Recently, I was visiting my family in Seattle, and we were doing that thing fami

lies do: retelling old stories. As we talked, a common theme emerged. My brother
hardly remembered anything from our childhood, even the stories in which he was
the star player. (That time he fell down the basement steps and needed stitches
in the ER? Nope. That panicky afternoon when we all thought he d disappeared, onl
y to discover he d been hiding in his room, and then fell asleep? Nothing.) Boys ne
ver remember anything, my mom huffed.
She s right. Researchers are finding some preliminary evidence that women are inde
ed better at recalling memories, especially autobiographical ones. Girls and wom
en tend to recall these memories faster and with more specific details, and some
studies have demonstrated that these memories tend to be more accurate, too, wh
en compared to those of boys and men. And there s an explanation for this: It coul
d come down to the way parents talk to their daughters, as compared to their son
s, when the children are developing memory skills.
To understand this apparent gender divide in recalling memories, it helps to sta
rt with early childhood specifically, ages 2 to 6. Whether you knew it or not, dur
ing these years, you learned how to form memories, and researchers believe this
happens mostly through conversations with others, primarily our parents. These c
onversations teach us how to tell our own stories, essentially; when a mother as
ks her child for more details about something that happened that day in school,
for example, she is implicitly communicating that these extra details are essent
ial parts to the story.
And these early experiments in storytelling assist in memory-making, research sh
ows. One recent study tracked preschool-age kids whose mothers often asked them
to elaborate when telling stories; later in their lives, these kids were able to
recall earlier memories than their peers whose mothers hadn t asked for those ext
ra details.
But the way parents tend to talk to their sons is different from the way they ta
lk to their daughters. Mothers tend to introduce more snippets of new informatio
n in conversations with their young daughters than they do with their young sons
, research has shown. And moms tend to ask more questions about girls emotions; w
ith boys, on the other hand, they spend more time talking about what they should
do with those feelings.
This is at least partially a product of parents acting on gender expectations th
ey may not even realize they have, and the results are potentially long-lasting,
explained Azriel Grysman, a psychologist at Hamilton College who studies gender
differences and memory. The message that girls are getting is that talking about
your feelings is part of describing an event, Grysman said. And for boys, emotion
s are something to be concerned with when they are part of a larger issue, but o
therwise not. And it s quite possible, over time, that those tendencies will help
women establish more connections in their brains of different pieces of an event
, which will lead to better memory long-term.
Because a memory doesn t exist the way we tend to imagine it; it s not a singular, f
ully formed thing buried in some small corner of the mind. Instead, it s a pattern
of mental activity, and the more entry points we have to what that pattern might
be, the more chances we have to retrieve it, Grysman said. Researchers call thos
e entry points retrieval cues, and they can be as seemingly mundane as what you we
re feeling, what you were eating, or what you were wearing.
The more entry points you ve got about an event, the more likely you are to rememb
er it. It s how Grysman advises his students to study for tests. I tell them to try
to make links between the material they re studying and other parts of their live

s, and those other parts of their lives serve as entry points,

he said.

So Grysman s theory, which he explored in an extensive review of the literature pu

blished last year, is that those early conversations with your parents implicitl
y told you which details are important to remember about the things that happen
to you, and which are not. And because parents conversations with girls include r
eferences to both more information and more emotion, they re setting their daughte
rs up to have stronger memories over their lives. (Though it s worth pointing out:
Grysman acknowledges in his 2013 paper that gender identity is of course much m
ore complicated than biological sex, and not every individual s experience is goin
g to mirror that of the children in the research on which he s based his theory.)
At this point in our conversation, I couldn t help asking Grysman how his own memo
ry is. I thought I had a great memory until I got married, he said. Now, I m realizin
g more and more how much I don t remember, compared to somebody else. Dates, facts
, figures I m great at those things. But those are things where we don t find gender d
ifferences. I can quote you the Stanley Cup winners back from 1914, but I can t re
member conversations.
And that s actually how he became interested in studying gender difference in auto
biographical memory recall in the first place. Several years ago, his wife refer
enced some recent, important conversation they d apparently had with a friend. He
had no memory of it. That s really what spurred this, he said. So I asked him if he
remembered now what that conversation was about.
I don t, he admitted,

and maybe that proves the point.

_
14 Ways You Haven t Tried To Improve Your Memory
Productivity by Helena Negru
We all deal with memory loss to some degree: some forget where they put their ca
r keys, others forget why they went out shopping, while others even forget their
names. In case you are not under a severe hangover or a student-with-sudden-mem
ory-loss-due-to-exams, you need to identify the cause of your memory loss and co
mbat it with proper, effective methods.
If you are found healthy and doing well, but still have problems recalling thing
s, here are 14 effective and easy ways to improve memory and boost your academic
/professional productivity.
Use mnemonics
hand mnemonic write
As the computer uses binary code to store data and retrieve it in a user-friendl
y way, the human brain is recording data in a certain pattern, bringing it back
later in a specific form. Mnemonics use exactly this feature and help you store
information in a specific code, allowing you to recall it in a friendly form. So
unds complicated, right? Well, it is not. When you use a mnemonic you will use a
simple rhyme or abbreviation to remember information. To do that you will use a
lready known images, data, smells and other things to link new data to the old.
For example, HOMES can stand for the names of the Great Lakes and it is easy to
remember, so you would find it easier to remember Huron Ontario Michigan Erie Su
perior in this form, rather than individual lake names. A mnemonic can be anythi
ng, not only a word, so feel free to use your imagination and work your way up t
o master this memory improvement technique.
Learn something new
girl learning for improve memory

Memory is like a car: if you don t use it, you lose it. To improve memory and help
your brain stay focused all the time, learn something new as frequently as poss
ible. There is no recipe for a long life, but all people who lived more than the
average had this one thing in common (among others, like a healthy diet): they
used their mind all the time. Learn a new dance, a new language, a new game
anyt
hing appealing to you and it will help you improve your memory and acquire new s
kills in the process, as well as friends. And being social is very important as
you are about to find out later in this article.
Get enough sleep
cat sleeps to improve memory
As keeping your mind active improves the pattern making function in your brain a
nd keeps the neurons busy, sleep stores all the memories. As you fall asleep, th
e brain switches from the acquiring state to the storing state: during the rapid
eye movement (REM) sleeping phase you classify all the events from that day and
link them to other memories and knowledge you already have.
Researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, studied the process of
brain loss in elders and found memory impairment is linked to poor sleep. At the
same time, another study proved naps help children boost their learning power.
Connecting the two results you have one major conclusion: you need to get enough
sleep to boost your memory, no matter what age you are. This means you need eig
ht hours of sleep as an adult, but depending on each individual, you may need a
couple of more (or less) sleep hours. The best way to remember the information y
ou need to learn is to review it just before you go to bed, as this will sedimen
t all the data.
Focus on fitness (and other exercises)
girls running marathon
A study conducted by Dr. David Jacobs at the University of Minnesota, concluded
people who follow a regular cardio exercise routine in their young age have bett
er memory in their middle ages, namely after the age of 45. This study is nothin
g new, as practicians all over the world already noted exercises like swimming,
cardio fitness, running and other related exercises help people beat memory impa
irment in the long term. To improve your memory and keep your mind focused as yo
u age, exercise your body, as well as your mind. You should pick cardio over oth
er type of exercises, as increasing your heart rate increases blood flow towards
the brain.
Watch your diet
berry cupcakes
The term brain food is not new: there are foods which improve your memory and keep
your mind alert. A new study conducted at the University Hospital of Basel, Swi
tzerland, showed green tea is one of these super-foods. Omega-3 fatty acids, fou
nd in nuts, ocean fish and olive oil were studied and proved to be effective mem
ory enhancers, so eat those regularly. Other foods to include in your diet on a
regular basis: eggs, tomatoes, red wine (use with caution), capers, blueberries
and turmeric. Previous lesser known studies revealed that vanilla, rosemary and
sage are also great aids when you are looking to improve memory. Vanilla is used
in aromatherapy for memory enhancement. Chewing gum is another proven way to im
prove memory, as multiple studies revealed it increases your heart rate and rele
ases certain scents, both of which trigger memories.
Meditation and better breathing
meditation statue

Meditation is very popular these days, promoted as a wonder-cure, but there are
real benefits you can enjoy. First, meditation can speed up your heart rate, thu
s, bringing more blood to the brain, which also brings more oxygen, making it fu
nction at top rates. Second, it helps you relax and focus on you for an hour, wh
ich has amazing long-term benefits for brain power, as well as overall health. M
ost meditation techniques and exercises include deep breathing which is another
way to improve memory and relieve stress. By practicing it a couple of minutes a
day, you will have better posture, a positive mood and you will feel more energ
etic. Plus, they are both FREE!
Enjoy nature
enjoy the nature to improve memory
A walk in the great outdoors is very helpful when you look to improve memory and
enhance your cognitive power. Researchers from the University of Michigan teste
d this theory on subjects who were asked to take a walk in nature, then remember
a list of items. Another group was asked to walk in the city, then asked the sa
me question. Those who enjoyed the walk in the garden had a better memory of the
list by a staggering 20%. But researchers didn t stop here: they put people to te
st again, this time showing them pictures with natural scenery and urban landsca
pes. Guess what: the results were the same! Next time you forget something, open
your computer and watch green forest landscapes and your memory will come back.
Play, play, play
playing chess on the beach
Computer games are great, but they hardly improve your cognitive functions. Logi
cal and strategy games however, can help you improve memory and focus, while you
also socialize and have a great time. The best picks in terms of memory games a
re chess, Sudoku and related games. The Gray cells in your brain will thank you
for those gaming hours.
Use neuro-linguistic programming (NLP)
man levitating oranges
The concept of NLP is rather new, but it is very effective, as it can teach you
how to overcome your limits. The basic logic behind NLP is that human limits are
drawn by each individual, so they can be beaten by auto-suggestion. Spending ti
me alone, asking yourself what is the cause of your memory loss and figuring put
what you really, really want, may help you relieve memory loss and improve your
brain power. This works pretty much the same way as a placebo. A study even sho
wed people who were told repetitively that aging alters their memory actually sc
ored lower than their counterparts, who were told there was no link between memo
ry loss and the aging process. Meditation is a great prelude to NLP and they bot
h work great with a better diet, aromatherapy and exercising.
Use your sense of smell
fragrance to improve memory
Perfumes are great not only because they smell good, but also because they help
you remember things. Aromatherapy is one of the most accessible ways to improve
memory. And there are many studies which proved it is highly effective: Saint Lo
uis University School of Medicine from Missouri is the place where researchers t
ested the effectiveness of rosemary and peppermint. They used substances with th
e same antioxidants concentration on mice and found out rosemary increased the f
ocus power and had positive effects for preventing memory loss due to aging. Pep
permint had the same benefits, so next time you need to learn math, stock up on
peppermint gum.
Press those buttons

acupuncture doll
Acupuncture has been used in Chinese medicine for centuries, with excellent resu
lts in almost any field, so there is no surprise it works in improving memory. E
ach part of your body is crossed by nerves and energy channels. You can stimulat
e those points with the help of a very thin needle or by pressing them with your
fingers. To stimulate your memory and bring back important information press yo
ur temples gently, but firmly with your fingers for a couple of seconds. This wi
ll relieve stress and help you remember where you put your car keys.
Visualize memories
visualize glasses
A study conducted at the University of Helsinki proved what many students alread
y knew very well: humans have a powerful visual memory. Matching certain images
with new information can help you access that information by seeing the image ag
ain. In other words, one can use a particular image to recall past events and da
ta. This is why you get tears in the corner of your eye when you see your old sk
aters or view old photos.
Stop multitasking
One of the biggest lies in the history of human kind, in terms of productivity i
s multitasking. Despite the fact that all companies look for this skill in futur
e employees, it actually cuts down a lot on the actual number and quality of thi
ngs one can accomplish during a given time. To improve your memory and become pr
oductive stop doing more things at a time and start focusing on one thing on a t
ime. Start your day with the most important task, then have a small break. Resum
e your work and at noon deal with the emails, leaving the simplest tasks for the
last working hours. If you have meetings, schedule them at the first hour of th
e day, as waiting is a great memory stealer.
Get social
friends having fun
Socializing is great for your brain as well as overall mood. Never underestimate
the power of a good talk, even if it isn t very interesting. A simple gossip sess
ion can improve memory, as it stimulates multiple parts in the brain. To have gr
eat memory, you need to keep your synapses the connection paths between the neur
ons active and talking does exactly this. Moreover, you can pair other activitie
s in this list with this last gem, to reap even more benefits from them.
+_
If you walk into any lecture these days, you see a majority of students staring
at their screens. You hear a never-ending chorus of pounding keys. Yes, we live
in digital age and I bet you can t imagine not using your laptop for studying. Yes
, laptops enable you to do more academic work and do it more efficiently. You ca
n collaborate more easily on presentations and papers, get instant access to num
erous libraries and sources online and take a huge amount of notes as you probab
ly belong to the majority that types faster than they write.
The truth is, those who type do take more notes compared to those who use good o
ld pen and paper. However, according to the new study published by Pam Mueller a
nd Daniel Oppenheimer (from Princeton University and University of California re
spectively) students who take notes on paper learn significantly more compared t
o their laptop-addicted peers. Here are the main reasons why:
Writing takes time and digestion is necessary
Our brain uses two different types of cognitive processing when doing these two
operations: typing and writing. As tested on a group of undergrads, the research
proved that laptop users type almost everything they hear without processing th
e meaning or devoting much thought to what it is they re taking notes on. Basicall

y, when you type, all you re doing is mindlessly transcribing, and that does not r
equire much cognitive activity.
When you take notes by hand, however, you obviously can t write down every single
word your professor utters. So you listen, summarize, and list only the key poin
ts. Your brain is more engaged in the process of comprehension and so the inform
ation processed this way is remembered better.
Longer notes does not equal better notes
You may object to the point above by saying that transcribing everything will he
lp you later on when studying for the test. Nope! Wrong again. Students who part
icipated in the study were assessed within a week, and longhand note takers sign
ificantly out-performed those who took notes on their laptop. Oppenheimer states
that handwriting provides more effective memory cues by recreating:
context, as you remember the original process of writing, the emotion, and t
he conclusions made in your own words, and
content, e.g. some individual facts written and summarized.
When comparing test scores, researchers noted that laptop users and longhand not
e takers performed similarly on factual questions with slightly better results f
rom the typers. However, laptop users did significantly worse on conceptual ques
tions.
Screen_Shot_2014-06-03_at_4.55.00_PM
Laptops are overwhelmingly distracting
Now this may sound like a no-brainier, but still, the facts are staggering. Stud
ents on average spend 40% of class time using all sorts of productivity killers,
from instant chat messages to answering emails to simply browsing around the we
b. What may surprise you is that according to this research, undergrad and law s
tudents rated themselves less satisfied with their college education in general
and were more likely to fail classes due to constant temptation to switch to unr
elated tasks and the higher risks of academic dishonesty. Just think for a secon
d, are you paying tens thousands of dollars per year to watch funny YouTube vide
os?
***
DeathtoStock_Wired4
Have I convinced you? Great! Here are some tips for how to take notes by hand mo
re effectively:
Master shorthand
There are numerous methods and shorthand systems for writing words and long lett
ers faster by turning them into special symbols. One of the most popular ones is
Teeline, commonly used for training journalists in the UK. You remove unnecessa
ry letters (like silent letters or vowels, unless they come first or last) and t
wist them into simpler alphabet symbols that are faster to write.
If you find it hard to convert to shorthand entirely, try adopting a your own tr
anslation system for the most commonly used words in your writing
for example, cl
d for could or w/ for with. Just make sure you don t lose your cheat-sheet!
Use the right formatting
If you have just switched from laptop note taking to writing notes by hand, imag
ine the way you used to put down everything in Microsoft Word or any other writi
ng app you ve used. Make big titles, use bullet points and underline important phr
ases. Plus, leave enough white space between your notes so you can add extra inf

ormation later on when studding for the test.

Get a stress ball
After a few hours of writing by hand your fingers, palm and wrist may be extreme
ly exhausted. Get yourself a stress ball to squeeze once in a while to build up
finger and hand strength. Also, do not forget to stretch out your writing hand t
o avoid elbow injuries and unpleasant muscle pains.
Try the Cornell Notes method
An old, yet still incredibly effective method, to take excellent study notes is
the Cornell Notes method. Divide your page into two columns. The right one shoul
d be larger
that s where you write down all the ideas, include tables, charts and
pretty much everything else you do as you usually write notes. It can be messy.
The left column is where you put big bulletin points and short statements, gener
alizing corresponding ideas from the right column.
Also, you can leave the end of each page blank and later write down a brief summ
ary of the page in a couple sentences. Down the line, when studying for an exam
or paper, it will help you find the necessary topics easily.
Lefties: get a felt-tipped pen
Ink stains, smudged letters and thus absolutely unreadable handwriting sound fam
iliar to you? Get a good felt-tipped pen that won t smudge that bad when you drag
your hand behind the pen while writing.
_
Imagine that you are sitting on the front porch of your house sipping lemonade w
ith your family on a warm summer s night. You sit back and reminisce with them abo
ut how you bought the newest HG TV?
Materialistic gratification only lasts so long. It is said that our brains adapt
to happiness. With materialistic things buying our happiness, we are successfu
l for a brief moment. New things will lose their shine and we will lose our inte
rest.
Instead of spending your money on things that will eventually be obsolete, try s
pending it on something that will make lasting memories. Memories become a part
of our lives forever and help make us who we are. The good experiences will fore
ver stay good in your mind forever and the bad ones turn into a funny anecdote i
n the future.
Below is a list of 5 things you should spend less money on and 5 things you shou
ld spend more money. Use these tips to save money so that you can spend it on ex
periences that will enrich the lives of you and those around you.
5 Things you shouldn t spend too much money on:
1. Electronics
Electronics in this day and age are almost a necessity, but that doesn t mean that
you need to spend money to get the newest thing. The shiny new feeling of your
devices are very short lived and it is almost guaranteed that there will be a ne
wer and better model of the whatever device you own within the next year.
2. Home Decor Fads
There will always be a new popular theme to decorate your home with. You don t hav
e to spend hundreds of dollars to get the signature look you see in the magazine
; there are always do it yourself ways to achieve the same look. You can make it
an experience and a time to bond with friends and family.
3. Cars
Keeping up with the newest car models is not a smart lifestyle unless you can pa
y each of them off by the time the next model comes out. This is a way to get yo

u into a never ending hole of debt. You will never have the title in your hands
if you keep trading your car (half paid off) for this current year s model (which
probably cost more).
4. Newest Fashion
You don t have to feel guilty about giving into buying new clothes, bags and shoes
once in a while. But when it gets to the point where you are trying to get each
new bag or pair of shoes for about $300 plus dollars, maybe you should skip out
on one of these and save the money for something else. There is always going to
be a new fad and there is no point on spending all your hard earned money and l
osing precious closet space on it.
5. Jewelry
Fancy jewelry is nice to have for formal occasions, at the office and when danci
ng on your night out. If you can afford to buy a two thousand dollar watch, good
job. For the rest of us, there is a fine line between accessorizing and going i
nto debt for shiny things.
5 Things you should spend more money on:
1.Education
There isn t another feeling in the world that can compare to the feeling of starti
ng to understand another language without thinking about it. Though some languag
e classes are very pricey, they are worth it. Taking classes on different cultur
es, religion and different professions will open your mind to a whole different
world.
It does not mean you need to convert your religion or change your job. It will s
imply mean that you have walked into a classroom with an open mind and have adde
d the things you have been taught to your vault of knowledge. You may never know
when it can come in handy.
2.Traveling
Traveling can be pricey at times, but it creates memories that last a life timeeven the bad experiences. Typically we all laugh about the bad experiences late
r on in life. One trip to Europe can cost someone the same as good laptop and th
e long trips can cost less than a car you don t really need but want.
Trade all those materialistic things in for a night under the Northern Lights, a
kiss on the Eiffel Tower, or a long journey backpacking through the Alps.
3.Music
Learning to play an instrument is a great start to a new tradition in your famil
y. You can pass this down to your children and make new memories. That is, of co
urse, after you have told them about the ones you have when you learned to play.
You can also venture out and spend about a dollar or two to take a chance on a n
ew genre. Who knows, you could end up with a couple (or a couple hundred) songs
added to your music library.
4.Books
Book are always going to be something different with each reader that turns its p
ages. It is a completely different experience using your imagination to put the
author s words into images in your head. Books won t ever require you to turn them o
n, charge them or restart them. They are things you can pass down from generatio
n to generation.
It is a much different experience to sit somewhere, with a book in hand, with ab
solutely no distractions. Books are portals to explore completely different worl
ds with a turn of a page.
5.Food

