Today, almost all the organs of our body are studied. An exception to the rule is the brain and its functions.
Researchers and physicians have always been interested in issues related to the work of the brain, namely, with thinking, logic and with a person's ability to be creative and remember.
How memory works, how much information is stored in the head, why some people grasp everything on the fly, while others have to cram hard stuff - read about all this in our article.
Memory as the basis of knowledge
Memory is a unique ability of the brain to accumulate, store and reproduce the information received. It is interesting in that, due to its lack of knowledge, it gives scientists a wide front for research. It is difficult to imagine how many opportunities will open to a person, he know what its secret is ...
Which happens?
Scientists distinguish two types of memory: short-term and long-term. Here you can draw a parallel with the computer. The first is similar to RAM and is designed to solve problems at a given time. The second - "reminds" the hard drive, where all the important information is stored. True, unlike computer memory, human has a limited amount.
The cerebral cortex is responsible for short-term memory, and the hippocampus (part of the limbic system of the brain) for long-term memory.
Individual memory features
Nature rewarded absolutely every person with the ability to remember and reproduce information. Only for all individuals, this process occurs in different ways: one person is able to once look through the text and retell it in detail, while another will have to go into the essence of what he reads for more than one hour.
True, it is possible that the first one will forget the contents of the text the next day, and the second one will put it in the subcortex (in long-term memory) and float out at an important moment.
Why is that? Because each individual has a unique brain, which means that the mental processes of each person proceed in their own way.
In part, it is the individual differences in memory that make people special. This is clearly seen in memorization productivity and types of memory. Let's consider in more detail.
Learning Productivity
It implies speed, strength and accuracy of memorization. Another important feature of memorization productivity is the ability of a person to quickly reproduce material. Consider in more detail its characteristics:
- Speed is the amount of time a person needs to learn a certain amount of information.
- Strength reflects how long the studied material will remain in your head, whether you quickly forget it, or, conversely, remember forever.
- Accuracy reflects how close you are to the text to reproduce the material studied. Do you remember the general meaning or, on the contrary, focus on the details? It’s great if your memory is such that you remember both the general outline of the narrative and the vivid details of the plot.
Types of memory by sensory organs
Individual characteristics of the individual's memory can be found in the next section.
Since childhood, each person learns to perceive information in his own way. Someone clearly remembers the words of the song, someone is able to masterfully repeat a beautiful dance, and someone just needs a glance at the table to understand the key points of its content.
Scientists have noticed this for a long time. To date, seven types of memory are distinguished by the sense organs used:
- Visual memory is a person’s ability to perceive and reproduce what he sees. The most common type of memory.
- Auditory memory - information is perceived by ear. Well developed by musicians, conductors and translators. By the way, Mozart possessed it perfectly.
- Motive memory is well developed among dancers. This is a person’s ability to reproduce the most complex dance movements. Michael Jackson possessed unique motor memory.
- Taste memory is well developed among gourmets and wine tasters. These people perfectly remember and distinguish tastes. You can admire such individuals in a good way: they will never touch poor-quality food.
- Olfactory memory - the ability to subtly sense and distinguish smells. Perfumers own it 100%. But there are just people who acutely smell. For such individuals, traveling in public transport in the summer turns into real torture.
- Tactile memory - the ability to remember the shape of an object after touching it. Quite a rare type of memory.
- Emotional memory is a rather interesting phenomenon. People with this type of memory perfectly remember all the vivid impressions. Here an interesting correlation arises: the stronger the emotions experienced by a person, the better he remembers the information. The individual characteristics of the memory of such people are of interest to scientists.
Form or meaning?
Features of human memory are also characterized by the way in which a person learns the necessary material.
In this section, we will look at why some people grab information on the fly, while others spend evenings on textbooks. The individual characteristics of people's memory are responsible for this. The former have better developed logical memory, while the others have a mechanical one. Let's try to figure out what the fundamental difference between them is.
Mechanical memory
Mechanical memory refers to the storage of useful information in the form in which it was originally submitted.
If you are able to read a verse a couple of times and tell it without errors, you have precisely developed this type of memory. The same applies to dance movements: a person with developed mechanical memory will calmly reproduce them after one or two repetitions of a trainer.
