frustration and negative self talk. Replace any negative self talk with positive affirmations. Avoid the frustration by talking around the item to be recalled. Use words that are similar, express yourself in approximations, and keep the thought active. By doing so you can often pull out the item to be remembered.

everyone could use a few tricks and tips for a more effective memory

everyone could use a few tricks and tips for a more effective memory

#19 of 20 Tricks and Tips for a More Effective Memory

Creativity and Flexibility–-Always ask yourself a simple question…”What is another way I can look at this problem?” Rigid thinking is often a precursor to poor memory. Examine the problem at hand. Turn it over and look at it from all angles. Put it down and do the same later. More memory associations are formed by examining things from different perspectives. Creativity and flexibility also allow us to find more ways to access the information to be recalled.

If you want to see the entire list, go here.

I really liked this list as it contains a few strategies that I haven’t seen recycled over and over again on the internet.

Make sure you try 1 or more of the 20 tricks and tips for a more effective memory. Let us know which one you tried and how it worked for you.

 

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Drink Grape Juice to Improve Memory

April 13, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Researchers have once again found that it is a good idea to drink grape juice to improve memory. Apparently, it isn’t just any grape juice. Specifically, it’s juice made from Concord grapes.

Dr. Robert Krikorian from the University of Cincinnati Academic Health Center has done a number of successful studies involving Concord grape juice and its abilities to improve memory in the elderly. Apparently, the polyphenols,which are powerful antioxidants, are responsible for the change.

Drink Grape Juice to Improve Memory

The results showed that drinking the juice was associated with fewer errors in memory tasks. Future studies will give specific recommendations, but for now, you can read about the exact amounts consumed and the duration of the study here.

drink grape juice to improve memory

drink grape juice to improve memory

Although the study was done on the elderly, isn’t it possible that younger people can drink grape juice to improve memory too? After all, we often hear about the benefits of antioxidants in fighting many types of ailments, as well as in maintaining our general good health.

So drink grape juice to improve memory and it may have a positive effect on you too.

In the comment section, tell us what you think.

 

 

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Use Scent to Boost Memory

April 12, 2012 By Leave a Comment

It’s not a technique that you would immediately think of to memorize a lot of material before that big test or presentation, but researchers have shown that you can use scent to boost memory.

An interesting article in Yahoo Voices states that note-taking and highlighting (both common practices) do little to help encode memory.

Use Scent to Boost Memory

What is most important about this article is the following paragraph describing how you can use scent to boost memory.

So how does all of this research translate to your test taking abilities or your presentation skills? Well the scent you use really doesn’t matter. You just have to consistently use the same scent every time you study or practice. It also has to be a scent that you can take with you the day of the test or presentation. That leaves out candles or plug-in room fresheners. Aromatherapy essential oils work very well. Lemon essential oil is especially good for focus and attention. Peppermint essential oil helps with alertness. Rosemary essential oil assists with mental function. A few drops of the essential oil on a tissue will scent the study area for hours. Just keep the tissue in the study area and the scent will encode with the memory of the material you are studying. On test day take a tissue with the essential oil on it to the test area and the scent will improve memory performance. It will help the retrieval process because it will act as a cue for your brain. The research supports the results. What a pleasant way to start improving your grade point average or delivering complex presentations.

You can read the entire article here.

use scent to boost memory

use scent to boost memory

So it appears that if you follow the suggestions in the article and use scent to boost memory, it will yield great results. I’m looking forward to trying it the next time I give a presentation.

Have you ever tried to use scent to boost memory? Share your experiences with us in the comment section.

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How to Use Memory Props

April 12, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Props are useful devices for helping jog your memory. You may be wondering what exactly they are and how to use memory props.

A memory prop could be a key hook that you have hanging on the inside wall by the back door of your house. Every time you come inside, you hang your keys on that hook, and as a result you always remember where you’ve put your keys.

How to Use Memory Props

Kathryn Kilpatrick, a consultant in communication, memory, and cognitive issues describes one of her memory props in her blog Memory Fitness Matters.

The system I use that seems to be working more often than not is using a pad of paper in one color for things I need to recall or do related to my speaking schedule. There is another one in a different color for my therapy “to do” list.

For this week…

…pick just one thing that is a repeated memory issue and create a solution. Perhaps it is locating your car keys or some other item you typically misplace. Pick a specific “home” for it and then make an effort to put it there all the time.

You are not going to always be successful, but stay with it. Once you learn to do this repeatedly it is likely that it will become more of a habit, and the pattern is likely to carryover to other items.

You can read the entire article here.

How to Use Memory Props

How to Use Memory Props

Here are another couple of examples. A small decorative plate on your night table could act as a memory prop for your glasses. You can also use props if you want to remember to do something, such as call your friend after you’ve finished the task you’re doing. Try turning an empty cup on its side and placing it next to you. When you’ve finished your task, the cup will remind you to call that person.

Now you have another helpful technique for remembering things.

What memory props do you use? We’d love to hear more ideas on how to use memory props.

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