Trying new food goes hand in hand with traveling the world. Instead of spending
a few hundred on a bag, save it for some great food when out and about. Take som
e cooking classes on food from different cultures. In Italy, they offer cooking
classes at a vineyard. You can learn from an Italian chef how to create a great
meal. It is something you can take back home with you and teach friends and fami
ly.
There are several chocolatiers in Belgium that are worth spending the extra dime
to appreciate a perfectly crafted truffle.
Remember put your money into things that will create memories over the instant mat
erialistic things. You don t have to spend all of it on creating memories but if y
ou do, it won t be something you regret.
_
Memory is a funny thing even if you re actively listening to a conversation, you onl
y remember 70 percent of it. If you re multitasking or daydreaming, which many of
us tend to do, that number drops dramatically. To counter this handicap of the h
uman mind, successful people take notes. Here are some note-taking strategies to
help boost your memory.
1. Use your tech.
When AI declares war on humanity, I m siding w/ the machines
Whether you have a laptop, tablet, or smartphone, it likely comes with a microph
one. Both the Apple iOS and Google Play app stores have a variety of voice recor
ding apps, and many are free. On the laptop, Audacity is one of the best free vo
ice recorders on the market. In addition, you can find voice-to-text dictation s
oftware that can type your notes for you.
2. Typing is faster than writing.
A day in the life of a data entry worker
If you re in an environment where voice recording isn t possible, you can always typ
e your notes. People giving a presentation speak at 100 words per minute (during
conversations, we average 150 wpm, which is the speed audiobooks are recorded a
t).
The average person writes at around 22 words per minute, whereas the average pro
fessional typist hits speeds of 50 80 wpm. Even if you re not comfortable with a key
board, the average person types 33 wpm. This 50 percent increase makes a huge di
fference in how much information you can jot down, so use a computer whenever po
ssible.
3. Use shorthand and abbreviations.
Women had better handwriting than men until texting was invented
If you must write, using shorthand is a great way to increase your note-taking s
peed. Shorthand competitions have recorded participants writing over 300 wpm, wh
ich is more than enough to keep up with a presentation. This method takes some g
etting used to, however, and you may not have time to invest in it.
Regardless of whether you type or write, use abbreviations as much as possible.
The Oxford English Dictionary has a comprehensive list of commonly used abbrevia
tions, but if you re only taking notes for yourself, you can use any abbreviations
you want, so long as you understand what they mean.
4. Focus on key points.
Tennis boring sports fans since 1873

When taking notes, focus on the important points to save yourself some work. In
school, your teacher will often say this may be on the test. Teachers understand y
ou can t memorize their every word, so they give hints to help guide your learning
. If they tell you to pay close attention to something or make a note of it, it s
a good idea to take heed.
In the business world, the training wheels are removed. You re expected to underst
and the key takeaways, and missing them can have consequences. While working as
a manager, it wasn t uncommon for me to have to put people on disciplinary action
for not paying attention to an important procedural change from a meeting. If yo
u re ever unsure whether or not you notated all the important points, don t be afrai
d to ask someone.
5. Highlight and use colors.
Pretty much
I m a huge fan of highlighters and markers, especially ones that smell. I hung out
with a lot of graffiti artists growing up, and the smell of a Sharpie or Mr. Sk
etch marker brings back vivid memories of my childhood.
When taking notes, highlight the parts you know you ll need to reference later. Th
is includes times, dates, numbers, and names. Whether taking a test, writing an
essay, or working in a business, it s the numbers and names that you ll constantly s
earch back through your notes for. Making them stick out with color will save yo
u headaches down the road.
The act of note-taking in itself helps you memorize information by forcing you t
o activate more of your brain. Even if you don t remember the exact information, y
ou ll at least remember writing it in your notes. After your class or meeting, ref
er back to your notes to help you utilize the information and apply it.
_
After reaching the age of about 50, almost all of us worry from time to time tha
t our memories are beginning to fail. You might find yourself unable to remember
someone s name, or where you left the house keys, and that s just the beginning.
Before you know it, you re forgetting to turn off the gas, or struggling to recall
passwords and PINs that you ve been using for years.
If that sounds familiar, take heart from the fact that you are not alone. Next t
o poorer physical health, memory loss and a declining ability to concentrate are
our two greatest fears about getting older.
So when exactly does this start? How fast does it progress? And what capacities
remain unaffected?
As a neuroscientist who has long specialised in the study of the ageing brain, I l
l answer these questions over the course of this three-part series, calling on t
he latest scientific findings to present some often rather surprising statistics
and facts. As we will see, for example, the decline in our memory begins much e
arlier than we generally think.
It s not all bad news, however. As I ll explain, there are many practical steps we c
an take to slow the erosion of brain function. But first let s look at the physica
l changes that take place in our brains as we age.
Your shrinking brain
Between the ages of 30 and 90, the volume of the brain shrinks by about 15 per c
ent. Scientists used to think that this was down to a dying off of the grey matte

r , as our neurons (brain cells) are collectively known.

People struggle to remember things like shopping lists when they get older
+6
People struggle to remember things like shopping lists when they get older
They also believed that no new neurons were generated once you reached adulthood
.
But the latest research indicates that most brain cells remain reasonably intact
until we die, and that thousands of new neurons are produced daily, even in the
older brain
although at a rate that falls by as much as 80 per cent during a li
fetime.
While our brain cells do not die off in the way scientists once thought, some of
them do appear to start reducing in size, and this begins when we are at a rema
rkably early age.
Take those involved in storing and retrieving our memories. The general impressi
on is that forgetfulness begins in late middle age. Yet research has established
a very different starting date for memory decline. And that
prepare yourself
around your 20th year.

is

Scores on memory tests decline gradually between then and the age of about 60. B
ut, after that, they fall more rapidly and some types of memory deteriorate much
faster than others, governed as they are by the two parts of the brain most aff
ected by ageing.
These are the hippocampus, a structure shaped a little like a sea-horse and loca
ted near the temples, and the pre-frontal cortex, which, as its name suggests, i
s also to the fore of the brain.
Between them they handle various key memory functions including the ability to r
emember stories, visualise where you put things, such as the television remote c
ontrol, or retrace the route to a friend s house in your mind s eye.
BRAIN BOOSTERS
CLENCH YOUR FISTS: Research shows that if you clench your right first for 90 sec
onds before you try to remember something and then clench your left fist for 90
seconds after you have memorised it, you will increase your ability to retain it
.
DOODLE: If you have to sit through a lecture or speech, it can actually be quite
useful to doodle while you are listening as it keeps your brain alert and doesn t
stop you taking in what you are being told.
As you will know if your memory is affected like this, the information is stored
in your brain but you somehow don t seem to be able to access it any more, as tho
ugh it s locked in a cupboard to which you no longer have the key.
You may also struggle to remember a random collection of words such as a shoppin
g list, particularly if it consists of unrelated items such as toilet paper, mac
aroni and oranges.
Shopping will be slightly easier if the items you need to buy are all related
r example, the ingredients for a curry.

fo

However, you may then run into another problem because cooking, like many other
everyday tasks, calls on what s known as your working memory . This involves retainin
g information for a short period of time and then, crucially, revising it as you

go along.
A good example is mental arithmetic, which requires you to keep track of the run
ning total as you work your way through the calculation.
Key to this is an ability to filter out irrelevant information, something handle
d by the prefrontal cortex and, thanks to the damage caused by ageing, often lac
king in older people.
As they try to perform tasks such as learning how to use a new computer program,
or concentrating on a book, or following the different steps of that curry reci
pe, their working memories are frequently compromised by an inability to ignore
distractions such as noise made by their grandchildren.
Slowing down
Alongside damage to specific areas of grey matter such as the prefrontal cortex
and hippocampus, ageing also causes more general harm in its reduction of the fa
tty material that surrounds the threads carrying signals from one neuron to anot
her, known as axons.
Also known as white matter , this determines the speed at which such signals are tr
ansmitted and its deterioration sees a slowing in the brain s ability to process i
nformation.
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This fall in the brain s overall processing speed is actually the most important o
f all the faculties that succumb to ageing.
Indeed, it has been suggested that slower thought processes are at the root of a
ll other mental deterioration. In one study at Brunel University in London, olde
r subjects performed less well on memory tests than their younger counterparts.
But when the difference in speed of processing was taken into account, they perf
ormed equally well. In other words, it wasn t that the older people couldn t retriev
e the information, it just took them longer to do it.
+_
Mnemonics are memory devices that help learners recall larger pieces of informat
ion, especially in the form of lists like characteristics, steps, stages, parts,
phases, etc. We knew back in 1967 from a study by Gerald R. Miller that mnemoni
cs increased recall. He found that students who regularly used mnemonic devices
increased test scores up to 77%!
Many types of mnemonics exist and which type works best is limited only by the i
magination of each individual learner. The 9 basic types of mnemonics presented
in this handout include Music, Name, Expression/Word, Model, Ode/Rhyme, Note Org
anization, Image, Connection, and Spelling Mnemonics.
Music Mnemonics
How many lyrics to songs do you remember? How did you come to remember them?

The same method you used to recall song lyrics also can work just as well in ac
ademics. Music can used to help students recall important details to main ideas
and many learners have made songs out of information when a list of items must b
e learned. Advertising on radio and TV uses music to help potential customers re
member their products when shopping. With sufficient repetition of commercials,
advertisers have discovered that when shoppers see their product in the stores t
hat often the shopper will start reciting a oft repeated phrases from the commer
cial or start singing the lyrics to the promotion melody. The results has been i
ncreased sales of the product.
You can make a song or jingle using any type of music you choose for any lis
t of items. Music Mnemonics work best with long lists. For example, some childre
n learn the ABC's by singing the "ABC" song. Other children learn all the states
in alphabetical order using the "50 Nifty United States" song.
Name Mnemonics
In a Name Mnemonic, the 1st letter of each word in a list of items is used t
o make a name of a person or thing. Sometimes, the items can be rearranged to fo
rm a more recollectable name mnemonic. Examples:
ROY G. BIV = colors of the spectrum (Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indig
o, Violet.)
Pvt. Tim Hall = Essential amino acids (Phenylanine, Valine, Threonine, Trypt
ophan, Isolucine, Histidine, Arginine, Leucine, Lysine.
Expression or Word Mnemonic
This is by far the most popularly used mnemonic. To make an Expression or Wo
rd mnemonic, the first letter of each item in a list is arranged to form a phras
e or word. Examples:
For physical laws dealing with gasses, try these:
Charles' Law: For a constant volume, pressure is directly proportional to te
mperature.
The simple way to remember Chuck is if the tank's too hot, you're blown into
muck.
Henry's Law: The solubility of a gas increases with pressure.
To remember good old Hank, remember the bubbles in the shaken Coke you drank
.
Boyles' Law: At constant temperature, pressure is inversely proportional to
volume.
Boyle's law is best of all because it presses gasses awfully small.
In English, the 7 coordinating conjunctions are For, And, Nor, But, Or, Yet,
So = FANBOYS.
The order of operations for math is Parentheses, Exponents, Multiply, Divide
, Add, and Subtract = Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally.
The categories in the classification of life are Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Ord
er, Family, Genus, Species, Variety = Kings Play Cards On Fairly Good Soft Velve
t.
For those who have to remember the order of color coding on electronic resis
tors: Black, Blue, Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Brown, Violet, Gray, White, Silve
r, Gold.

Bad Boys Rile Our Young Girls, But Violet Gives Welts (to) Silly Guys
or
Bad Beer Rots Our Young Guts But Vodka Goes Well (in) Silver Goblets.
Almost every anatomy class has to remember the eight small bones in the wris
t: Navicular, Lunate, Triquetrum, Pisiform, Multongular (Greater), Multongular (
Lesser), Capitate, Hamate.
Never Lick Tilly's Popsicle, Mother Might Come Home.
Create an Expression Mnemonic for remembering the order of the planets from
the sun outward: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune,
and Pluto.
Model Mnemonics
In a Model Mnemonic, some type of representation is constructed to help with
understanding and recalling important information.
Examples include a circular sequence model, a pyramid model of stages, a pie
chart, and a 5-box sequence. Models should be used in addition to words and lis
ts because they make recall at test time much easier. With a large model such as
the Krebs Cycle, it is easier to learn and remember if it is divided into quart
ers and learned one quarter at a time; hence, the cross hairs.

Ode or Rhyme Mnemonics

An Ode or Rhyme Mnemonic puts information in the form of a poem. Examples in
clude:
A commonly used Rhyme Mnemonic for the number of days in each month is:
30 days hath September, April, June, and November.
All the rest have 31
Except February my dear son.
It has 28 and that is fine
But in Leap Year it has 29.
You'd probably prefer your doctor to know the difference between cyanate and
cyanide: Cyanate "I ate" and Cyanide "I died." Cyanide is a little fatal.

Remember this one? In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue.

How is your spelling?
I before e except after c
or when sounding like a
in neighbor and weigh
Here is an easy way to remember the nerves: olfactory, optic, oculomotor, tr
ochlear, trigeminal, abducens, facial, acoustic, glassopharyngeal, vagus, spinal
accessory and hypoglossal.
On Old Olympus' Towering Tops, A Finn And German Viewed Some Hops
Note Organization Mnemonics
The way textbook and lecture notes are organized can inhibit learning and re
call or promote it. In the sense that the organization of notes can promote reca
ll, it is a memory device. Three examples of organizing note formats that promot
e recall are as follows:
Notecards
Notecards are an easy way to organize main ideas and relevant details to be
recalled. If main ideas are formatted into possible test questions, notecards ca
n give learners practice in seeing questions and recalling answers as they must
do on exams.
Front
Back

Outlines
Outlines clearly separate main ideas from details. This helps organize the i
nformation in the mind making it easier to remember.
I. PIAGET'S THEORY
A. Four Stages
1. Sensorimotor
2. Preoperational
3. Concrete Operations
4. Formal Operations
B. Definition of each stage
1. Sensorimotor means ........ etc.
Cornell System
The Cornell System is another way to use a Note Organization Mnemonic to pro
mote recall. A vertical line is drawn 3 inches from the left margin of notebook
paper. Main ideas or questions from them are placed to the left of the line and
details or answers placed to the right.
Questions

Answers

The topic used here is from How To Study In College (3rd edition) by Walter
Pauk, pages 292 300.

Image Mnemonics
The information in an Image Mnemonic is constructed in the form of a picture
that promotes recall of information when you need it. The sillier the Image Mne
monic is, the easier it is to recall the related information. These images may b
e mental or sketched into text and lecture notes. Don't worry about your artisti
c ability. As long as you know what your sketch means, Image Mnemonics will help
you learn and remember. Examples:
You can use an Image Mnemonic to remember BAT (the depressant drugs mentione
d above - Barbiturates, Alcohol, and Tranquilizers). Visualize or sketch in your
notes a limp, depressed bat that took Barbiturates, Alcohol, and Tranquilizers.
Picture meeting someone new at a party named John Horsley. Use an Image Mnem
onic to help you remember his name. Visualize a horse sitting on a john: not pre
tty but effective in recall. No example provided on this one.
What is a numismatist? Visualize a new mist rolling onto a beach from the oc
ean and beach is made of coins. Silly? Of course, but sillyography makes it is e
asier to remember that a numismatist is a coin collector.
How about using a bad joke to help you remember? Picture two numismatists ha
ving a drink for "old dime's sake." Corny? Yes, but cornography often makes thin
gs easier to remember.

Connection Mnemonics
In this type of mnemonic, the information to be remembered is connected to s
omething already known. Examples include:
Remembering the direction of longitude and latitude is easier to do when you
realize that lines on a globe that run North and South are long and that coinci
des with LONGitude. Another Connection Mnemonic points out that there is an N in
LONGitude and an N in North. Latitude lines must run east to west, then because
there is no N in latitude.
Another Connection Mnemonic is related to sound. The 1st part of the word la
titude sounds like flat and flat runs horizontal or East and West.

Spelling Mnemonics
Here is an example of a spelling mnemonic: A principal at a school is your p
al, and a principle you believe or follow is a rule.
Another commonly used Spelling Mnemonic is combined with an Ode/Rhyme Mnemon
ic.
I before e except after c

or when sounding like a

in neighbor and weigh
A third example deals with the problems some learners have remembering that
there is an "a" in the middle of separate and not an "e." A Spelling Mnemonic co
mbined with an Image Mnemonic may be used to spell the word sep rate using an ex
aggerated "a."
To spell Mississippi, many learners combine a Rhythm Mnemonic with a Spellin
g mnemonic: M-iss-iss-ipp-i.
Here are some more examples of spelling mnemonics:
Geography: George Edwards's Old Grandma Rode A Pig Home Yesterday.
Arithmetic: A Rat In The House May Eat The Ice Cream.
Saskatchewan: Ask At Chew An with an S in front of it.
Take the 1st letter of each type of mnemonic listed above and print them bel
ow on the line to help you remember the 9 types.
Have a Mnemonics Party
Wanna' Practice? You become better at that which you practice. If you practice n
ot making mnemonics
You are only limited by the restrictions that you place on your own creativity.

+
This suggestion that the older brain can get there in the end
ns to dispel the idea that growing old is nothing but misery.
BRAIN BOOSTERS

is one of many reaso

SPELL BACKWARDS: Spell familiar words out loud but backwards. For example: TLUCI
FFID. It forces your brain to recall but reorganise at the same time.
WRITE BY HAND: In a computer age it s worth changing habits and writing out by han
d information that you want to remember. The physical act of forming the letters
and words helps the memory to retain them.
It's not all bad news
While our mental faculties may seem diminished as we age, there are some ways in
which they actually get better
for example, in what psychologists call crystalli
sed intelligence . This refers to skills that are not affected by age and, indeed,
may even improve as we grow older.
They represent the accumulation of knowledge and abilities throughout a person s l
ife and two areas in which older people particularly excel are in their vocabula
ry and general knowledge. Both generally increase until we enter our 80s.
Clearly it would be beneficial if the quality of our crystallised intelligence i
n later life was matched by our fluid intelligence
functions such as working memor
y and speed of processing which, as we have already seen, are vulnerable to agei
ng. But, once again, there are reasons to be optimistic.