Mechanical memory is peculiar:
- to translators;
- linguists;
- polyglot;
- conductors;
- musicians;
- dancers.
This type of memory also has a minus. Let's try to demonstrate it using an example.
A person performs the same physical exercise to improve posture while standing. He learned exactly how to do it right. But here the trainer asks to change the position and begin to perform a similar exercise in the supine position. This may cause a problem. A person remembers the technique exactly, but does not understand the essence of the exercise. In this case, only logical memory can help, we will talk about it later.
Logical memory
It means a person’s ability to understand the meaning of the material studied. How to determine if nature has awarded you logical memory? Pretty simple. If you study a text and quickly grasp the main idea, that is, you are able to isolate the most basic from many, many words - you are a happy owner of it.
Students with this type of memory do not engage in meaningless cramming of tickets for the exam, but try to carefully read them and understand what is at stake. This way of mastering the material is more productive: you not only begin to really navigate the topic studied, but also for a long time retain invaluable knowledge in your head.
The same applies to exercise. Before starting to randomly repeat the technique of execution for the trainer, it would be more logical to delve into its features (for example, to understand what muscles it is designed for). After this, the learning process will go much faster and more interesting.
Interesting ways to train your memory
The problem of forgetfulness is one of the most common in people. There are a lot of reasons why we can forget something, starting from a banal lack of sleep and ending with excessive immersion in our thoughts.
It’s not worth blaming yourself that you again forgot to turn off the computer, take the necessary papers or call relatives. You need to try to find the cause of your distraction and effectively eliminate it.
We will now present four interesting exercises for memory:
- Carry a sprig of rosemary or essential oil based on it. It has long been proven that smells awaken people's memories. For example, the aroma of trimmed grass in many people is associated with childhood and a sense of peace. But the smell of rosemary is recognized as special. Scientists from the University of Northumbria have proven this empirically.
- Play the association. Try to bind new information to existing ones in memory. Suppose you need to remember some date (for example, the number 11). Imagine that units are two thin silhouettes walking in front of you along the street. The same applies to remembering foreign words. You want to learn how dandelion will be in English. Find these flowers, look at them and say dandelion aloud several times.
- Go for a walk. It is proved that being in the fresh air has a beneficial effect on the state of memory. The most interesting thing is that this applies only to moderate physical exertion: strength training is not capable of this - scientists from the University of Illinois came to this conclusion.
- Learn a foreign language. Thus, you not only develop your brain, but also acquire a useful skill.
It should be remembered that there are age-related features of memory. Only the person who is constantly interested in and keen on something can escape them.
Memory development in children
To train the brain of a small child, it is only important the parent’s sincere desire to engage in the development of his baby only half an hour once a day. It is necessary to deal with the child from childhood: the development of memory in children occurs up to 10 years.
Features of children's memory are similar to the previous ones characteristic of adults. It is best to develop a child from early school age: a small person is already ready to perceive information in a playful way.
Here are the most effective exercises for memory:
- "Picture". The child is shown a photo for a few seconds (interesting and colorful), and then removed. Further, the parent asks the child to tell in his own words about the image taken away on her.
- "Find the difference." In children's magazines there is always a ready-made page with similar exercises, check back often.
- "Remember the sequence." Before the child, 7 items are laid out in a certain sequence. For some time he remembers them. Next, you ask him to turn away for a while and change the arrangement of objects. Then you ask what has changed (it is advisable to remember the sequence yourself).
With these simple exercises, visual memory develops.
How to quickly and efficiently memorize material?
Everyone remembers what the night is before the critical exam: the very moment when you need to stuff your brain with a huge amount of information for 5-6 hours (then it will be forgotten anyway, but the task does not become less important).
Let's share some useful tips that really work.
- Visualize information using a diagram or drawing.
- Draw a parallel. If the material being studied is really complex, compare it with something simple and straightforward. Any complex thing can be decomposed into several simpler ones.
- Build a chart. Self-organization of information is a sure way to successful development of the material.
- Draw in your head a picture of the issue under study. Suitable for people with good imagination.
- Write thematic notes. Well, if you manage to come up with such three or four words, from which the general information on the ticket will gradually pop up in your head.
- Well, lastly, memorize the material a little. This method works very often.