One thing that I will always remember from this years psychology is the memory chapter, specifically the portion describing encoding. Many times while studying I felt that I was having trouble remembering certain items for a long period time, something that frustrated me and also caused me to do poorly on certain tests and in certain classes. However, when I learned about the brain's process to actually remember information, I was able to adapt my study habits to follow the results of research and statistics. Much of the information that we take in is never encoded, as we receive so much stimuli and information that its literally just too much to process into our memory banks. However, there are certain learning aids, strategies, and devices that can enhance recall; these are called mnemonic aids. I had heard of these techniques throughout high school, but never really tried them out. However, with all the studying that I was doing in college, it was hard to sort one lecture from the next, and one night of studying from the previous. I read about the pegword method, the method of loci, and the keyword method, all of which I applied to studying for the present psych test. I was amazed at how easily I could recall items that I had previously had difficulty remembering, and how readily that they were available in my mind. I have continued to use them throughout the year, and though they may seem childish, I will probably use them throughout the rest of my undergraduate and graduate career.
One is a bun, Two is a shoe... -Jacob Panzer
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This reminds me of when I started learning English. As a native Chinese speaker, learning English can be really hard especially when I was trying to remember the vocabulary. I some time repeat the spelling over and over again. But I could not remember it after talking to someone or get distracted by someone else. Then I took some courses related to memory and it talked a lot about how your brain works. I definitely learned a lot faster by adapting that method toward my English learning and now I am fluent in English
I also found this chapter extremely insightful, because I also have had times when I have done bad because I do not immediately remember everything I learn and felt that something was wrong with me! It was nice to know that it is normal that you won't remember much the first time around, but instead need repetition to really learn it and remember it. I have also been applying the different concepts that were described and have found much better results, instead of just cramming right before hand.
Also while reading this chapter, i learned that we can enhance and improve our memory in many ways. One way that I specifically remember from the reading is using mnemonics and analogies to help remember information or specific events. Also with finals coming up, i thin it's a good idea to take some of the memory strategies that are said in the post to help study because they could potentially improve our scores.
After reading this chapter, I was surprised to see that they actually had a name for what the Method of Loci is. I do something similar to this to remember things for tests, and I just thought I was the only weird one doing so.
I also found the memory unit very interesting. Just like you, I too used the methods from the book to help me study and it worked for me as well. What is nice about what we learned about memory is that we can apply the knowledge to anything that we have to remember, therefore improving our lives.
I also have learned that I can't remember most of the information I have learned in most of my classes because I cram for every test and my brain doesn't have the capacity to encode all of the information. I regret this studying style now, especially with finals coming up. I will have to try one of your new techniques.