Studies suggest that the brain itself adapts to compensate for failing skills. Y
ou may already be familiar with the idea that the left and right sides of the br
ain control different types of thinking. Broadly speaking, the left side is deem
ed more logical and analytical and the right side more creative.
This is borne out by experiments in which younger subjects asked to memorise wor
ds were seen to call largely on the left side of their brains. In the same exper
iments with older subjects, both sides were active. This indicates that our neur
al networks pull together and draw on all the brain s available resources to compe
nsate for weakness in particular areas. Beyond that, what can each of us do to k
eep our brains sharp as we age?
The first thing to say is that genetics will explain to a considerable degree wh
o will grow old with their brainpower intact while others are plagued by failing
memories. But genes account for only about one-third of the impairments that ac
company ageing.
More important are factors such as lifestyle not that you would know that from t
he enormous variety of commercially available pills, powders and supplements tha
t promise to reverse the ageing process but actually deliver very little.
In fact, there is currently no medication that can reliably and safely improve o
ur memory or other cerebral functions.
New medicines are constantly being tested and perhaps a miracle pill will one da
y be found. Meanwhile, here are some practical tips to help you get the very mos
t out of your ageing brain.
One Dutch psychologist has claimed chewing is good for the brain, improving the
flow of oxygen to the grey matter and leading to increased mental function
One Dutch psychologist has claimed chewing is good for the brain, improving the
flow of oxygen to the grey matter and leading to increased mental function
Watch what you eat
One Dutch psychologist has claimed chewing is good for the brain, improving the
flow of oxygen to the grey matter and leading to increased mental function.
He points out that, since older people have difficulty in eating, they tend to b
e given food that doesn t require much mastication and even proposes that nursing
homes should buy in large quantities of chewing gum!
More research is needed before that particular claim can be proved, but there is
no doubt that what we eat plays a major part in our brain function and perhaps
the most crucial element of a brain-friendly diet is to avoid over-eating.
Cutting calories reduces oxidative stress, the process that occurs when chemical
ly reactive molecules containing oxygen are produced in greater numbers than nor
mal. Some of these molecules are free radicals , which can cause damage to cells, i
ncluding the neurons in the brain.
Reducing calorie intake doesn t mean having to starve yourself. Just limit snacks
between meals and eat reasonable portions at mealtimes.
Also beware of eating too many carbohydrates and sugars. In combination with lit
tle exercise, this increases the risk of diabetes, which in turn is bad for the
brain and can hasten dementia.
Opt instead for a balanced diet including proteins, grains, vegetables and fruit

s. According to a study conducted in the Netherlands, improved brain function re

sults from the consumption of lignans, hormone-like substances found in plants.
Good sources of these include sesame seeds, linseed oil, broccoli, cabbage, peac
hes, and strawberries.
Beware eating too many carbohydrates, and opt instead for a balanced diet includ
ing proteins, grains, vegetables and fruits
Beware eating too many carbohydrates, and opt instead for a balanced diet includ
ing proteins, grains, vegetables and fruits
As for other natural substances, very few have been proven to boost our brainpow
er. But there is evidence that brain functioning in older people is heavily depe
ndent on vitamin B12, which is found in foods including beef and cod and is also
available in B12-enriched soy milk and yeast extracts such as Marmite.
Around a quarter of old people are deficient in B12 and, if you are one of them,
your brain may have less grey matter than people with varied and healthy diets.
Taking supplements will improve your mental functioning, but there is no hard ev
idence that B12 will improve the brainpower of people who already have normal le
vels of the vitamin.
Other dietary benefits can be gained from omega-3 fatty acids, found in oily fis
h such as mackerel, salmon and herring. These have a positive effect on the cell
walls of our neurons, enabling better transport of the substances needed for th
em to function effectively.
One study among 107 people, with an average age of nearly 80, showed that those
who regularly ate oily fish performed better in memory and concentration tests a
nd had more grey matter in their brains than those who did not.
Train your brain and you'll never forget things again
To help our brains remain sharp, it pays to keep them busy through what s known as
cognitive training , cognition being the scientific word for our mental processes.
This can take many forms, for example learning abstract lists of words as a way
of exercising our memories, in much the same way as we would exercise a muscle,
and it has been shown that this can actually lead to physical changes in the bra
in. One German experiment found that six months of memory training in a group of
people with an average age of 69 led to strengthened nerve connections between
the right and left hemispheres.
Similarly, American research demonstrated that eight weeks of cognitive training
with a group of people who were also aged around 70 brought about an increase i
n blood flow to the prefrontal cortex which, as we have already seen, plays a vi
tal role in the storage and retrieval of information.
The benefits of cognitive training for older people were further highlighted by
a study at the University of Southern California which analysed the results of a
ll published research into such methods. It emerged that training can improve co
gnitive functions by 10 per cent. Given that the brain s decline between 65 and 75
is also, on average, 10 per cent, this is clearly a significant amount. We ll loo
k further at training exercises on Monday.
Butter on Door Handles
Beyond abstract memory exercises, cognitive training can also teach strategies f

or remembering things in the real world. One such is the

loci method .

Loci is Latin for places . If you want to remember a shopping list, for example, you
imagine putting all the items in specific locations in a familiar place, such as
your living room. By visualising your living room as you walk around the superm
arket, you can then recall what you want to buy.
Let s say the list includes butter, worktop spray cleaner, kitchen rolls, bread, c
heese, milk, sausages, dog food and apples.
Choose ten places in the living room and hang each of the items onto one of those
places, which you can link together as a journey. For example, as you go through
the door visualize the handle being slippery with butter so you spray it with s
urface cleaner and wipe it with kitchen roll.
Moving to the next chosen place, you notice that the dining table has a half-eat
en cheese sandwich and a glass of milk left on it and the dog is jumping up to g
rab some sausages left on a plate. You distract him by rolling an apple across t
he floor . . .
By using familiar places in the room to anchor the objects you will be able to r
ecall them as you walk around the supermarket
Rummage for Recall
Another effective strategy is to focus more strongly on retrieving information t
han on storing it.
Imagine you want to memorise a piece of text for a speech. You can read it 20 ti
mes so you know it by heart, a method you ll remember from your schooldays. But it s
more effective to read it three times and then try to recall what you can witho
ut consulting the written text.
The very act of trying to remember, and rummaging in your brain, will help fix t
he details in your mind and when you realise the bits you can t recall, and how th
ey connect to the bits that you can, they ll be easier to summon up when you try a
gain.
You may have to check a few times, but, if you do, put the paper away again imme
diately afterwards. This is a more active way of learning that helps you to see
a structure in the text and thus aids your memory of it.
Crazy Connections
Other ways of enhancing learning ability include making crazy connections in ord
er to remember things. Imagine, for instance, that you have to take your grandso
n to football practice on Beethoven Street.
To remember that, you could picture Beethoven sitting at the piano, playing a so
nata with a football balanced on his head while your grandson looks on in amazem
ent.
Reward and Remember
A good mood also helps with learning, as a study conducted at the University of
Amsterdam has shown. If you feel good, you absorb information better.
But how do you achieve that? One way is to think about happy or amusing events i
n your life. Putting on your favourite music can help, too, and so can promising
yourself a reward once you ve completed the task.

_
Finding a surefire memorization technique can be challenging, but it doesn't hav
e to be. By applying some quick tricks, you can become well-read in any informat
ion-heavy subject just by putting your mind to it. Tutor John Place writes:
1. First, use a pencil or word processor (I prefer the latter because it's f
aster) to type, in complete sentences, any fact you think might appear on the te
st. Use short sentences because they're easier to remember.
2. Take your printed notes into a quiet room, shut the door, and eliminate a
ll distractions.
3. Look at the first sentence in your notes and read it out loud. Then, clos
e your eyes and say the sentence without looking at it.
4. Repeat the step above, this time with the first two sentences.
5. Next, try it with three sentences. Then four. Repeat until you have memor
ized every sentence in your notes.
After applying these techniques to his studies, John was able to memorize seven
chapters (or 23,000 words) of his psychology textbook and surpassed his professo
r's expectations.
What memorization techniques do you find most valuable? Let's hear it in the com
ments.
_
Learning ability is probably the most important skill you can have.
Take it from Peter Brown, Henry Roediger, and Mark McDaniel, authors of "Make It
Stick: The Science Of Successful Learning."
"We need to keep learning and remembering all our lives," they write. "Getting a
head at work takes mastery of job skills and difficult colleagues ... If you're
good at learning, you have an advantage in life."
And to learn something is to be able to remember it, say the authors, two of who
m are psychology professors at Washington University in St. Louis.
Unfortunately, lots of the techniques for learning that we pick up in school don
't help with long-term recall
like cramming or highlighting.
To get over these bad habits, we scoured "Make It Stick" for learning tips.
But be warned: If it's difficult, it's good thing.
"Learning is deeper and more durable when it's effortful," the authors write. "L
earning that's easy is like writing in sand, here today and gone tomorrow."
Here are the takeaways:
Retrieval: Bring it back from memory.
When you're attempting to recall an idea, method, or technique from memory, you'
re retrieving. Flash cards are a great example: They force you to recall an idea
from memory, unlike a technique like highlighting where you're not burning anyt
hing into your brain. The reason retrieval's so effective is that it strengthens
the neural pathways associated with a given concept.
Elaboration: Connect new ideas to what you already know.

When you try to put a new idea into your own words, you're elaborating.
"The more you can explain about the way your new learning relates to prior knowl
edge," the authors write, "the stronger your grasp of the new learning will be,
and the more connections you create that will help you remember it later."
For instance, if you're in physics class and trying to understand heat transfer,
try to tie the concept into your real-life experiences, say, by imagining how a
warm cup of coffee disperses heat into your hands.
Interleaving: Varying your subjects.
When you work on a variety of things at once, you're interleaving. If you're try
ing to understand a subject
from the basics of economics to hitting a pitch
you'
re going to learn better if you mix up your examples. A sports case: Batters who
do batting practice with a mix of fastballs, change-ups, and curveballs hit for
a higher average. The interleaving helps because when you're out there in the w
ild, you need to first discern what kind of problem you're facing before you can
start to find a solution, like a ball coming from a pitcher's hand.
Generation: Answer before you have an answer.
When you try to give an answer before it's given to you, you're generating. "By
wading into the unknown first and puzzling through it, you are far more likely t
o learn and remember the solution than if somebody first sat down to teach it to
you," the authors write. In an academic setting, you could work finding your ow
n answers before class starts. In a professional setting, you could supply your
own ideas when you're stuck before talking with your boss.
Reflection: Evaluate what happened.
When you take a few moments to review what happened with a project or meeting, y
ou're reflecting. You might ask yourself a few questions: What went well? Where
can you improve? What does it remind you of? Harvard Business School researchers
have found reflective writing to be super powerful. Just 15 minutes of written
reflection at the end of the day increased performance by 23% for one group of e
mployees.
Mnemonics: Use hacks to recall.
When you're using an acronym or image to recall something, you're using a mnemon
ic. The hall of fame includes abbreviations Roy G. Biv for the colors of the spe
ctrum (Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet) and rhyming, like "in 1
492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue."
"Mnemonics are not tools for learning per se," the authors write, "but for creat
ing mental structures that make it easier to retrieve what you have learned."
Calibration: Know what you don't know.
When you get feedback that reveals your ignorance to you, you're calibrating. "C
alibration is simply the act of using an objective instrument to clear away illu
sions and adjust your judgment to better reflect reality." This is necessary sin
ce we all suffer from "cognitive illusions": We think we understand something wh
en we really don't. So taking a quiz or gathering feedback from a colleague
help
s you to identify those blind spots.
For a deeper dig into the science of learning, make sure to pick up "Make It Sti
ck." It's an illuminating read.
}
earning is a skill in itself.
We need to get good at it, since the tools we use to do our jobs are changing ev
ery year.

In a recent Quora thread, users answered the question: What learning strategies
do people who are "quick learners" follow? We've outlined some of the best ideas
for for optimizing the learning process, along with the latest in productivity
research, below.
To understand a problem, ask "why" five times.
In "The Lean Startup," author Eric Ries offers the "Five Whys" technique for get
ting to the root of an issue. The idea is to get to the underlying cause of a su
perficial problem
one that, more often than not is more human than technical err
or.
To see the quintuple-why strategy in action, lets look at his hypothetical start
up example:
1. A new release disabled a feature for customers. Why? Because a particular ser
ver failed.
2. Why did the server fail? Because an obscure subsystem was used in the wrong w
ay.
3. Why was it used in the wrong way? The engineer who used it didn't know how to
use it properly.
4. Why didn't he know? Because he was never trained.
5. Why wasn't he trained? Because his manager doesn't believe in training new en
gineers because he and his team are "too busy."
By pushing the inquiry five times, Ries says we can see how a "purely technical
fault is revealed quickly to be a very human managerial issue."
Keep a positive attitude.
Worrying that you're not going to be able to learn something is a poor investmen
t of your mental energy, says Harvard Business School professor Alison Wood Broo
ks.
"Anxiety precludes you from exploring real solutions and real thought patterns t
hat will come up with solutions," she says. But when you're feeling good about w
hat might happen, you get into an opportunity-oriented mindset. "So you think of
all of the good things that can happen. You're more likely to make decisions an
d take actions that will make that world likely to occur."
Don't just learn about it; practice it.
"You can't learn golf from a book. You need to swing a club at a ball," says Quo
ra user Mark Harrison, the head of technology at British financial company Fundi
ngKnight. "You can't learn Ruby on Rails from a book you need to put together a
site."
Find an expert, and then ask them about their expertise.
If you're trying to learn a subject, talk to an expert who can explain it. Buy t
hem lunch, and ask them all about their craft. Tim Ferriss, author of "The 4-Hou
r Workweek," is a master of this. Whenever he's trying to learn a sport, he'll s
eek out the nearest silver medalist, arrange for an interview, and then grill th
em on technique.
Get an accountability buddy.
Find somebody else who's trying to build the same skill as you
be it rock climbi
ng, cello, or French cooking and experience the learning process with them. Set
up regular times to check in on your progress, whether in person or via Skype, H
arrison recommends.

When you don't understand, say so.

Another tip from Harrison: When you don't understand something in a meeting, go
ahead and put up your hand and ask, "Sorry, can you just explain why?" Dumb peop
le will think it's dumb, he says, but smart folks will admire the curiosity.
As Mortimer Adler advises in "How To Read A Book," learning is very much a matte
r of being aware of when you're perplexed, and then following up on that perplex
ity.
Repeat, repeat, repeat.
It's not so much that practice makes perfect; it just makes actions go faster. T
his is because when you do something again and again
recall how you recited the
alphabet as a kid
you strengthen bonds between brain cells.
"Repetition leads to synaptic conditioning," shares user Hwang Min Hae, a medica
l student in Australia. "The brain is plastic, and it allows the neural pathway
to fire at a faster pace than before. That's why repetition over a long period o
f time creates an instantaneous recall that's why you can recite your ABCs and 1
23s. Try reciting your ABCs in the opposite way, and you'll have a bigger diffic
ulty than doing it forward."
Don't just write it out; draw it out.
Dan Roam has written two books about visual thinking, "The Back of the Napkin" a
nd "Blah Blah Blah." He also consults for companies like Google, eBay, General E
lectric, and Wal-Mart. They bring him in to help explore the "aspects of knowled
ge that can't be expressed through words."
dan roamAnnie Murphy Paul
Words and pictures complement each other.
"Often the best approach to solving problems and generating ideas involves a com
bination of words and pictures," he says. "When you add pictures, you add layers
and dimensions of thought that are almost impossible to achieve with words alon
e ... It's a way to get your idea down while still keeping it in a fluid state."
You can do that with a "mind map," or diagram, that visually outlines interrelat
ed ideas.
Learn the difficult stuff at the start of the day.
Willpower is finite, research shows. We have lots at the start of the day, but i
t gets depleted as we make decisions and resist temptations. (That's why shoppin
g is so exhausting.) So if you're learning a language, an instrument, or anythin
g else that's super complex, schedule it for the start of the day, since you'll
have the most mental energy then.
Use the 80/20 rule.
The 80/20 rule states that you get 80% of your value out of 20% of work. In busi
ness, 20% of activities produce 80% of results that you want. Fast learners appl
y the same logic to their research areas.
Quora user Stefan Jerome, a student at the University of Leicester in England, p
rovides an example:
When I look at a book, for example, I look though the contents page and make
a list from 1-5 with 1 being the chapter with the most relevant material. When
looking through a instructional video, I often skip to the middle where the acti
on or technique is being demonstrated, then I work backwards to gain the context
and principles.

This works, he says, since the beginning of most videos will be fluffed with exp
osition, and most books are layered in with filler to make length requirements.
So with a little cunning, you can extract most of the knowledge from those mater
ials while investing a fraction of the time.
}
aving done work with traumatic brain injury clients, I have come to understand m
emory in a different light then I ever thought I would. Growing up, I can t say i
actually spent any significant time thinking about memory, but given how signifi
cant memory actually is in our lives, I think it deserves more respect than most
people give it. Memory is the foundation of our personality, the glue that hold
s together all of our relationships with family and friends, and determines a po
rtion of our overall level of intelligence.
Development of memory is not independent and requires other cognitive abilities.
The process starts with our attention. If we can not attend to the pen in front
of us, then there is little hope that our brains will ever remember the pen. Th
is is why people who have attention disorders will likely have poor memories. It
is also why people with emotional distress (anxiety/depression) have poor memor
y. When you are anxious or depressed, your thoughts are often turned inward and
are focused on thoughts/emotions. If attention is preoccupied with emotional dis
tress then it is not free to attend to the environment. When attention focuses o
n something the information is collected by our senses (eyes, ears, skin etc).
Our senses receive the visual and auditory information from our environment and
transform the information to neural signals that move into the brain. This infor
mation goes into our working memory, where we hold it temporarily. When I descri
be the working memory, I often refer to it as a juggler. This is the part of the
memory process where we are actively using information. An example is when you
are reciting a phone number over and over in your mind, or repeating a name that
you are trying not to forget. The working memory brings in information from the
sensory systems, holds it while the brain pulls from previous memories to ident
ify what the sensory system is experiencing. This combines bottom up and top dow
n processing1. So if we see a pen, our senses bring in information (color, size,
lack of sound, texture, etc) and the working memory takes all these bits of inf
ormation and holds them while our brain scans previous stored memories until it
finds a match, thus being able to identify the object as a pen.
Once information is identified, the process of memory formation begins. The firs
t stage is encoding of the information. Some people with awesome encoding skills
are capable of seeing something once and it sticks. If your encoding abilities
are not intact, then you need numerous exposures to something for the informatio
n to stick. This is why repetition and exposure to something will likely lead to
remembering it. For example, people who struggle with encoding will need many e
ncounters with Sally before they are able to remember her name. After the inform
ation is encoded it is stored in the brain. The next stage is retrieval. This is
the ability to pull information out of the memory. When someone has difficulty
with retrieval the information is there and stored but they are unable to recall
it. Think of a time when you knew something, it was on the tip of your tongue b
ut you were unable to recall it until someone gave you a hint or triggered the m
emory. Then the whole memory was accessible to you. This is the recall process.
Typically, when someone thinks of memory they think of episodic and semantic mem
ory. Episodic memory2 is our memory of personal events. These memories are our h
istory, our life story. They recount childhood birthday parties, first kisses, t
he birth of your child and more. They are autobiographical in nature and are mad
e up of long term and short term memories. Without going into too much psycholog
y, memories of our past also have a significant impact on the development of our
personality and moods. Memories of traumatic events can stay with us, impacting
how we act and feel. Also, fond memories about childhood friendships can signif

icantly impact how we make/maintain current friendships. Memory also allows us t

o form relationships. It s very hard to develop a relationship with someone if you
can t remember previous times with them. Ever see the movie 50 First Dates ?
Semantic memory3 is comprised of factual information. Examples of semantic memor
y are things that you learn in school, and things that you read in the newspaper
. It is factual knowledge about the world around you. I have been lucky to work
with a wide range of intellectual abilities and have noticed that people who are
generally considered to be very intelligent alway have magnificent memories. Th
ese individual have an amazing attention and the ability to process information
very quick, multitask without missing a beat, and retain important or subtle inf
ormation which they can accurately recall after only one exposure. This helps th
em remember much more information that they have learned over the years, increas
ing their crystalized intelligence4 levels. There are other attributes that are
common among geniuses but I feel that memory is possibly one of the most signifi
cant.
Given the significance of memory, it is important to work on improving our memor
y when ever possible. Cognitive games are a great way to work on this, assuming
that they are constantly challenging your limits. You want to work at a level th
at is not too easy because this is not helping develop your abilities and not to
o hard because you wont learn from that if you can never complete the task. Ther
e are memory techniques such as chunking or mnemonic devices that can help with
retaining and retrieving information. Chunking5 information reduces the number o
f things you need to remember. For example, instead of remembering a 10 digit ph
one number (1234567891) you can chunk the information into five numbers (12, 34,
56, 78, 91). Mnemonic devices6 are ways to organize information so that you are
able to trigger the information that you are struggling to recall. For example
in school we learned the sentence My Very Energetic Mother Just Served Us Nine Pi
ckles to help remember the planets (yes I know Pluto has since been reclassified
but this is the one I learned). The first letter of each word represents a plane
t (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto). You ca
n also use HOMES to remember the Great Lakes with each letter representing a lak
e (Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, Superior). When working with children, try ga
mes that require memory such as go fish, or the card game memory. Gradually incr
easing the number of information pieces being used will lead to an effective and
challenging level to work at.
This barely touches on all the wonderful ways memory makes our lives better, and
is by no means meant to encompass all aspects. I hope it helps to break it down
into understandable parts.
}
You've heard the memory-boosting advice and tried all the tricks. Check out thes
e surprising ways your memory can be better, backed up with science.
By Belle Beth Cooper
We ve looked at a few different strategies to help remember the names of people yo
u meet, but there s lots to say about memory.
It turns out that science is continually finding new connections between simple
things we can do every day and an improvement in our general memory capacity.
Memory is a complicated process that s made up of a few different brain activities
. Here s a simplified version to help us understand how the process takes place:
Creating a memory
Our brain sends signals in a particular pattern associated with the event we re ex
periencing and creates connections between our neurons, called synapses.
Consolidating the memory

If we didn t do anything further, that memory would fall right out of our heads ag
ain. Consolidation is the process of committing it to long-term memory so we can
recall it later. A lot of this process happens while we re sleeping, as our brain
s recreate that same pattern of brain activity to strengthen the synapses we cre
ated earlier.
Recalling the memory
This is what most of us think of when we talk about memory, or especially memory
loss. Recalling the memory is easier if it s been strengthened over time, and eac
h time we do so, we run through that same pattern of brain activity again, makin
g it a little stronger.
Memory loss is a normal part of aging, but that doesn t mean we can t take action to
slow it down a little. Let s take a look at some of the ways research has found t
o keep our memories around as long as possible.
1. Meditate to improve your working memory
Working memory, which is a bit like the brain s notepad, is where new information
is held temporarily. When you learn someone s name or hear the address of a place
you re going to, you hang on to those details in working memory until you re done wi
th them. If they re not useful anymore, you let go of them entirely. If they are,
you commit them to long-term memory where they can be strengthened and recalled
later.
Working memory is something we use every day, and it makes our lives a lot easie
r when it s stronger. For most adults, the maximum we can hold in our working memo
ry is about seven items, but if you re not quite using your working memory to its
max capacity, meditation is one thing you can try to strengthen it.
Research has shown that participants with no experience in mindfulness meditatio
n can improve their memory recall in just eight weeks. Meditation, with its powe
r to help us concentrate, has also been shown to improve improve standardized te
st scores and working memory abilities after just two weeks.
Why does meditation benefit memory? It s somewhat counterintuitive. During meditat
ion, our brains stop processing information as actively as they normally would.
In the image below you can see how the beta waves (shown in bright colors on the
left), which indicate that our brains are processing information, are dramatica
lly reduced during meditation (on the right).
2. Drink coffee to improve your memory consolidation
Whether caffeine can improve memory if taken before learning something new is de
batable. Most research has found little-to-no effect from ingesting caffeine pri
or to creating new memories. One recent study, however, found that taking a caff
eine pill after a learning task actually improved memory recall up to 24 hours l
ater.
Participants memorized a set of images, and were later tested by viewing the sam
e images (targets), similar images (lures) and completely different images (foil
s). The task was to pick out which were the exact pictures they had memorized, w
ithout being tricked by the lures which were very similar. This is a process cal
led pattern separation, which, according to the researchers, reflects a "deeper
level of memory retention."
The researchers in this study focused on the effects of caffeine on memory conso
lidation: the process of strengthening the memories we ve created. This is why the
y believe there were effects when caffeine was ingested after the learning task,
rather than before.
3. Eat berries for better long-term memory

Another diet-related effect on memory is the mounting research that eating berri
es can help to stave off memory decline.
A study from the
at supplementing
mance on spatial
nd continued for

University of Reading and the Peninsula Medical School found th

a normal diet with blueberries for twelve weeks improved perfor
working memory tasks. The effects started just three weeks in a
the length of the study.

A long-term berry study that tested the memory of female nurses who were over 70
years old found that those who had regularly eaten at least two servings of str
awberries or blueberries each week had a moderate reduction in memory decline. (
The effects of strawberries might be debatable, though, since that study was par
tly funded by the California Strawberry Commission and another study focusing on
strawberries suggested that you d need to eat roughly 10 pounds of strawberries p
er day to see any effect).
More research is needed in this area, but
ding how berries might affect our brains.
or being high in flavanoids, which appear
the brain. That could explain why they re
4. Exercise to improve your memory recall

science is getting closer to understan

In particular, blueberries are known f
to strengthen existing connections in
beneficial for long-term memory.

Studies in both rat and human brains have shown that regular exercise can improv
e memory recall. Fitness in older adults has even been proven to slow the declin
e of memory without the aid of continued regular exercise.
In particular, studies shown that regular exercise can improve spatial memory, s
o it s not necessarily a way to improve all kinds of memory recall.
Of course, the benefits of exercise are numerous, but for the brain in particula
r, regular exercise has been shown to improve cognitive abilities beyond memory.
So if you re looking for a way to stay sharp mentally, taking a walk could be the
answer. See how a quick walk ignites the brain in the scan below:
5. Chew gum to make stronger memories
Another easy method to try that could improve your memory is chewing gum while y
ou learn new things. There s been some contradictory research around this topic, s
o it s not a solid bet, but a study published last year showed that participants w
ho completed a memory recall task were more accurate and had higher reaction tim
es if they chewed gum during the study.
One reason that chewing gum might affect our memory recall is that it increases
activity in the hippocampus, an important area of the brain for memory. It s still
unclear why this happens, though.
Another theory focuses on the increase of oxygen from chewing gum, which can hel
p with focus and attention. This could mean we re creating stronger connections in
the brain as we learn new things while chewing gum. One study found that partic
ipants who chewed gum during learning and memory tests had higher heart rate lev
els than control groups, which can also lead to more oxygen flowing to the brain
.
6. Sleep more to consolidate your memories
Sleep has proven to be one of the most important elements in having a good memor
y. Since sleep is when most of our memory consolidation process occurs, it makes
sense that without enough sleep we re going to struggle to remember the things we v
e learned. Even a short nap can improve your memory recall.
In one study, participants memorized illustrated cards to test their memory stre

ngth. After memorizing a set of cards, they had a 40-minute break wherein one gr
oup napped, and the other stayed awake. After the break, both groups were tested
on their memory of the cards
the group who had napped performed better:
Much to the surprise of the researchers, the sleep group performed significa
ntly better, retaining on average 85 percent of the patterns, compared to 60 per
cent for those who had remained awake.
Apparently, napping actually helps our brain to solidify memories:
Research indicates that when memory is first recorded in the brain in the hipp
ocampus, to be specific it s still "fragile" and easily forgotten, especially if the
brain is asked to memorize more things. Napping, it seems, pushes memories to t
he neocortex, the brain s "more permanent storage," preventing them from being "ov
erwritten."
Not only is sleep after learning a critical part of the memory creation process,
but sleep before learning something new is important as well. Research has foun
d that sleep deprivation can affect our ability to commit new things to memory a
nd consolidate any new memories we create.
}
our working memory capacity, or the amount of information you're able to activel
y hold in your mind at once, isn't just easy-access storage in your brain. Accor
ding to Art Markman (Ph. D), writing for Psychology Today, a better working memo
ry increases your capacity to generate creative idea. One study demonstrates:
In one study, the researchers actually explored the creativity of improvisat
ions played by cellists with no formal training in improvisation. At the start o
f the study, they measured everyone's working memory capacity. Then, participant
s were given the chance to perform three 3-minute improvisations based on a them
e (such as Winter or Spring). Each improvisation had a different theme. The impr
ovisations were recorded in a studio, and then professional musicians rated them
for their originality and creativity. The creativity of the first improvisation
s people performed was about the same regardless of their working memory capacit
y. However, the people with high working memory capacity played better improvisa
tions as they progressed through the study, while those with low working memory
capacity played worse improvisations. So, by the end of the study, the people wi
th higher working memory capacity were playing significantly more creative impro
visations than those with low working memory capacity.
According to this study, and others mentioned by Markman, working memory looks t
o have an effect on the types of ideas you generate. When we try to come up with
new ideas, we almost always start with the familiar. People with low working me
mory capacities just stick with that familiar stuff. People with high working me
mory capacities, however, start to depart from the usual and begin to look outsi
de of what they already know.
So how do you increase your working memory capacity? While there are no definiti
ve methods, there are several things believed to be helpful. Improving reading c
omprehension is one, which can be done by reading more often and paying close at
tention to what you read. With every sentence, you should be able to recall it i
n memory afterwards even if that recollection is only temporary. Practicing this c
an make a difference. Additionally, dual n-back training can actually help your
brain focus better on tasks and this should help your working memory. Brain Work
shop is one free game that can get you started. In addition to focusing better,
breaking down information you want to remember into small chunks can help. Simpl
e information is almost always going to be easier to remember.
While research is still ongoing and there are no definitive answers, your workin
g memory capacity is shaping up to be an important factor in how you think all-a

round. Spend some time with it and you may find it easier to generate better ide
as.
}
When you know how to use it, nothing works more efficiently than your own memory
, even if you think your memory is lacking. An average memory is a lot more powe
rful than you think, and there are steps to tapping into your memory's power, an
d using it to your advantage in everyday life.
If you think a world where you don't need to consult your to-do list to remember
simple things doesn't exist, think again. The problem isn't that your memory is
n't powerful enough, it's that you don't use it effectively. In fact, World Memo
ry Champions, who have to memorize hundreds to thousands of words, playing cards
, and numbers, often say they have an average memory, and just know how to use i
t. Using tactics from some of the world's most powerful mnemonists, and a little
Psychology 101, here's how you can stop forgetting your keys without any help a
nd remember some other practical things too.
How Your Memory Works (and Three Ways to Improve It)
How would you like to be able to recall the name of a client or associate you ju
st met? How would
Read more
Step One: Be Mindful of Your Actions
How to Boost Your Practical Memory (and Stop Losing Your Keys)
When you put down your wallet or keys and later have no idea where they could be
, you'll notice you don't have a memory of setting them down in the first place.
This is because you weren't really thinking about the action when you did it, a
nd this is the first habit you need to break. Instead, be conscious of when ther
e's something you need to remember. You typically do this when someone tells you
"Remind me to do xyz," because you're paying attention. This is why, even thoug
h you'll probably forget about the reminder, you'll still remember you needed to
do something, which is a necessary baseline to remembering what it was you need
ed to do.
Step Two: Visualize What You Need to Remember
As Joshua Foer explains in the video above, our brains are visual. That's why it
's easier to remember movie plots than phone numbers. For example: If you're at
a friend's house and decide to put your keys on a bookshelf out of the way, look
at the shelf for a few seconds and focus on the visual in your mind. Connect th
e key to the bookshelf as one picture so you remember not only the key, but its
surroundings. This is really just paying attention to detail, but for our memori
es, it's much more. This how you push something from your working memory (aka sh
ort-term memory) into your long-term memory without repetition.
Why Your Memory Sucks (and What You Can Do About It)
Human memory is quirky, complicated, and unreliable. Even when we think we're re
membering
Read more
Step Three: Use Your Imagination to Help the Image Stick In Your Mind
How to Boost Your Practical Memory (and Stop Losing Your Keys)
The crazier, weirder, funnier, or otherwise more interesting the image, the bett
er it's going to stick in your memory. This step is like adding extra adhesive t
o tape. World Memory Champion Ed Cooke explains why this works in the book Moonw
alking With Einstein:
"The general idea with most memory techniques is to change whatever boring t
hing is being inputted into your memory into something that is so colorful, so e

xciting, and so different from anything you've seen before that you can't possib
ly forget it. That's what elaborative encoding is."
So how does this apply to your keys? Bring the books to life and make them laugh
and joke with each other. Give them arms and legs, and dress them in outfits th
at match their genres. It sounds pretty strange, but that's exactly why it works
, and by the time you do that, you'll have developed a pretty solid memory of wh
ere your keys are.
How to Train Your Brain and Boost Your Memory Like a USA Memory Champion
Here's a little secret you might never have guessed: The people who can accompli
sh incredible
Read more
Step Four: Strengthen Your Memory Cues
How to Boost Your Practical Memory (and Stop Losing Your Keys)
Most recollections are cued by something else, like an external event, or even s
omething we were just thinking about previously. This is called direct retrieval
, and it's the result of those "Oh that reminds me" moments you have throughout
the day. On the other hand, when you find yourself saying, "What's the word I'm
thinking of?", it's because the cue for that particular memory isn't very strong
, which is something you need to be careful of.
Use the Memory Palace Technique to Memorize Presentations
We've shown you the potential benefits of making things visual to help you remem
ber them , but
Read more
Strengthen your memory cues by making the things you're trying to remember an im
portant part of your mental picture. In our keys and bookshelf example, a bunch
of books talking and walking around the shelf while your key just sits there is
flawed, because you don't need the key for the scene to work. Instead, make the
books play toss with the keys, or argue over them, or anything that makes the ke
ys the focal point of the visual. Now you won't be able to remember the scene wi
thout remembering the keys, and you won't be able to forget that the last time y
ou saw your keys, a bunch of books were fighting over them on your friend's book
shelf.
Step Five: Apply These to Everything
How to Boost Your Practical Memory (and Stop Losing Your Keys)
If you can visualize it, you can commit it to memory using these steps. Plus, it
doesn't have to be a crazy image. Most of the time I need to remember someone's
name, the first thing I do is picture them shaking hands with, or hugging someo
ne else I know with the same name. If I don't know someone else, then I find a n
ew way to visualize their name. When remembering to grab milk on the way home, p
icture yourself walking out to your car to find that it's now just a cow on whee
ls, or something to that effect. Once you get the hang of it, it comes naturally
, and you'll find yourself tweaking your habits and perception of things to aide
your memory when you need it.
]
here is a 41-year-old woman, an administrative assistant from California known i
n the medical literature only as "AJ," who remembers almost every day of her lif
e since age 11. There is an 85-year-old man, a retired lab technician called "EP
," who remembers only his most recent thought. She might have the best memory in
the world. He could very well have the worst.
"My memory flows like a movie nonstop and uncontrollable," says AJ. She remembers
that at 12:34 p.m. on Sunday, August 3, 1986, a young man she had a crush on cal

led her on the telephone. She remembers what happened on Murphy Brown on Decembe
r 12, 1988. And she remembers that on March 28, 1992, she had lunch with her fat
her at the Beverly Hills Hotel. She remembers world events and trips to the groc
ery store, the weather and her emotions. Virtually every day is there. She's not
easily stumped.
There have been a handful of people over the years with uncommonly good memories
. Kim Peek, the 56-year-old savant who inspired the movie Rain Man, is said to h
ave memorized nearly 12,000 books (he reads a page in 8 to 10 seconds). "S," a R
ussian journalist studied for three decades by the Russian neuropsychologist Ale
xander Luria, could remember impossibly long strings of words, numbers, and nons
ense syllables years after he'd first heard them. But AJ is unique. Her extraord
inary memory is not for facts or figures, but for her own life. Indeed, her inex
haustible memory for autobiographical details is so unprecedented and so poorly
understood that James McGaugh, Elizabeth Parker, and Larry Cahill, the neuroscie
ntists at the University of California, Irvine who have been studying her for th
e past seven years, had to coin a new medical term to describe her condition: hy
perthymestic syndrome.
EP is six-foot-two (1.9 meters), with perfectly parted white hair and unusually
long ears. He's personable, friendly, gracious. He laughs a lot. He seems at fir
st like your average genial grandfather. But 15 years ago, the herpes simplex vi
rus chewed its way through his brain, coring it like an apple. By the time the v
irus had run its course, two walnut-size chunks of brain matter in the medial te
mporal lobes had disappeared, and with them most of EP's memory.
The virus struck with freakish precision. The medial temporal lobes there's one on
each side of the brain include an arch-shaped structure called the hippocampus an
d several adjacent regions that together perform the magical feat of turning our
perceptions into long-term memories. The memories aren't actually stored in the
hippocampus they reside elsewhere, in the brain's corrugated outer layers, the ne
ocortex but the hippocampal area is the part of the brain that makes them stick. E
P's hippocampus was destroyed, and without it he is like a camcorder without a w
orking tape head. He sees, but he doesn't record.
EP has two types of amnesia anterograde, which means he can't form new memories, a
nd retrograde, which means he can't remember old memories either, at least not s
ince 1960. His childhood, his service in the merchant marine, World War II all tha
t is perfectly vivid. But as far as he knows, gas costs less than a dollar a gal
lon, and the moon landing never happened.
AJ and EP are extremes on the spectrum of human memory. And their cases say more
than any brain scan about the extent to which our memories make us who we are.
Though the rest of us are somewhere between those two poles of remembering every
thing and nothing, we've all experienced some small taste of the promise of AJ a
nd dreaded the fate of EP. Those three pounds or so of wrinkled flesh balanced a
top our spines can retain the most trivial details about childhood experiences f
or a lifetime but often can't hold on to even the most important telephone numbe
r for just two minutes. Memory is strange like that.
What is a memory? The best that neuroscientists can do for the moment is this: A
memory is a stored pattern of connections between neurons in the brain. There a
re about a hundred billion of those neurons, each of which can make perhaps 5,00
0 to 10,000 synaptic connections with other neurons, which makes a total of abou
t five hundred trillion to a thousand trillion synapses in the average adult bra
in. By comparison there are only about 32 trillion bytes of information in the e
ntire Library of Congress's print collection. Every sensation we remember, every
thought we think, alters the connections within that vast network. Synapses are
strengthened or weakened or formed anew. Our physical substance changes. Indeed

, it is always changing, every moment, even as we sleep.

I met EP at his home, a bright bungalow in suburban San Diego, on a warm spring
day. I drove there with Larry Squire, a neuroscientist and memory researcher at
the University of California, San Diego, and the San Diego VA Medical Center, an
d Jen Frascino, the research coordinator in Squire's lab who visits EP regularly
to administer cognitive tests. Even though Frascino has been to EP's home some
200 times, he always greets her as a stranger.
Frascino sits down opposite EP at his dining room table and asks a series of que
stions that gauge his common sense. She quizzes him about what continent Brazil
is on, the number of weeks in a year, the temperature water boils at. She wants
to demonstrate what IQ tests have already proved: EP is no dummy. He patiently a
nswers the questions all correctly with roughly the same sense of bemusement I imagi
ne I would have if a total stranger walked into my house, sat down at my table,
and very earnestly asked me if I knew the boiling point of water.
"What is the thing to do if you find an envelope in the street that is sealed, a
ddressed, and has a stamp on it?" Frascino asks.
"Well, you'd put it in the mailbox. What else?" He chuckles and shoots me a side
long and knowing glance, as if to say, Do these people think I'm an idiot? But s
ensing that the situation calls for politeness, he turns back to Frascino and ad
ds, "But that's a really interesting question you've got there. Really interesti
ng." He has no idea he's heard it many times before.
"Why do we cook food?"
"Because it's raw?" The word raw carries his voice clear across the tonal regist
er, his bemusement giving way to incredulity.
"Why do we study history?"
"Well, we study history to know what happened in the past."
"But why do we want to know what happened in the past?"
"Because, it's just interesting, frankly."
EP wears a metal medical alert bracelet around his left wrist. Even though it's
obvious what it's for, I ask him anyway. He turns his wrist over and casually re
ads it.
"Hmm. It says memory loss."

EP doesn't even remember that he has a memory problem. That is something he disc
overs anew every moment. And since he forgets that he always forgets, every lost
thought seems like just a casual slip an annoyance and nothing more the same way it
would to you or me.
Ever since his sickness, space for EP has existed only as far as he can see it.
His social universe is only as large as the people in the room. He lives under a
narrow spotlight, surrounded by darkness.
On a typical morning, EP wakes up, has breakfast, and returns to bed to listen t
o the radio. But back in bed, it's not always clear whether he's just had breakf

ast or just woken up. Often he'll have breakfast again, and return to bed to lis
ten to some more radio. Some mornings he'll have breakfast a third time. He watc
hes TV, which can be very exciting from second to second, though shows with a cl
ear beginning, middle, and end can pose a problem. He prefers the History Channe
l, or anything about World War II. He takes walks around the neighborhood, usual
ly several times before lunch, and sometimes for as long as three-quarters of an
hour. He sits in the yard. He reads the newspaper, which one can only imagine m
ust feel like stepping out of a time machine. Bush who? Iraq what? Computers whe
n? By the time EP gets to the end of a headline, he's usually forgotten how it b
egan. Most of the time, after reading the weather, he just doodles on the paper,
drawing mustaches on the photographs or tracing his spoon. When he sees home pr
ices in the real estate section, he invariably announces his shock.
Without a memory, EP has fallen completely out of time. He has no stream of cons
ciousness, just droplets that immediately evaporate. If you were to take the wat
ch off his wrist or, more cruelly, change the time he'd be completely lost. Trapped
in this limbo of an eternal present, between a past he can't remember and a futu
re he can't contemplate, he lives a sedentary life, completely free from worry.
"He's happy all the time. Very happy. I guess it's because he doesn't have any s
tress in his life," says his daughter Carol, who lives nearby.
How old are you now?" Squire asks him.
"Let's see, 59 or 60. You got me. My memory is not that perfect. It's pretty goo
d, but sometimes people ask me questions that I just don't get. I'm sure you hav
e that sometimes."
"Sure, I do," says Squire, kindly, even though EP is almost a quarter of a centu
ry off.
An enormous amount of what science knows about memory was learned from a damaged
brain that is remarkably similar to EP's. It belongs to an 81-year-old man know
n as "HM," an amnesiac who lives in a nursing home in Connecticut. As a child, H
M suffered from epilepsy that began after a bike accident at age nine. By the ti
me he was 27, he was blacking out ten times a week and unable to do much of anyt
hing. A neurosurgeon named William Scoville thought he could cure HM's epilepsy
with an experimental surgery that would excise the part of the brain that he sus
pected was causing the problem.
In 1953, while HM lay awake on the operating table, his scalp anesthetized, Scov
ille drilled a pair of holes just above the patient's eyes. The surgeon lifted t
he front of HM's brain with a small metal spatula while a metal straw sucked out
most of the hippocampus, along with much of the surrounding medial temporal lob
es. The surgery reduced the number of HM's seizures, but it soon became clear th
at he'd also been robbed of his memory.
Over the next five decades, HM was the subject of countless experiments and beca
me the most studied patient in the history of brain science. Given the horrific
outcome of Scoville's surgery, everyone assumed HM would be a singular case stud
y.
EP shattered that assumption. What Scoville did to HM with a metal straw, nature
did to EP with herpes simplex. Side by side, the grainy black-and-white MRIs of
their brains are uncannily similar, though EP's damage is a bit more extensive.
Even if you have no idea what a normal brain ought to look like, the gaping sym
metrical holes stare back at you like eyes.
Like EP, HM was able to hold on to memories just long enough to think about them
, but once his brain moved to something else, he could never bring them back. In

one famous experiment, Brenda Milner, a Canadian psychologist, asked HM to reme

mber the number 584 for as long as possible. To keep the number on the tip of hi
s tongue, he used a complicated system, which he recounted to Milner:
"It's easy. You just remember 8. You see 5, 8, and 4 add to 17. You remember 8,
subtract it from 17, and it leaves 9. Divide 9 in half and you get 5 and 4 and t
here you are: 584. Easy."
He concentrated on this elaborate mantra for several minutes. But as soon as he
was distracted, the number dissolved. He couldn't even remember that he'd been a
sked to remember something. Though scientists had known that there was a differe
nce between long- and short-term memory since the late 19th century, they now ha
d evidence in HM that the two types of memory happened in different parts of the
brain, and that without most of the hippocampal area, HM couldn't turn a shortterm memory into a long-term one.
Researchers also learned more about another kind of remembering from HM. Even th
ough he couldn't say what he'd had for breakfast or name the current President,
there were some things that he could remember. Milner found that he was capable
of learning complicated tasks without even realizing it. In one study, she showe
d that HM could learn how to trace inside a five-pointed star on a piece of pape
r while looking at its reflection in a mirror. Each time Milner gave HM the task
, he claimed never to have tried it before. And yet, each day his brain got bett
er at guiding his hand to work in reverse. Despite his amnesia, he was rememberi
ng.
Though there is disagreement about just how many memory systems there are, scien
tists generally divide memories into two types: declarative and nondeclarative (
sometimes referred to as explicit and implicit). Declarative memories are things
you know you remember, like the color of your car or what happened yesterday af
ternoon. EP and HM have lost the ability to make new declarative memories. Nonde
clarative memories are the things you know without consciously thinking about th
em, like how to ride a bike or how to draw a shape while looking at it in a mirr
or. Those unconscious memories don't rely on the hippocampal region to be consol
idated and stored. They happen in completely different parts of the brain. Motor
skill learning takes place at the base of the brain in the cerebellum, perceptu
al learning in the neocortex, habit learning at the brain's center. As EP and HM
so strikingly demonstrate, you can damage one part of the brain, and the rest w
ill keep on working.

The metaphors we most often use to describe memory the photograph, the tape record
er, the mirror, the hard drive all suggest mechanical accuracy, as if the mind wer
e some sort of meticulous transcriber of our experiences. And for a long time it
was a commonly held view that our brains function as perfect recorders that a lif
etime of memories are socked away somewhere in the cerebral attic, and if they c
an't be found it isn't because they've disappeared, but only because we've lost
access to them.
A Canadian neurosurgeon named Wilder Penfield thought he'd proved that theory by
the 1940s after using electrical probes to stimulate the brains of epileptic pa
tients while they were lying conscious on the operating table. He was trying to
pinpoint the source of their epilepsy, but he found that when his probe touched
certain parts of the temporal lobe, the patients started describing vivid experi
ences. When he touched the same spot again, he often elicited the same descripti
ons. Penfield came to believe that the brain records everything to which it pays
any degree of conscious attention, and that this recording is permanent.
Most scientists now agree that the strange recollections triggered by Penfield w

ere closer to fantasies or hallucinations than to memories, but the sudden reapp
earance of long-lost episodes from one's past is an experience surely familiar t
o everyone. Still, as a recorder, the brain does a notoriously wretched job. Tra
gedies and humiliations seem to be etched most sharply, often with the most unbe
arable exactitude, while those memories we think we really need the name of the ac
quaintance, the time of the appointment, the location of the car keys have a habit
of evaporating.
Michael Anderson, a memory researcher at the University of Oregon in Eugene, has
tried to estimate the cost of all that evaporation. According to a decade's wor
th of "forgetting diaries" kept by his undergraduate students (the amount of tim
e it takes to find the car keys, for example), Anderson calculates that people s
quander more than a month of every year just compensating for things they've for
gotten.

AJ remembers when she first realized that her memory was not the same as everyon
e else's. She was in the seventh grade, studying for finals. "I was not happy be
cause I hated school," she says. Her mother was helping her with her homework, b
ut her mind had wandered elsewhere. "I started thinking about the year before, w
hen I was in sixth grade and how I loved sixth grade. But then I started realizi
ng that I was remembering the exact date, exactly what I was doing a year ago th
at day." At first she didn't think much of it. But a few weeks later, playing wi
th a friend, she remembered that they had also spent the day together exactly on
e year earlier.
"Each year has a certain feeling, and then each time of year has a certain feeli
ng. The spring of 1981 feels completely different from the winter of 1981," she
says. Dates for AJ are like the petite madeleine cake that sent Marcel Proust's
mind hurtling back in time in Remembrance of Things Past. Their mere mention sta
rts her reminiscing involuntarily. "You know when you smell something, it brings
you back? I'm like ten levels deeper and more intense than that."
"My brother used to say, 'Oh, she's the Rain Man.' And I was like, 'No I'm not!'
But I thought, what if I really. . . . Am I? Is there something wrong with me?"
At one point AJ considered setting up shop on the nearby boardwalk as the Human
Calendar and charging people five bucks to let them try to stump her with dates
. She decided against it. "I don't want to be a sideshow."
It would seem as though having a memory like AJ's would make life qualitatively
different and better. Our culture inundates us with new information, yet so little
of it is captured and cataloged in a way that it can be retrieved later. What w
ould it mean to have all that otherwise lost knowledge at our fingertips? Would
it make us more persuasive, more confident? Would it make us, in some fundamenta
l sense, smarter? To the extent that experience is the sum of our memories and w
isdom the sum of experience, having a better memory would mean knowing not only
more about the world, but also more about oneself. How many worthwhile ideas hav
e gone unthought and connections unmade because of our memory's shortcomings?
The dream that AJ embodies, the perfection of memory, has been with us since at
least the fifth century B.C. and the supposed invention of a technique known as
the "art of memory" by the Greek poet Simonides of Ceos.
Simonides had been the sole survivor of a catastrophic roof collapse at a banque
t hall in Thessaly. According to Cicero, who wrote an account of the incident fo
ur centuries later, the bodies were mangled beyond recognition. But in his mind,
Simonides was able to close his eyes to the chaos and see each of the guests at
his seat around the table. He'd discovered the powerful technique known as the

loci method. If you can convert whatever it is you're trying to remember into vi
vid mental images and then arrange them in some sort of imagined architectural s
pace, known as a memory palace, memories can be made virtually indelible.
Peter of Ravenna, a noted Italian jurist and author of a renowned memory textboo
k of the 15th century, was said to have used the loci method to memorize the Bib
le, the entire legal canon, 200 of Cicero's speeches, and 1,000 verses of Ovid.
For leisure, he would reread books cached away in his memory palaces. "When I le
ft my country to visit as a pilgrim the cities of Italy, I can truly say I carry
everything I own with me," he wrote.
It's hard for us to imagine what it must have been like to live in a culture bef
ore the advent of printed books or before you could carry around a ballpoint pen
and paper to jot notes. "In a world of few books, and those mostly in communal
libraries, one's education had to be remembered, for one could never depend on h
aving continuing access to specific material," writes Mary Carruthers, author of
The Book of Memory, a study of the role of memory techniques in medieval cultur
e. "Ancient and medieval people reserved their awe for memory. Their greatest ge
niuses they describe as people of superior memories." Thirteenth-century theolog
ian Thomas Aquinas, for example, was celebrated for composing his Summa Theologi
ca entirely in his head and dictating it from memory with no more than a few not
es. The Roman philosopher Seneca the Elder could repeat 2,000 names in the order
they'd been given to him. A Roman named Simplicius could recite Virgil by heart b
ackward. A strong memory was seen as the greatest of virtues since it represente
d the internalization of a universe of external knowledge. Indeed, a common them
e in the lives of the saints was that they had extraordinary memories.
After Simonides' discovery, the art of memory was codified with an extensive set
of rules and instructions by the likes of Cicero and Quintilian and in countles
s medieval memory treatises. Students were taught not only what to remember but
also techniques for how to remember it. In fact, there are long traditions of me
mory training in many cultures. The Jewish Talmud, embedded with mnemonics techniq
ues for preserving memories was passed down orally for centuries. Koranic memoriza
tion is still considered a supreme achievement among devout Muslims. Traditional
West African griots and South Slavic bards recount colossal epics entirely from
memory.

But over the past millennium, many of us have undergone a profound shift. We've
gradually replaced our internal memory with what psychologists refer to as exter
nal memory, a vast superstructure of technological crutches that we've invented
so that we don't have to store information in our brains. We've gone, you might
say, from remembering everything to remembering awfully little. We have photogra
phs to record our experiences, calendars to keep track of our schedules, books (
and now the Internet) to store our collective knowledge, and Post-it notes for o
ur scribbles. What have the implications of this outsourcing of memory been for
ourselves and for our society? Has something been lost?
To supplement the memories in her mind, AJ also stores a trove of external memor
ies. In addition to the detailed diary she's kept since childhood, she has a lib
rary of close to a thousand videotapes copied off TV, a trunk full of radio reco
rdings, and a "research library" consisting of 50 notebooks filled with facts sh
e's found on the Internet that relate to events in her memory. "I just want to k
eep it all," she says.
Preserving her past has become the central compulsion of AJ's life. "When I'm bl
ow-drying my hair in the morning, I'll think of whatever day it is. And to pass
the time, I'll just run through that day in my head over the last 20-something y
ears like flipping through a Rolodex."

AJ traces the origins of her unusual memory to a move from New Jersey to Califor
nia that her family made when she was just eight years old. Life in New Jersey h
ad been comfortable and familiar, and California was foreign and strange. It was
the first time she understood that growing up and moving on necessarily meant f
orgetting and leaving behind. "Because I hate change so much, after that it was
like I wanted to be able to capture everything. Because I know, eventually, noth
ing will ever be the same," she says.
K. Anders Ericsson, a professor of psychology at Florida State University, belie
ves that at bottom, AJ might not be all that different from the rest of us. Afte
r the initial announcement of AJ's condition in the journal Neurocase, Ericsson
suggested that what needs to be explained about AJ is not some extraordinary, un
precedented innate memory but rather her extraordinary obsession with her past.
People always remember things that are important to them. Baseball fanatics ofte
n have an encyclopedic knowledge for statistics, chess masters often remember tr
icky gambits that took place years ago, actors often remember scripts long after
performing them. Everyone has got a memory for something. Ericsson believes tha
t if anyone cared about holding on to the past as much as AJ does, the feat of m
emorizing one's life would be well within reach.
I mention Ericsson's theory to AJ, and she becomes visibly upset. "I just want t
o call him on the phone and yell at him. If I spent that much time memorizing my
life, then I really would be a boring person," she says. "I don't sit around an
d memorize it. I just know it."
Remembering everything is both maddening and lonely for AJ. "I remember good, wh
ich is very comforting. But I also remember bad and every bad choice," she says. "
And I really don't give myself a break. There are all these forks in the road, m
oments you have to make a choice, and then it's ten years later, and I'm still b
eating myself up over them. I don't forgive myself for a lot of things. Your mem
ory is the way it is to protect you. I feel like it just hasn't protected me. I
would love just for five minutes to be a simple person and not have all this stu
ff in my head. "Most people have called what I have a gift," AJ says, "but I cal
l it a burden."
The whole point of our nervous system, from the sensory organs that feed informa
tion to the massive glob of neurons that interpret it, is to develop a sense of
what is happening in the present and what is about to happen in the future, so t
hat we can respond in the best possible way. Our brains are fundamentally predic
tion machines, and to work they have to find order in the chaos of possible memo
ries. Most of the things that pass through our brains don't need to be remembere
d any longer than they need to be thought about.
Harvard psychologist Daniel Schacter has developed a taxonomy of forgetting to c
atalog what he calls the seven sins of memory. The sin of absentmindedness: Yo-Y
o Ma forgetting his 2.5-million-dollar cello in the back of a taxi. The Vietnam
War veteran still haunted by the battlefield suffers from the sin of persistence
. The politician who loses a word on the tip of his tongue during a stump speech
is experiencing the sin of blocking. Though we curse these failures of memory o
n an almost daily basis, Schacter says, that's only because we don't see their b
enefits. Each sin is really the flip side of a virtue, "a price we pay for proce
sses and functions that serve us well in many respects." There are good evolutio
nary reasons why our memories fail us in the specific ways they do. If everythin
g we looked at, smelled, heard, or thought about was immediately filed away in t
he enormous database that is our long-term memory, we'd be drowning in irrelevan
t information
n his short story "Funes the Memorious," Jorge Luis Borges describes a man cripp
led by an inability to forget. He remembers every detail of his life, but he can
't distinguish between the trivial and the important. He can't prioritize, he ca
n't generalize. He is "virtually incapable of general, platonic ideas." Perhaps,

as Borges concludes in his story, it is forgetting, not remembering, that is th

e essence of what makes us human. "To think," Borges writes, "is to forget."
To age is to forget, also. Roughly five million Americans have Alzheimer's disea
se, and even more suffer from mild cognitive impairment, or lesser degrees of me
mory loss. When asked to recall a list of 15 words read 20 minutes earlier, octo
genarians in one large study recalled fewer than 60 percent, while the twentysom
ethings could remember close to 90 percent.
Not surprisingly, people have been searching a long time for chemicals that migh
t halt that tide of forgetting. According to the Franciscan Bernardo de Lavinhet
a, writing in the early 1500s, "Artificial memory is twofold: the first part con
sists in medicines and poultices." The second part, of course, is the art of mem
ory, which Lavinheta deemed both safer and more effective (since memory medicine
s can sometimes have the unfortunate side effect of "drying up the brain"). Toda
y ginkgo biloba is sold as an over-the-counter supplement, or added to fruit smo
othies and "smart" soft drinks, even without conclusive evidence that it either
boosts memory or dries up the brain.
Within the past decades, drug companies have elevated the search to brave new he
ights. Armed with a sophisticated understanding of memory's molecular underpinni
ngs, they've sought to create new drugs that amplify the brain's natural capacit
y to remember. In recent years, at least three companies have been formed with t
he express purpose of developing memory drugs. One of those companies, Cortex Ph
armaceuticals, is attempting to develop a class of molecules known as ampakines,
which facilitate the transmission of the neurotransmitter glutamate. Glutamate
is one of the primary excitatory chemicals passed across the synapses between ne
urons. By amplifying its effects, Cortex hopes to improve the brain's underlying
ability to form and retrieve memories. When administered to middle-age rats, on
e ampakine was able to fully reverse their age-related decline in the cellular m
echanism of memory.
It may not be long before drugs such as ampakines begin to reach the market; whe
n they do, they could have an enormous impact on society. Though the pharmaceuti
cal companies are searching for therapeutic treatments to stave off Alzheimer's
and combat dementia, it seems inevitable that their pills will end up in the han
ds of students cramming for exams and probably a whole lot of other people who j
ust want to enhance their brains. Already psycho-stimulants designed to treat AD
HD, like Adderall and Ritalin, are used as "study buddies" by as many as one in
four students at some colleges trying to increase their concentration and improv
e their memories.
All of this raises some troubling ethical questions. Would we choose to live in
a society where people have vastly better memories? In fact, what would it even
mean to have a better memory? Would it mean remembering things only exactly as t
hey happened, free from the revisions and exaggerations that our mind naturally
creates? Would it mean having a memory that forgets traumas? Would it mean havin
g a memory that remembers only those things we want it to remember? Would it mea
n becoming AJ?
I want to see EP's unconscious, nondeclarative memory at work,
e's interested in taking me on a walk around his neighborhood.
lly," so I wait and ask him again a couple minutes later. This
e walk out the front door into the high afternoon sun and turn
hy we're not turning to the left instead.

so I ask him if h
He says, "not rea
time he agrees. W
right. I ask EP w

"I'd just rather not go that way. This is just the way I go. I don't know why,"
he says.

If I asked him to draw a map of the route he takes at least three times a day, h
e'd never be able to do it. He doesn't even know his own address, or (almost as
improbably for someone from San Diego) which way the ocean is. But after so many
years of taking the same walk, the journey has etched itself on his unconscious
. His wife, Beverly, now lets him go out alone, even though a single wrong turn
would leave him completely lost. Sometimes he comes back from his walks with obj
ects he's picked up along the way: a stack of round stones, a puppy, somebody's
wallet. He's never able to explain how they came into his possession.
Our neighbors love him because he'll come up to them and just start talking to t
hem," Beverly says. Even though he thinks he's meeting them for the first time,
he's learned through habit that these are people he should feel comfortable arou
nd, and he interprets those unconscious feelings of comfort as a good reason to
stop and say hello.
We cross the street and I'm alone with EP for the first time. He doesn't know wh
o I am or what I'm doing at his side, although he seems to sense that I'm there
for some good reason. He is trapped in the ultimate existential nightmare, blind
to the reality in which he lives. The impulse strikes me to help him escape, at
least for a second. I want to take him by the arm and shake him. "You have a ra
re and debilitating memory disorder," I want to tell him. "The last 50 years hav
e been lost to you. In less than a minute, you're going to forget that this conv
ersation ever even happened." I imagine the sheer horror that would befall him,
the momentary clarity, the gaping emptiness that would open up in front of him,
and close just as quickly. And then the passing car or the singing bird that wou
ld snap him back into his oblivious bubble.
We turn around and walk back down the street whose name he's forgotten, past the
waving neighbors he doesn't recognize, to a home he doesn't know. In front of t
he house, there is a car parked with tinted windows. We turn to look at our refl
ections. I ask EP what he sees.
"An old man," he says. "That's all.
}
One minute we're being told that brain training makes you smarter, and the next
minute we're told it's all bogus. Confused? I don't blame you. The research lite
rature on brain training is confusing and even sometimes contradictory. This is
the way of science. I believe, however, that there is hope in making sense of th
ings if the field and the media can move beyond broad conclusions to look at mor
e nuanced effects.
In his recent New Yorker piece, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Gareth Cook co
ncluded that working memory training will not make you smarter. According to Gar
eth, "Playing the games makes you better at the game, in other words, but not at
anything anyone might care about in real life." But is this really the most inf
ormative conclusion we can draw from the data?
Cook based his conclusion on a recent review by Monica Melby-Lervag and Charles
Hulme (download paper). Partly consistent with Cook's statement, the researchers
saw little evidence for the generalization of working memory training to other
mental skills such as reading comprehension, word decoding, and arithmetic. But
that's not all they found. The researchers also found that working memory traini
ng programs do produce reliable short-term improvements in both verbal and visuo
spatial working memory skills. On average, the effect sizes were moderate, but i
n some cases the effects were actually quite large and rather impressive for bri
ef training regimes which only lasted 12 hours (on average). In fact, the larges
t effects were found for Cogmed working memory training programs. So while Cook
is quite right to criticize Cogmed for claiming too much in their promotional ma
terials, I believe he is too quick to dismiss large and reliable short-term impr
ovements in working memory as meaningless in the real world.

Working memory involves the ability to maintain and manipulate information in on

e's mind while ignoring irrelevant distractions and intruding thoughts. Working
memory skills are essential for everyday intellectual functioning. Multiple rese
arch studies show that the inability to control one's train of thought has impor
tant real world consequences, from poor reading comprehension to unhappiness. Th
erefore, just because a working memory training program doesn't generalize to ot
her cognitive functions doesn't mean that the program doesn't make people "smart
er," at least in respect to one key aspect of intellectual functioning. After al
l, intelligence isn't a single ability. There is an emerging consensus among int
elligence researchers that general cognitive ability is comprised of multiple in
teracting cognitive functions, and working memory is one of those crucial intell
ectual functions.
A telling finding of the Melby-Larvag and Hulme review (but not mentioned by Coo
k) is that age was a significant moderating variable on strength of training. Yo
unger children (below the age of 10 years) showed significantly larger benefits
from verbal working memory training than older children (11-18 years of age). Th
is suggests that lumping people together who are at different stages in their co
gnitive development can obscure some truly meaningful effects. I imagine if the
researchers also included elderly individuals in their analysis (e.g., those abo
ve the age of 60), they would have found effect sizes resembling what they found
for the youngest age groups (alas, such cognitive decline is part of life).
But equally as troublesome, the researchers didn't look at other crucial moderat
ing variables such as personality, motivation, learning disabilities, mental ill
ness, and socioeconomic status. I believe each and every one of these variables
also matter, and ought to be considered in grand reviews of the literature.
Take personality. In one study, participants scoring higher in conscientiousness
showed greater improvement in working memory during working memory training com
pared to less conscientious participants, but they showed less transfer to a mea
sure of fluid reasoning. This suggests that highly conscientious individuals may
develop task-specific strategies that prevent generalizing effects beyond the s
pecific skills that are trained. What's more, participants scoring higher in neu
roticism (a proxy for anxiety) showed greater improvement on an easier version o
f a working memory task compared to participants lower in neuroticism, but displ
ayed lower training scores on a difficult version of the task. It seems that in
the easier version, higher levels of emotion may have been an advantage, allowin
g highly neurotic individuals to maintain their concentration and vigilance, whe
reas on the more difficult version of the task they became overwhelmed by their
anxiety. These nuanced effects suggest that personal characteristics should be t
aken into account when considering the effectiveness of cognitive training.
A related consideration are individual differences in neurotransmitter functioni
ng. Tantalizing recent research suggests that individual differences in the neur
otransmitter dopamine, which plays a crucial role in motivation and working memo
ry, is also related to working memory training improvement. In one study, Stina
Soderqvist and colleagues found that variation in a gene that codes for dopamine
transportation was related to improvements in working memory and fluid reasonin
g in preschool children following training. While the results certainly require
replication (the sample size was small, and the effects did not remain significa
nt after correcting for multiple comparisons), and the effects of a single gene
on behavior tend to be vanishingly small, the results do suggest that difference
s in dopaminergic production may play a role in training outcomes.
Next, it's important to consider that working memory training is most helpful fo
r those who need it the most. A number of interventions targeting specific cogni
tive domains have been found to significantly improve the cognitive functioning
of individuals affected by Traumatic Brain Injury. A particularly promising trai

ning technique for improving focus is the Interactive Metronome, a program that
involves synchronizing bodily movements to a precise computer-generated beat. Re
search suggests that this program is beneficial for those with neurological cond
itions such as brain injury, ADHD, stuttering, and stroke.
In an educational setting, helping students overcome working memory burdens can
be particularly helpful. Over the past decade John Sweller and colleagues have d
esigned instructional techniques that relieve working memory burdens on students
and increase learning and interest. Drawing on both the expertise and working m
emory literatures, they match the complexity of learning situations to the learn
er, attempting to reduce unnecessary working memory loads that may interfere wit
h reasoning and learning, and optimize cognitive processes most relevant to lear
ning. Cognitive Load Theory can be particularly useful for students with working
memory deficits who are otherwise extremely intelligent and competent as it all
ows them to more easily demonstrate their brilliance.
Finally, poverty matters. Elliot Tucker-Drob and colleagues have conducted some
excellent studies on how socioeconomic status interacts with the development of
cognitive ability. In one study, they found that at the age of 10 months, the ho
me environment was the key variable explaining differences in cognitive ability
across different levels of socioeconomic status. The story changed considerably,
however, as the children got older and differences in educational enrichment be
came more pronounced. For the 2-year-olds living in poorer households, the home
environment mattered the most, accounting for about 80 percent of the variation
in cognitive ability. In wealthy households, however, genetics explained more of
the differences in performance, accounting for nearly 50 percent of the variati
on in cognitive ability. This suggests that socioeconomic status is also an impo
rtant moderating variable on the strength of the effect of intellectual enrichme
nt.
***
While I believe multiple factors are important when considering the effectivenes
s of working memory training, I want to be clear that I am not saying that the k
ind of brain games that were included in Melby-Lervag and Hulme's review (and we
re the focus of Cook's article) is the best method to improve working memory. Th
e evidence suggests that the activities that show the strongest and most widespr
ead effects on cognitive functioning are those that target the "whole person," s
uch as traditional martial arts training and enriched school curricula. I think
we often underestimate the extent to which multiple aspects of development-- cog
nitive, physical, social, and emotional-- all feed off each other.
Also, while I've already mentioned the promise of Interactive Metronome (particu
larly for people with disabilities), I also see great promise in meditation tech
niques for increasing working memory skills in all people. Recent research sugge
sts that mindfulness meditation training can improve working memory and reasonin
g while reducing mind wandering.
Regardless of the method, however, it's important to be realistic about the limi
ts of brain training. Cook rightly notes that the effects of the large majority
of working memory training programs don't generalize well beyond the specific sk
ills that are targeted. This is important to keep in mind. Working memory interv
entions may improve focus and attention to a large and meaningful degree, but th
ey shouldn't be expected to increase high-level critical reasoning skills or mag
ically alleviate all of the symptoms of a learning disability. To improve logica
l and critical reasoning, one ought to actually engage in reasoning training. To
reduce the symptoms of a learning disability, it's important to engage in compr
ehensive interventions that specifically targets the symptoms (e.g., phonologica
l decoding interventions for people with dyslexia).

It's also important to keep in mind that regardless of the method, working memor
y improvements are transient. Repeated practice and challenge is essential to ma
intaining improvements in any kind of cognitive training or else they'll very li
kely decline rapidly. This shouldn't be shocking. You wouldn't expect to go on a
diet for 12 hours and maintain the one pound you lost the rest of your life. To
keep growing and improving intellectually requires constant engagement in intel
lectually challenging material. To maintain improvements in focus and concentrat
ion requires getting in the habit of concentrating and manipulating complex mate
rial in your mind.
I don't think any of these caveats, however, should lead us to give up on our se
arch for long-term working memory interventions that provide reliable improvemen
ts in working memory across the lifespan. Let's not downplay the importance of w
orking memory improvements, even if they don't generalize to other cognitive ski
lls. I think we owe it to those who are truly suffering day in and day out from
the inability to control their train of thought, as well as those who are growin
g up in intellectually impoverished conditions.
A recent survey found that from 2000-2012, about 250,330 military troops experie
nced Traumatic Brain Injury in some form. According to the National Center for C
hildren in Poverty, nearly 16 million children living in the United States live
in families with incomes below the federal poverty line. As they note, "Poverty
can impede children's ability to learn and contribute to social, emotional, and
behavioral problems." The potential payoff of working memory training for helpin
g those who could truly benefit from it is too great to not at least attempt to
get this right, and take a more nuanced approach that takes into account multipl
e factors.
_
I don't think there is anything here to convincingly rebut what Foer says. What
I would find convincing is published, carefully controlled peer reviewed science
to show exceptional memory without unusual training. Instead, what is given app
ears to me to be unpublished science, science which doesn't actually support wha
t is being said, and anecdote. All too typical.
Kaufman takes issue with Foer's statement that exceptional memory is not the res
ult of an innate gift. Let's take a look at the evidence.
1) First, the research by John Wilding and Elizabeth Valentine. This doesn't app
ear to be published yet, so I can't really comment. However, I can comment on th
e research that these researchers did publish in 2002 ("Routes to Remembering").
This research looked at ten "superior memorisers" (mainly top memory competitors
), compared to ten normal controls. Their research explained the superior memori
sers performance as being explainable by training, and found no significant diff
erences in brain scans. A paper based son the same research was entitled "Except
ional memorizers - made not born" (K Anders Ericsson) - which appears to support
Foer's position, not Kaufman's.
The superior memorisers covered included well known memory champion Dominic O'Br
ien, and the memory competitor Daniel Tammet (who has a position of around 130 i
n the all time memory world rankings, a bit above Foer). It's worth noting that
Foer and Kaufmann have a very different opinion of Tammet:
- Foer believes Tammet when he claimed on his website in 2001 that his abilities
were due to "strenuous training" and that anyone could do what he did. He does
not believe Tammet's later claims, when he said that his abilities arose from ep
ilepsy (Foer notes that Tammet has admitted to using a similar story to claim th
at he had acquired psychic powers from epilepsy).
- Scott Barry Kaufman believes Tammet's later claims that his abilities are due
to innate abilities. He has gone on record as saying Tammet is "the real deal",
despite Foer's skepticism. He doesn't appear to believe Tammet's earlier claims,

and presumably believes that Tammet was lying whan he made them.
Either of these accounts might be true. But the actual published peer reviewed s
cience from Wilding and Valentine supports Foer's position, not Kaufmann's, and
suggest that Tammet, along with all the other studied, had achieved his abilitie
s through training. There is no evidence of "natural memorisers" having exceptio
nal abilities - even in an individual who Kaufman believes is an amazingly talen
ted natural memoriser.
2) Kaufman then goes on to look a child prodigies. He quotes a study of child pr
odigies (mostly musicians), which said that all of them scored "off the charts"
on working memory. He uses this to argue that their abilities are due to innate
talents, not training.
The problem with this line of argument is that the study did not study kids at t
he early stage of their careers, before they had trained. In fact, some of those
studied were well into their thirties at the time of testing. So it is a test o
f people after training, not before.
So their superior memories might be explained as the result of their intensive t
raining, rather than as the result of innate natural abilities. The study is con
sistent with the exact opposite of what Kaufmann is trying to argue.
3) Now, after the science, comes the anecdotes. Kaufman links a video of young m
athematician Jake Barnett, and argues that "it's hard to deny his natural memory
for random information isn't exceptional!".
On the contrary, I don't think it's at all hard to suggest that his natural memo
ry for random information might not be exceptional, because Kaufman has provided
no evidence whatsoever that Jake hasn't trained his memory. There's plenty of e
xamples of young competitors in memory championships, who show these abilities a
t age 12 or so after training. If you check on YouTube, there's more videos of h
is mother testing him on memorising lists, suggesting that he had been tested on
this type of thing over and over again, and has given far more practice to memo
rising lists than is typical.
Before finishing it's fair to say that while I know a bit about memory technique
s and training, I'm not a scientist, and I stand to be corrected if I have misse
d something. But I think it's fair to ask for the actual peer reviewed science a
nd evidence behind what scientists claim - and I await the new book with lots of
interest!
_
We ve all had to face a tough exam at least once in our lives. Whether it s a school
paper, university final or even a test at work, there s one piece of advice we re a
lmost always given: make a study plan. With a plan, we can space out our prepara
tion for the test rather than relying on one or two intense study sessions the n
ight before to see us through.
It's good advice. Summed up in three words: cramming doesn t work. Unfortunately,
many of us ignore this rule. At least one survey has found that 99% of students
admit to cramming.
You might think that s down to nothing more than simple disorganisation: I'll admi
t it is far easier to leave things to the last minute than start preparing for a
test weeks or months ahead. But studies of memory suggest there s something else
going on. In 2009, for example, Nate Kornell at the University of California, Lo
s Angeles, found that spacing out learning was more effective than cramming for
90% of the participants who took part in one of his experiments and yet 72% of t
he participants thought that cramming had been more beneficial. What is happenin
g in the brain that we trick ourselves this way?

It's better to spread out revision before the big exam (comedy_nose/Flickr/CC BY
2.0) (Credit: comedy_nose/Flickr/CC BY 2.0)
It's better to spread out revision before the big exam (comedy_nose/Flickr/CC BY
2.0)
Studies of memory suggest that we have a worrying tendency to rely on our famili
arity with study items to guide our judgements of whether we know them. The prob
lem is that familiarity is bad at predicting whether we can recall something.
Familiar, not remembered
After six hours of looking at study material (and three cups of coffee and five
chocolate bars) it s easy to think we have it committed to memory. Every page, eve
ry important fact, evokes a comforting feeling of familiarity. The cramming has
left a lingering glow of activity in our sensory and memory systems, a glow that
allows our brain to swiftly tag our study notes as "something that I've seen be
fore". But being able to recognise something isn't the same as being able to rec
all it.
Different parts of the brain support different kinds of memory. Recognition is s
trongly affected by the ease with which information passes through the sensory a
reas of our brain, such as the visual cortex if you are looking at notes. Recall
is supported by a network of different areas of the brain, including the fronta
l cortex and the temporal lobe, which coordinate to recreate a memory from the c
lues you give it. Just because your visual cortex is fluently processing your no
tes after five consecutive hours of you looking at them, doesn't mean the rest o
f your brain is going to be able to reconstruct the memory of them when you real
ly need it to.
(Thinkstock) (Credit: Thinkstock)
Merely thinking hard about what's on the blackboard isn't enough to make learnin
g actually happen (Thinkstock)
This ability to make judgements about our own minds is called metacognition. Stu
dying it has identified other misconceptions too. For instance, many of us think
that actively thinking about trying to learn something will help us remember it
. Studies suggest this is not the case. Far more important is reorganising the i
nformation so that it has a structure more likely to be retained in your memory.
In other words, rewrite the content of what you want to learn in a way that mak
es most sense to you.
Knowing about common metacognitive errors means you can help yourself by assumin
g that you will make them. You can then try and counteract them. So, the advice
to space out our study only makes sense if we assume that people aren't already
spacing out their study sessions enough (a safe assumption, given the research f
indings). We need to be reminded of the benefits of spaced learning because it r
uns counter to our instinct to relying on a comforting feeling of familiarity wh
en deciding how to study
Put simply, we can sometimes have a surprising amount to gain from going against
our normally reliable metacognitive instinct. How much should you space out you
r practice? Answer: a little bit more than you really want to.
_
Why do we need sleep?
A lot of theories have been thrown up over the years as to what we need sleep fo
r (to keep us wandering out of our caves and being eaten by sabertooth tigers, i
s one of the more entertaining possibilities), but noone has yet been able to po

int to a specific function of the sleep state that would explain why we have it
and why we need so much of it.
One of the things we do know is that young birds and mammals need as much as thr
ee times the amount of sleep as adult birds and mammals. It has been suspected t
hat neuronal connections are remodeled during sleep, and this has recently been
supported in a study using cats (Cats who were allowed to sleep for six hours af
ter their vision was blocked in one eye for six hours, developed twice as many n
ew or modified brain connections as those cats who were kept awake in a dark roo
m for the six hours after the period of visual deprivation).
Certainly a number of studies have shown that animals and humans deprived of sle
ep do not perform well on memory tasks, and research has suggested that there ma
y be a relationship between excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS) and cognitive def
icits. A recent study has found that for seniors at least, EDS is an important r
isk factor for cognitive impairment.
The effect of sleep on memory and learning
Some memory tasks are more affected be sleep deprivation than others. A recent s
tudy, for example, found that recognition memory for faces was unaffected by peo
ple being deprived of sleep for 35 hours. However, while the sleep-deprived peop
le remembered that the faces were familiar, they did have much more difficulty r
emembering in which of two sets of photos the faces had appeared. In other words
, their memory for the context of the faces was significantly worse. (The select
ive effect of sleep on contextual memory is also supported in a recent mouse stu
dy
see below)
While large doses of caffeine reduced the feelings of sleepiness and improved th
e ability of the sleep-deprived subjects to remember which set the face had appe
ared in, the level of recall was still significantly below the level of the nonsleep-deprived subjects. (For you coffee addicts, no, the caffeine didn t help the
people who were not sleep-deprived).
Interestingly, sleep deprivation increased the subjects belief that they were rig
ht, especially when they were wrong. In this case, whether or not they had had c
affeine made no difference.
In another series of experiments, the brains of sleep-deprived and rested partic
ipants were scanned while the participants performed complex cognitive tasks. In
the first experiment, the task was an arithmetic task involving working memory.
Sleep-deprived participants performed worse on this task, and the fMRI scan con
firmed less activity in the prefrontal cortex for these participants. In the sec
ond experiment, the task involved verbal learning. Again, those sleep-deprived p
erformed worse, but in this case, only a little, and the prefrontal areas of the
brain remained active, while parietal lobe activity actually increased. However
, activity in the left temporal lobe (a language-processing area) decreased. In
the third study, participants were given a "divided-attention" task, in which th
ey completed both an arithmetic and a verbal-learning task. Again, sleep-deprive
d participants showed poorer performance, depressed brain activation in the left
temporal region and heightened activation in prefrontal and parietal regions. T
here was also increased activation in areas of the brain that are involved in su
stained attention and error monitoring.
These results indicate that sleep deprivation affects different cognitive tasks
in different ways, and also that parts of the brain are able to at least partial
ly compensate for the effects of sleep deprivation.
Sleep deprivation mimics aging?
A report in the medical journal The Lancet, said that cutting back from the stan
dard eight down to four hours of sleep each night produced striking changes in g

lucose tolerance and endocrine function that mimicked many of the hallmarks of a
ging. Dr Eve Van Cauter, professor of medicine at the University of Chicago and
director of the study, said, "We suspect that chronic sleep loss may not only ha
sten the onset but could also increase the severity of age-related ailments such
as diabetes, hypertension, obesity and memory loss."
Should we draw any conclusion from the finding that sleep deprivation increased
the subjects belief that they were right, especially when they were wrong, and th
e finding that chronic sleep deprivation may mimic the hallmarks of aging? No, l
et us merely note that many people become more certain of their own opinions as
they mature into wisdom.
Is sleep necessary to consolidate memories?
This is the big question, still being argued by the researchers. The weight of t
he evidence, however, seems to be coming down on the answer, yes, sleep is neces
sary to consolidate memories although maybe for only some types of memory. Most
of the research favoring sleep s importance in consolidation has used procedural /
skill memory sequences of actions.
From this research, it does seem that it is the act of sleep itself, not simply
the passage of time, that is critical to convert new memories into long-term mem
ory codes.
Some of the debate in this area concerns the stage of sleep that may be necessar
y. The contenders are the deep "slow wave" sleep that occurs in the first half o
f the night, and "REM" (rapid eye movement) sleep (that occurs while you are dre
aming). Experiments that have found sleep necessary for consolidation tend to su
pport slow-wave sleep as the important part of the cycle, however REM sleep may
be important for other types of memory processing.
Sleep studies cast light on the memory cycle
Two new studies provide support both for the theory that sleep is important for
the consolidation of procedural memories, and the new theory of what I have term
ed the "memory life-cycle".
In the first study, 100 young adults (18 to 27) learned several different finger
-tapping sequences. It was found that participants remembered the sequence even
if they learned a second sequence 6 hours later, and performance on both sequenc
es improved slightly after a night's sleep. However, if, on day 2, people who ha
d learned one sequence were briefly retested on it and then trained on a new seq
uence, their performance on the first sequence plummeted on day 3. If the first
sequence wasn't retested before learning the new sequence, they performed both s
equences accurately on day 3.
In another study, 84 college students were trained to identify a series of simil
ar-sounding words produced by a synthetic-speech machine. Participants who under
went training in the morning performed well in subsequent tests that morning, bu
t tests later in the day showed that their word-recognition skill had declined.
However, after a full night's sleep, they performed at their original levels. Pa
rticipants trained in the evening performed just as well 24 hours later as peopl
e trained in the morning did. Since they went to bed shortly after training, tho
se in the evening group didn't exhibit the temporary performance declines observ
ed in the morning group.
On the basis of these studies, researchers identified three stages of memory pro
cessing: the first stage of memory its stabilization
seems to take around six ho
urs. During this period, the memory appears particularly vulnerable to being lost .
The second stage of memory processing consolidation
occurs during sleep. The th
ird and final stage is the recall phase, when the memory is once again ready to
be accessed and re-edited. (see my article on consolidation (link is external) f

or more explanation of the processes of consolidation and re-consolidation)

The researchers made a useful analogy with creating a word-processing document o
n the computer. The first stage is when you hit Save and the computer files the do
cument in your hard drive. On the computer, this takes seconds. The second stage
is comparable to someone coming and tidying up your word document
reorganizing
it and tightening it up.
The most surprising aspect of this research is the time it appears to take for m
emories to initially stabilize seconds for the computer saving the document, but
up to six hours for us!
}
MEMORY CONSOLIDATION
??? Did You Know ???
Studies have shown that we often construct our memories after the fact, and that
we are susceptible to suggestions from others that help us fill in the gaps in
our memories.
This malleability of memory is why, for example, a police officer investigating
a crime should not show a picture of a single individual to a victim and ask if
the victim recognizes the assailant.
If the victim is then presented with a line-up and picks out the individual whos
e picture the victim had been shown, there is no real way of knowing whether the
victim is actually remembering the assailant or just the picture.
Consolidation is the processes of stabilizing a memory trace after the initial a
cquisition. It may perhaps be thought of part of the process of encoding or of s
torage, or it may be considered as a memory process in its own right. It is usua
lly considered to consist of two specific processes, synaptic consolidation (whi
ch occurs within the first few hours after learning or encoding) and system cons
olidation (where hippocampus-dependent memories become independent of the hippoc
ampus over a period of weeks to years).
Neurologically, the process of consolidation utilizes a phenomenon called long-t
erm potentiation, which allows a synapse to increase in strength as increasing n
umbers of signals are transmitted between the two neurons. Potentiation is the p
rocess by which synchronous firing of neurons makes those neurons more inclined
to fire together in the future. Long-term potentiation occurs when the same grou
p of neurons fire together so often that they become permanently sensitized to e
ach other. As new experiences accumulate, the brain creates more and more connec
tions and pathways, and may re-wire itself by re-routing connections and re-arrang
ing its organization.
As such a neuronal pathway, or neural network, is traversed over and over again,
an enduring pattern is engraved and neural messages are more likely to flow alo
ng such familiar paths of least resistance. For example, if a piece of music is
played over and over, the repeated firing of certain cells in a certain order in
your brain makes it easier to repeat this firing later on, with the result that
the musician becomes better at playing the music, and can play it faster, with
fewer mistakes.
In this way, the brain organizes and reorganizes itself in response to experienc
es, creating new memories prompted by experience, education or training. The abi
lity of the connection, or synapse, between two neurons to change in strength, a
nd for lasting changes to occur in the efficiency of synaptic transmission, is k
nown as synaptic plasticity or neural plasticity, and it is one of the important
neurochemical foundations of memory and learning.
??? Did You Know ???
Reading out loud (or even whispering or mouthing it) forms auditory links in our
memory pathways, as well as visual ones from looking a a page or screen.

So, we remember ourselves producing and saying the information as well as readin
g it visually, which may improve our overall retrieval of memories.
But this process works best, when just SOME of the information (e.g. the most im
portant words or concepts) is read out loud, and the rest not, as this takes adv
antage of the oddball effect whereby we remember the more unusual or distinctive i
nformation best.
It should be remembered that each neuron makes thousands of connections with oth
er neurons, and memories and neural connections are mutually interconnected in e
xtremely complex ways. Unlike the functioning of a computer, each memory is embe
dded in many connections, and each connection is involved in several memories. T
hus, multiple memories may be encoded within a single neural network, by differe
nt patterns of synaptic connections. Conversely, a single memory may involve sim
ultaneously activating several different groups of neurons in completely differe
nt parts of the brain.
The inverse of long-term potentiation, known as long-term depression, can also t
ake place, whereby the neural networks involved in erroneous movements are inhib
ited by the silencing of their synaptic connections. This can occur in the cereb
ellum, which is located towards the back of the brain, in order to correct our m
otor procedures when learning how to perform a task (procedural memory), but als
o in the synapses of the cortex, the hippocampus, the striatum and other memoryrelated structures.
Contrary to long-term potentiation, which is triggered by high-frequency stimula
tion of the synapses, long-term depression is produced by nerve impulses reachin
g the synapses at very low frequencies, leading them to undergo the reverse tran
sformation from long-term potentiation, and, instead of becoming more efficient,
the synaptic connections are weakened. It is still not clear whether long-term
depression contributes directly to the storage of memories in some way, or wheth
er it simply makes us forget the traces of some things learned long ago so that
new things can be learned.
Sleep (particularly slow-wave, or deep, sleep, during the first few hours) is al
so thought to be important in improving the consolidation of information in memo
ry, and activation patterns in the sleeping brain, which mirror those recorded d
uring the learning of tasks from the previous day, suggest that new memories may
be solidified through such reactivation and rehearsal.
??? Did You Know ???
Studies have shown that information is transferred between the hippocampus and t
he cerebral cortex during deep sleep, and sleep appears to be essential for the
proper consolidation of long-term memories.
However, even daytime naps can help improve memory to some extent, and helps wit
h the memorization of important facts.
Memory re-consolidation is the process of previously consolidated memories being
recalled and then actively consolidated all over again, in order to maintain, s
trengthen and modify memories that are already stored in the long-term memory. S
everal retrievals of memory (either naturally through reflection, or through del
iberate recall) may be needed for long-term memories to last for many years, dep
ending on the depth of the initial processing. However, these individual retriev
als can take place at increasing intervals, in accordance with the principle of
spaced repetition (this is familiar to us in the way that cramming the night befor
e an exam is not as effective as studying at intervals over a much longer span o
f time).
The very act of re-consolidation, though, may change the intial memory. As a par
ticular memory trace is reactivated, the strengths of the neural connections may
change, the memory may become associated with new emotional or environmental co
nditions or subsequently acquired knowledge, expectations rather than actual eve
nts may become incorporated into the memory, etc.

Research into a cognitive disorder known as Korsakoff s syndrome shows that the re
trograde amnesia of sufferers follows a distinct temporal curve, in that the mor
e remote the event in the past, the better it is preserved. This suggests that t
he more recent memories are not fully consolidated and therefore more vulnerable
to loss, indicating that the process of consolidation may continue for much lon
ger than initially thought, perhaps for many years.
}
Encoding is the crucial first step to creating a new memory. It allows the perce
ived item of interest to be converted into a construct that can be stored within
the brain, and then recalled later from short-term or long-term memory.
Encoding is a biological event beginning with perception through the senses. The
process of laying down a memory begins with attention (regulated by the thalamu
s and the frontal lobe), in which a memorable event causes neurons to fire more
frequently, making the experience more intense and increasing the likelihood tha
t the event is encoded as a memory. Emotion tends to increase attention, and the
emotional element of an event is processed on an unconscious pathway in the bra
in leading to the amygdala. Only then are the actual sensations derived from an
event processed.
The perceived sensations are decoded in the various sensory areas of the cortex,
and then combined in the brain s hippocampus into one single experience. The hipp
ocampus is then responsible for analyzing these inputs and ultimately deciding i
f they will be committed to long-term memory. It acts as a kind of sorting centr
e where the new sensations are compared and associated with previously recorded
ones. The various threads of information are then stored in various different pa
rts of the brain, although the exact way in which these pieces are identified an
d recalled later remains largely unknown. The key role that the hippocampus play
s in memory encoding has been highlighted by examples of individuals who have ha
d their hippocampus damaged or removed and can no longer create new memories (se
e Anterograde Amnesia). It is also one of the few areas of the brain where compl
etely new neurons can grow.
Although the exact mechanism is not completely understood, encoding occurs on di
fferent levels, the first step being the formation of short-term memory from the
ultra-short term sensory memory, followed by the conversion to a long-term memo
ry by a process of memory consolidation. The process begins with the creation of
a memory trace or engram in response to the external stimuli. An engram is a hy
pothetical biophysical or biochemical change in the neurons of the brain, hypoth
etical in the respect that no-one has ever actually seen, or even proved the exi
stence of, such a construct.
An organ called the hippocampus, deep within the medial temporal lobe of the bra
in, receives connections from the primary sensory areas of the cortex, as well a
s from associative areas and the rhinal and entorhinal cortexes. While these ant
erograde connections converge at the hippocampus, other retrograde pathways emer
ge from it, returning to the primary cortexes. A neural network of cortical syna
pses effectively records the various associations which are linked to the indivi
dual memory.
There are three or four main types of encoding:
??? Did You Know ???
When presented with a visual stimulus, the part of the brain which is activated
the most depends on the nature of the image.
A blurred image, for example, activates the visual cortex at the back of the bra
in most.
An image of an unknown face activates the associative and frontal regions most.
An image of a face which is already in working memory activates the frontal regi
ons most, while the visual areas are scarcely stimulated at all.

Acoustic encoding is the processing and encoding of sound, words and other a
uditory input for storage and later retrieval. This is aided by the concept of t
he phonological loop, which allows input within our echoic memory to be sub-voca
lly rehearsed in order to facilitate remembering.
Visual encoding is the process of encoding images and visual sensory informa
tion. Visual sensory information is temporarily stored within the iconic memory
before being encoded into long-term storage. The amygdala (within the medial tem
poral lobe of the brain which has a primary role in the processing of emotional
reactions) fulfills an important role in visual encoding, as it accepts visual i
nput in addition to input from other systems and encodes the positive or negativ
e values of conditioned stimuli.
Tactile encoding is the encoding of how something feels, normally through th
e sense of touch. Physiologically, neurons in the primary somatosensory cortex o
f the brain react to vibrotactile stimuli caused by the feel of an object.
Semantic encoding is the process of encoding sensory input that has particul
ar meaning or can be applied to a particular context, rather than deriving from
a particular sense.
It is believed that, in general, encoding for short-term memory storage in the b
rain relies primarily on acoustic encoding, while encoding for long-term storage
is more reliant (although not exclusively) on semantic encoding.
??? Did You Know ???
In a positive example of disfluency (the subjective feeling of difficulty associ
ated with any mental task), a recent study at Princeton University has shown tha
t students learning new material printed in a difficult-to-read font or typeface
were able to recall significantly more than those learning the same material in
a font considered easy to read.
It is believed that presenting information in a way that is hard to digest means
that a person has to concentrate more, leading to deeper processing and therefo
re better retrieval afterwards.
Human memory is fundamentally associative, meaning that a new piece of informati
on is remembered better if it can be associated with previously acquired knowled
ge that is already firmly anchored in memory. The more personally meaningful the
association, the more effective the encoding and consolidation. Elaborate proce
ssing that emphasizes meaning and associations that are familiar tends to leads
to improved recall. On the other hand, information that a person finds difficult
to understand cannot be readily associated with already acquired knowledge, and
so will usually be poorly remembered, and may even be remembered in a distorted
form due to the effort to comprehend its meaning and associations. For example,
given a list of words like "thread", "sewing", "haystack", "sharp", "point", "s
yringe", "pin", "pierce", "injection" and "knitting", people often also (incorre
ctly) remember the word "needle" through a process of association.
Because of the associative nature of memory, encoding can be improved by a strat
egy of organization of memory called elaboration, in which new pieces of informa
tion are associated with other information already recorded in long-term memory,
thus incorporating them into a broader, coherent narrative which is already fam
iliar. An example of this kind of elaboration is the use of mnemonics, which are
verbal, visual or auditory associations with other, easy-to-remember constructs
, which can then be related back to the data that is to be remembered. Rhymes, a
cronymns, acrostics and codes can all be used in this way. Common examples are Ro
y G. Biv to remember the order of the colours of the rainbow, or Every Good Boy De
serves Favour for the musical notes on the lines of the treble clef, which most p
eople find easier to remember than the original list of colours or letters. When
we use mnemonic devices, we are effectively passing facts through the hippocamp
us several times, so that it can keep strengthening the associations, and theref
ore improve the likelihood of subsequent memory recall.

??? Did You Know ???

It has been shown that using two separate study sessions, with time between the
sessions, can result in twice the learning as a single study session of the same
total time length.
This is known as spaced learning (the oppposite of cramming), and is designed to
avoid the situation where the synapses become "maxed out" or lose their ability
to learn new information (also known as the long-term depression or weakening o
f a synapse connection).
In the same way, associating words with images is another commonly used mnemonic
device, providing two alternative methods of remembering, and creating addition
al associations in the mind. Taking this to a higher level, another method of im
proving memory encoding and consolidation is the use of a so-called memory palac
e (also known as the method of loci), a mnemonic techniques that relies on memor
ized spatial relationships to establish, order and recollect other memories. The
method is to assign objects or facts to different rooms in an imaginary house o
r palace, so that recall of the facts can be cued by mentally walking though the p
alace until it is found. Many top memorizers today use the memory palace method
to a greater or lesser degree. Similar techniques involve placing the items at d
ifferent landmarks on a favourite hike or trip (known as the journey method), or
weaving them into a story.
The old and popular notion of the brain as a kind of muscle which strengthens with
repeated use (also known as faculty theory) is now largely discredited. Researc
h, dating back to William James towards the end of the 19th Century, shows that
long hours spent memorizing does not build up the powers of memory at all, and,
on the contrary, may even diminish it. This is not to say that individual memori
es cannot be strengthened by repetition, but that, as James found, daily trainin
g in the memorization of a poetry of one author, for example, does not improves
a person s ability to learn the poetry of another author, or poetry in general.
Many studies have shown that the most vivid autobiographical memories tend to be
of emotional events, which are likely to be recalled more often and with more c
larity and detail than neutral events. One theory suggests that high levels of e
motional arousal lead to attention narrowing, where the range of sensitive cues
from the stimulus and its environment is decreased, so that information central
to the source of the emotional arousal is strongly encoded while peripheral deta
ils are not (e.g. the so-called weapon focus effect , in which witnesses to a crime
tend to remember the gun or knife in great detail, but not other more periphera
l details such as the perpetrator s clothing or vehicle).
}
Consolidation is the processes of stabilizing a memory trace after the initial a
cquisition. It may perhaps be thought of part of the process of encoding or of s
torage, or it may be considered as a memory process in its own right. It is usua
lly considered to consist of two specific processes, synaptic consolidation (whi
ch occurs within the first few hours after learning or encoding) and system cons
olidation (where hippocampus-dependent memories become independent of the hippoc
ampus over a period of weeks to years).
Neurologically, the process of consolidation utilizes a phenomenon called long-t
erm potentiation, which allows a synapse to increase in strength as increasing n
umbers of signals are transmitted between the two neurons. Potentiation is the p
rocess by which synchronous firing of neurons makes those neurons more inclined
to fire together in the future. Long-term potentiation occurs when the same grou
p of neurons fire together so often that they become permanently sensitized to e
ach other. As new experiences accumulate, the brain creates more and more connec
tions and pathways, and may re-wire itself by re-routing connections and re-arrang
ing its organization.
As such a neuronal pathway, or neural network, is traversed over and over again,
an enduring pattern is engraved and neural messages are more likely to flow alo

ng such familiar paths of least resistance. For example, if a piece of music is

played over and over, the repeated firing of certain cells in a certain order in
your brain makes it easier to repeat this firing later on, with the result that
the musician becomes better at playing the music, and can play it faster, with
fewer mistakes.
In this way, the brain organizes and reorganizes itself in response to experienc
es, creating new memories prompted by experience, education or training. The abi
lity of the connection, or synapse, between two neurons to change in strength, a
nd for lasting changes to occur in the efficiency of synaptic transmission, is k
nown as synaptic plasticity or neural plasticity, and it is one of the important
neurochemical foundations of memory and learning.
??? Did You Know ???
Reading out loud (or even whispering or mouthing it) forms auditory links in our
memory pathways, as well as visual ones from looking a a page or screen.
So, we remember ourselves producing and saying the information as well as readin
g it visually, which may improve our overall retrieval of memories.
But this process works best, when just SOME of the information (e.g. the most im
portant words or concepts) is read out loud, and the rest not, as this takes adv
antage of the oddball effect whereby we remember the more unusual or distinctive i
nformation best.
It should be remembered that each neuron makes thousands of connections with oth
er neurons, and memories and neural connections are mutually interconnected in e
xtremely complex ways. Unlike the functioning of a computer, each memory is embe
dded in many connections, and each connection is involved in several memories. T
hus, multiple memories may be encoded within a single neural network, by differe
nt patterns of synaptic connections. Conversely, a single memory may involve sim
ultaneously activating several different groups of neurons in completely differe
nt parts of the brain.
The inverse of long-term potentiation, known as long-term depression, can also t
ake place, whereby the neural networks involved in erroneous movements are inhib
ited by the silencing of their synaptic connections. This can occur in the cereb
ellum, which is located towards the back of the brain, in order to correct our m
otor procedures when learning how to perform a task (procedural memory), but als
o in the synapses of the cortex, the hippocampus, the striatum and other memoryrelated structures.
Contrary to long-term potentiation, which is triggered by high-frequency stimula
tion of the synapses, long-term depression is produced by nerve impulses reachin
g the synapses at very low frequencies, leading them to undergo the reverse tran
sformation from long-term potentiation, and, instead of becoming more efficient,
the synaptic connections are weakened. It is still not clear whether long-term
depression contributes directly to the storage of memories in some way, or wheth
er it simply makes us forget the traces of some things learned long ago so that
new things can be learned.
Sleep (particularly slow-wave, or deep, sleep, during the first few hours) is al
so thought to be important in improving the consolidation of information in memo
ry, and activation patterns in the sleeping brain, which mirror those recorded d
uring the learning of tasks from the previous day, suggest that new memories may
be solidified through such reactivation and rehearsal.
??? Did You Know ???
Studies have shown that information is transferred between the hippocampus and t
he cerebral cortex during deep sleep, and sleep appears to be essential for the
proper consolidation of long-term memories.
However, even daytime naps can help improve memory to some extent, and helps wit
h the memorization of important facts.

Memory re-consolidation is the process of previously consolidated memories being

recalled and then actively consolidated all over again, in order to maintain, s
trengthen and modify memories that are already stored in the long-term memory. S
everal retrievals of memory (either naturally through reflection, or through del
iberate recall) may be needed for long-term memories to last for many years, dep
ending on the depth of the initial processing. However, these individual retriev
als can take place at increasing intervals, in accordance with the principle of
spaced repetition (this is familiar to us in the way that cramming the night befor
e an exam is not as effective as studying at intervals over a much longer span o
f time).
The very act of re-consolidation, though, may change the intial memory. As a par
ticular memory trace is reactivated, the strengths of the neural connections may
change, the memory may become associated with new emotional or environmental co
nditions or subsequently acquired knowledge, expectations rather than actual eve
nts may become incorporated into the memory, etc.
Research into a cognitive disorder known as Korsakoff s syndrome shows that the re
trograde amnesia of sufferers follows a distinct temporal curve, in that the mor
e remote the event in the past, the better it is preserved. This suggests that t
he more recent memories are not fully consolidated and therefore more vulnerable
to loss, indicating that the process of consolidation may continue for much lon
ger than initially thought, perhaps for many years.
]
Storage is the more or less passive process of retaining information in the brai
n, whether in the sensory memory, the short-term memory or the more permanent lo
ng-term memory. Each of these different stages of human memory function as a sor
t of filter that helps to protect us from the flood of information that confront
us on a daily basis, avoiding an overload of information and helping to keep us
sane. The more the information is repeated or used, the more likely it is to be
retained in long-term memory (which is why, for example, studying helps people
to perform better on tests). This process of consolidation, the stabilizing of a
memory trace after its initial acquisition, is treated in more detail in a sepa
rate section.
Since the early neurological work of Karl Lashley and Wilder Penfield in the 195
0s and 1960s, it has become clear that long-term memories are not stored in just
one part of the brain, but are widely distributed throughout the cortex. After
consolidation, long-term memories are stored throughout the brain as groups of n
eurons that are primed to fire together in the same pattern that created the ori
ginal experience, and each component of a memory is stored in the brain area tha
t initiated it (e.g. groups of neurons in the visual cortex store a sight, neuro
ns in the amygdala store the associated emotion, etc). Indeed, it seems that the
y may even be encoded redundantly, several times, in various parts of the cortex
, so that, if one engram (or memory trace) is wiped out, there are duplicates, o
r alternative pathways, elsewhere, through which the memory may still be retriev
ed.
Therefore, contrary to the popular notion, memories are not stored in our brains
like books on library shelves, but must be actively reconstructed from elements
scattered throughout various areas of the brain by the encoding process. Memory
storage is therefore an ongoing process of reclassification resulting from cont
inuous changes in our neural pathways, and parallel processing of information in
our brains.
The indications are that, in the absence of disorders due to trauma or neurologi
cal disease, the human brain has the capacity to store almost unlimited amounts
of information indefinitely. Forgetting, therefore, is more likely to be result
from incorrectly or incompletely encoded memories, and/or problems with the reca
ll/retrieval process. It is a common experience that we may try to remember some

thing one time and fail, but then remember that same item later. The information
is therefore clearly still there in storage, but there may have been some kind
of a mismatch between retrieval cues and the original encoding of the informatio
n. Lost memories recalled with the aid of psychotherapy or hypnosis are other exam
ples supporting this idea, although it is difficult to be sure that such memorie
s are real and not implanted by the treatment.
??? Did You Know ???
A recent study has shown scientifically what criminal lawyers have known for dec
ades, namely that memory is an adaptive process.
Apparently trivial or mundane memories from just before an important or traumati
c event appear to be kept for a period in a kind of "just-in-case file", and may
be retroactively enhanced in case they are useful in interpreting the event.
This retroactive strengthening is not immediate, and can take several hours or d
ays to take effect.
Having said that, though, it seems unlikely that, as Richard Schiffrin and other
s have claimed, ALL memories are stored somewhere in the brain, and that it is o
nly in the retrieval process that irrelevant details are fast-forwarded over or ex
purgated. It seems more likely that the memories which are stored are in some wa
y edited and sorted, and that some of the more peripheral details are never stor
ed.
Forgetting, then, is perhaps better thought of as the temporary or permanent ina
bility to retrieve a piece of information or a memory that had previously been r
ecorded in the brain. Forgetting typically follows a logarithmic curve, so that
information loss is quite rapid at the start, but becomes slower as time goes on
. In particular, information that has been learned very well (e.g. names, facts,
foreign-language vocabulary, etc), will usually be very resistant to forgetting
, especially after the first three years. Unlike amnesia, forgetting is usually
regarded as a normal phenomenon involving specific pieces of content, rather tha
n relatively broad categories of memories or even entire segments of memory.
Theorists disagree over exactly what becomes of material that is forgotten. Some
hold that long-term memories do actually decay and disappear completely over ti
me; others hold that the memory trace remains intact as long as we live, but the
bonds or cues that allow us to retrieve the trace become broken, due to changes
in the organization of the neural network, new experiences, etc, in the same wa
y as a misplaced book in a library is lost even though it still exists somewhere i
n the library.
??? Did You Know ???
Research using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) suggests that verbs
and nouns are stored in different ways in the brain.
Concrete nouns are stored in areas of the brain used to sense or manipulate the
referent objects, leading to a theory of meaning based largely on function.
Interestingly, it appears not to be possible to deliberately delete memories at
will, which can have negative consequences, for example if we experience traumat
ic events we would actually prefer to forget. In fact, such memories tend to be
imprinted even more strongly than normal due to their emotional content, althoug
h recent research involving the use of beta blockers (such as propanonol) sugges
ts that it may be possible to tone down the emotional aspects of such memories,
even if the memories themselves cannot be erased. The way this works is that the
act of recalling stored memories makes them "malleable" once more, as they were
during the initial encoding phase, and their re-storage can then be blocked by
drugs which inhibit the proteins that enable the emotional memory to be re-saved
.
]
Recall or retrieval of memory refers to the subsequent re-accessing of events or
information from the past, which have been previously encoded and stored in the

brain. In common parlance, it is known as remembering. During recall, the brain

"replays" a pattern of neural activity that was originally generated in respons
e to a particular event, echoing the brain's perception of the real event. In fa
ct, there is no real solid distinction between the act of remembering and the ac
t of thinking.
These replays are not quite identical to the original, though - otherwise we wou
ld not know the difference between the genuine experience and the memory - but a
re mixed with an awareness of the current situation. One corollary of this is th
at memories are not frozen in time, and new information and suggestions may beco
me incorporated into old memories over time. Thus, remembering can be thought of
as an act of creative reimagination.
Because of the way memories are encoded and stored, memory recall is effectively
an on-the-fly reconstruction of elements scattered throughout various areas of
our brains. Memories are not stored in our brains like books on library shelves,
or even as a collection of self-contained recordings or pictures or video clips
, but may be better thought of as a kind of collage or a jigsaw puzzle, involvin
g different elements stored in disparate parts of the brain linked together by a
ssociations and neural networks. Memory retrieval therefore requires re-visiting
the nerve pathways the brain formed when encoding the memory, and the strength
of those pathways determines how quickly the memory can be recalled. Recall effe
ctively returns a memory from long-term storage to short-term or working memory,
where it can be accessed, in a kind of mirror image of the encoding process. It
is then re-stored back in long-term memory, thus re-consolidating and strengthe
ning it.
??? Did You Know ???
Several studies have shown that both episodic and semantic memories can be bette
r recalled when the same language is used for both encoding and retrieval.
For example, bilingual Russian immigrants to the United States can recall more a
utobiographical details of their early life when the questions and cues are pres
ented in Russian than when they are questioned in English.
The efficiency of human memory recall is astounding. Most of what we remember is
by direct retrieval, where items of information are linked directly a question
or cue, rather than by the kind of sequential scan a computer might use (which w
ould require a systematic search through the entire contents of memory until a m
atch is found). Other memories are retrieved quickly and efficiently by hierarch
ical inference, where a specific question is linked to a class or subset of info
rmation about which certain facts are known. Also, the brain is usually able to
determine in advance whether there is any point in searching memory for a partic
ular fact (e.g. it instantly recognizes a question like What is Socrates telephone
number? as absurd in that no search could ever produce an answer).
There are two main methods of accessing memory: recognition and recall. Recognit
ion is the association of an event or physical object with one previously experi
enced or encountered, and involves a process of comparison of information with m
emory, e.g. recognizing a known face, true/false or multiple choice questions, e
tc. Recognition is a largely unconscious process, and the brain even has a dedic
ated face-recognition area, which passes information directly through the limbic
areas to generate a sense of familiarity, before linking up with the cortical p
ath, where data about the person's movements and intentions are processed. Recal
l involves remembering a fact, event or object that is not currently physically
present (in the sense of retrieving a representation, mental image or concept),
and requires the direct uncovering of information from memory, e.g. remembering
the name of a recognized person, fill-in the blank questions, etc.
Recognition is usually considered to be superior to recall (in the sense of being
more effective), in that it requires just a single process rather than two proce
sses. Recognition requires only a simple familiarity decision, whereas a full re

call of an item from memory requires a two-stage process (indeed, this is often
referred to as the two-stage theory of memory) in which the search and retrieval
of candidate items from memory is followed by a familiarity decision where the
correct information is chosen from the candidates retrieved. Thus, recall involv
es actively reconstructing the information and requires the activation of all th
e neurons involved in the memory in question, whereas recognition only requires
a relatively simple decision as to whether one thing among others has been encou
ntered before. Sometimes, however, even if a part of an object initially activat
es only a part of the neural network concerned, recognition may then suffice to
activate the entire network.
??? Did You Know ???
Colour may have an effect on our ability to memorize something.
People remember colour scenes better than black-and-white ones, although only if
naturally (as opposed to falsely) coloured.
In particular, warm colours, like red, yellow and orange, may help us to memoriz
e things by increasing our level of attention (our ability to select from inform
ation available in the environment). The more attention is focused on outside st
imuli, the greater the likelihood of those stimuli being stored in long-term mem
ory.
In the 1980s, Endel Tulving proposed an alternative to the two-stage theory, whi
ch he called the theory of encoding specificity. This theory states that memory
utilizes information both from the specific memory trace as well as from the env
ironment in which it is retrieved. Because of its focus on the retrieval environ
ment or state, encoding specificity takes into account context cues, and it also
has some advantages over the two-stage theory as it accounts for the fact that,
in practice, recognition is not actually always superior to recall. Typically,
recall is better when the environments are similar in both the learning (encodin
g) and recall phases, suggesting that context cues are important. In the same wa
y, emotional material is remembered more reliably in moods that match the emotio
nal content of these memories (e.g. happy people will remember more happy than s
ad information, whereas sad people will better remember sad than happy informati
on).
According to the levels-of-processing effect theory, another alternative theory
of memory suggested by Fergus Craik and Robert Lockhart, memory recall of stimul
i is also a function of the depth of mental processing, which is in turn determi
ned by connections with pre-existing memory, time spent processing the stimulus,
cognitive effort and sensory input mode. Thus, shallow processing (such as, typ
ically, that based on sound or writing) leads to a relatively fragile memory tra
ce that is susceptible to rapid decay, whereas deep processing (such as that bas
ed on semantics and meanings) results in a more durable memory trace. This theor
y suggests, then, that memory strength is continuously variable, as opposed to t
he earlier Atkinson-Shiffrin, or multi-store, memory model, which just involves
a sequence of three discrete stages, from sensory to short-term to long-term mem
ory.
The evidence suggests that memory retrieval is a more or less automatic process.
Thus, although distraction or divided attention at the time of recall tends to
slow down the retrieval process to some extent, it typically has little to no ef
fect on the accuracy of retrieved memories. Distraction at the time of encoding,
on the other hand, can severely impair subsequent retrieval success.
The efficiency of memory recall can be increased to some extent by making infere
nces from our personal stockpile of world knowledge, and by our use of schema (p
lural: schemata). A schema is an organized mental structure or framework of preconceived ideas about the world and how it works, which we can use to make reali
stic inferences and assumptions about how to interpret and process information.
Thus, our everyday communication consists not just of words and their meanings,
but also of what is left out and mutually understood (e.g. if someone says it is

3 o clock , our knowledge of the world usually allows us to know automatically wheth
er it is 3am or 3pm). Such schemata are also applied to recalled memories, so th
at we can often flesh out details of a memory from just a skeleton memory of a c
entral event or object. However, the use of schemata may also lead to memory err
ors as assumed or expected associated events are added that did not actually occ
ur.
There are three main types of recall:
??? Did You Know ???
Several recent studies in the growing area of neuro-education have shown the
value of the "testing effect" (or "retrieval effect"), where quizzes a short ti
me after initial learning significantly improves subsequent retrieval of facts a
nd ideas, as well as overall understanding of topics and the ability to solve re
lated problems.
Testing helps protect against "proactive interference" (the familiar feeling
of being overwhelmed by too much information), and the studies suggest that a q
uick test is much more effective than en extra hour of study or re-reading.
Free recall is the process in which a person is given a list of items to rem
ember and then is asked to recall them in any order (hence the name free ). This ty
pe of recall often displays evidence of either the primacy effect (when the pers
on recalls items presented at the beginning of the list earlier and more often)
or the recency effect (when the person recalls items presented at the end of the
list earlier and more often), and also of the contiguity effect (the marked ten
dency for items from neighbouring positions in the list to be recalled successiv
ely).
Cued recall is the process in which a person is given a list of items to rem
ember and is then tested with the use of cues or guides. When cues are provided
to a person, they tend to remember items on the list that they did not originall
y recall without a cue, and which were thought to be lost to memory. This can al
so take the form of stimulus-response recall, as when words, pictures and number
s are presented together in a pair, and the resulting associations between the t
wo items cues the recall of the second item in the pair.
Serial recall refers to our ability to recall items or events in the order i
n which they occurred, whether chronological events in our autobiographical memo
ries, or the order of the different parts of a sentence (or phonemes in a word)
in order to make sense of them. Serial recall in long-term memory appears to dif
fer from serial recall in short-term memory, in that a sequence in long-term mem
ory is represented in memory as a whole, rather than as a series of discrete ite
ms. Testing of serial recall by psychologists have yielded several general rules
:
more recent events are more easily remembered in order (especially with
auditory stimuli);
recall decreases as the length of the list or sequence increases;
there is a tendency to remember the correct items, but in the wrong orde
r;
where errors are made, there is a tendency to respond with an item that
resembles the original item in some way (e.g. dog instead of fog , or perhaps an item
physically close to the original item);
repetition errors do occur, but they are relatively rare;
if an item is recalled earlier in the list than it should be, the missed
item tends to be inserted immediately after it;
if an item from a previous trial is recalled in a current trial, it is l
ikely to be recalled at its position from the original trial.
If we assume that the "purpose" of human memory is to use past events to guide f
uture actions, then keeping a perfect and complete record of every past event is
not necessarily a useful or efficient way of achieving this. So, in most people
, some specific memories may be given up or converted into general knowledge (i.
e. converted from episodic to semantic memories) as part of the ongoing recall/r

e-consolidation process, so that that we are able to generalize from experience.

It is also possible that false memories (or at least wrongly interpreted memorie
s) may be created during recall, and carried forward thereafter. Research into f
alse memory creation is particularly associated with Elizabeth Loftus' work in t
he 1970s. Among many other experiments in this area (see the side panel on the P
sychogenic Amnesia page, for example), she showed how the precise wording of a q
uestion about memories (e.g. "the car hit" or "the car smashed into") can dramat
ically influence the recall and re-creation of memories, and can even permanentl
y change those memories for future recalls - a phenomenon which is not lost on t
he legal profession. It is thought that it may even be possible, up to a point,
to choose to forget, by blocking out unwanted memories during recall, a process
achieved by frontal lobe activity, which inhibits the laying down or re-consolid
ation of a memory.
However, there is a rare condition called hyperthymesia (also known as hypermnes
ia or superior autobiographical memory) in which a few people show an extraordin
ary capacity to recall detailed specific events from a person s personal past, wit
hout relying on practised mnemonic strategies. Although only a handful of cases
of hyperthymesia have ever been definitively confirmed, some of these cases are
quite startling, such as a California woman who could recall every day in comple
te detail from the age of 14 onwards, a young English girl with an IQ of 191 who
had a perfect photographic memory spanning almost 18 years, and a Russian man k
nown simply as "S." who was only able to forget anything by a deliberate act of
will. One of the most famous cases, known as A.J. , described it as a burden rather
than a gift, but others seem to be able to organize and compartmentalize their
prodigious memories and do not appear to feel that their brains are "cluttered"
with excess information. There is a good "60 Minutes" documentary on the subject
at http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7166313n. Interestingly, recent resea
rch has shown that such individuals tend to have significantly larger than avera
ge temporal lobes and caudate nuclei, and many exhibit mild Obsessive Compulsive
Disorder-like behaviour (the caudate nucleus is also associated with OCD).
}
Wouldn't it be great to have a better memory? To remember things you've read, re
call names more easily, and never forget where you put your keys?
Sadly, scientists haven't yet discovered a magic pill to help you remember thing
s. And many tools often touted as memory enhancers like various foods, brain-tra
ining games, and calorie restrictions
still don't have enough solid evidence beh
ind them.
But there has been enough research about memory that you can glean some tips. He
re's a look at things we know currently help boost memory
and a look at some fut
uristic technology that may be just around the corner.
1) Sleeping better definitely helps boost your memory
Sleeping cat
Improving memories! (Shutterstock)
There's a lot of strong evidence that more sleep leads to better memory. Indeed,
it's safe to say this is the strongest finding about improving memory that exis
ts. Study after study has shown that sleep is especially important for making me
mories stick in your brain and for reinforcing important details while discardin
g irrelevant ones.
In some studies, scientists give volunteers something to remember and then have
them sleep in a laboratory. (The subjects are hooked up to an EEG device so that
researchers can see what phase of sleep they're in.) They then wake them up at
various stages and test their memories the next day.

Over time, this type of research has found that many different sleep stages seem
to be important for helping us strengthen certain memories and discard the stuf
f that's not as useful. (After all, you wouldn't want to remember every single t
hing that happened every day.) Sleep helps us recall not just facts and emotions
, but also things like how to perform a new physical task.
Indeed, changes in sleep may be one reason why older adults often have memory pr
oblems.
And it gets weirder. A few lab studies have suggested that being exposed to scen
t or sound cues while learning and then again while sleeping might have a memory
-boosting effect. It's hard to know how to use these facts in everyday life, but
it's an intriguing place for further study.
But why can't we consolidate memories like this while we're awake? One major hyp
othesis is that the brain needs to do these tasks without interference. And the
synaptic-homeostasis hypothesis posits that the connections between neurons need
to pretty much reset themselves every night.
2) Exercise also helps you remember things better
Running man
(Shutterstock)
You probably already know that you should be exercising. Here's one more reason
to do it. A whole host of studies have found that exercise generally seems to bo
ost memory, although the details are still being worked out.
A few recent studies have shown that exercising while studying leads to better r
ecall days later, though not immediately after. Another demonstrated that exerci
sing vigorously right after learning leads to immediate improvements in memory.
Gretchen Reynolds at the New York Times has been following these studies closely
, and I'd recommend looking at her stuff if you want to dive in more deeply.
Several other papers have shown that exercise
particularly aerobic fitness can h
elp older adults deal with memory problems. For example, one recent study found
that older women with mild cognitive impairment who were told to walk or weight
train for six months ended up improving on memory tests.
Lab rats also have better memories if they're allowed to exercise regularly. Res
earchers are looking into how that might happen. One factor might be the protein
BDNF, which helps brain cells survive and grow in both rats and people.
3) Caffeine might give your memory a jolt
Man with coffee
My precious memories will be safe with this coffee. (Shutterstock)
If you're already a coffee fiend, this one will make you feel good about yoursel
f. In January 2014, an intriguing study showed that caffeine might have effects
on memory. The experiment demonstrated that consuming the caffeine equivalent of
about two cups of coffee after learning some material improved people's recall
of it the next day.
A lot more research will need to be done to determine that this was truly a real
effect and, if so, how to use it to one's benefit. But it's certainly intriguin
g.
4) For the truly committed, try the "memory palace"

House blueprint 3D
And I left the diapers on the kitchen table and the eggplant on the bed. (This w
ill make more sense if you actually read the story below. Try it!) (Shutterstock
)
If you want to remember a series of very particular things
say, your grocery lis
t you can do what memory champs do. Just create a memory palace (this is also ca
lled the method of loci).
Start by imagining a building that you know well, like your own home. Imagine wa
lking from room to room and placing various things you need to remember in speci
fic locations. Then, when you want to remember them again, take a walk through t
hat building the same exact way.
Journalist Joshua Foer studied this technique for a year and ended up winning th
e United States Memory Championship, which requires memorizing the order of an e
ntire deck of cards. But the memory palace also works with far simpler tasks, li
ke grocery lists.
One downside: it's unlikely that using this semantic-memory technique will make
it easier for you to do things like remember events from your childhood. That's
a different type of memory called episodic memory. And the current scientific un
derstanding is that improving one type of memory rarely spills over into other t
ypes, too.
5) Electromagnetic stimulation could someday boost your memories
Transcranial magnetic stimulation TMS
A woman receives transcranial-magnetic stimulation at the Depression Center in P
aris, France. (BSIP/UIG via Getty Images)
In August 2014, a study in Science showed that people who received a certain typ
e of electromagnetic stimulation to their brains ended up better able to remembe
r things
and the effects lasted for at least a day.
Previous studies with people who had electrodes in their brains to treat epileps
y had also showed that stimulating certain regions could lead to better memory.
The Science study replicated this effect on healthy people. They placed electrom
agnets outside of volunteers' heads to produce a focused electrical current in a
brain region connected to the hippocampus
a key area for memory.
Participants were stimulated for several days and did better on a memory test af
terward than participants who were treated with a placebo. What's more, the memo
ry boost continued for at least 24 hours after the last stimulation. Brain-imagi
ng results suggest that this trick worked because it strengthened connections be
tween memory-related regions of the brain.
Still, neuroscientists don't know how long the effects will last
or how safe it
would be to use for more than a few days. So don't try this at home.
6) In the future? You might take memory drugs
Pill bottle
Theoretical memory pills of the future. I couldn't take a picture of them becaus
e they don't exist yet. (Shutterstock)
There's definitely no magical memory pill out there yet
and it's unclear if ther
e will ever be. But some recent research in this area has been tantalizing.

Scientists have been discovering various molecules that seem to bolster the memo
ry of lab animals. The list includes BDNF, IGF-II, and the posited possible key
to all long-term memory, PKMzeta.
PKMzeta is thought to naturally strengthen connections between brain cells, whic
h is part of how memories form. Indeed, a drug that inhibits PKMzeta has been sh
own to wipe out all kinds of memories in rats. What's more, giving these animals
a dose of PKMzeta revives those faded memories.
However, that doesn't mean humans should go around messing with these drugs just
yet. They definitely shouldn't. PKMzeta's exact role in memory is still content
ious. And a lot of this animal research is still at the basic level of trying to
figure out how memories actually work, rather than hunting for a specific thera
py.
There are also lots of risks. Very few drugs that work in lab animals end up bei
ng safe and effective for people. Worse still, it's difficult to determine what
side effects these drugs might have. A test in a rat won't necessarily tell you
if a drug is going to make someone forget her childhood memories, the names of h
er loved ones, or make her more sluggish at complex math. Or, on the flip side,
having too many memories could be problematic and cloud up your thinking. There
are many inherent risks when messing with memory.
7) Even further in the future: you might have a brain chip
Memory chip in head
No women's heads were actually bionically augmented for the making of this image
. I hope. (Shutterstock)
This one is in very, very, very early stages. On July 9, the Department of Defen
se announced $40 million in funding for research on brain implants to aid people
with impaired memory. The idea is to help them form new memories and access ear
lier ones. The project is appropriately called Restoring Active Memory (RAM).
The Pentagon says that the research is for people with memory problems. Of cours
e, it's possible that the military has other interests
like creating super soldi
ers with superhuman memory. And maybe that tech could someday trickle down to us
all. You never know.
So, how do researchers plan to make such a device? First, they'll try to figure
out what kinds of brain signals make memories and recall them. They'll do this b
y recording neuron activity in patients with epilepsy and Parkinson's who alread
y have electrodes implanted in their brains for treatment.
The scientists will also collaborate with engineers to make memory devices that
can stimulate the brain. The research teams say that within four years they'll h
ave actual implants that could be used on actual people with brain injuries. How
ever, as is often the case with science, there may be delays.
]
How would you like to be able to recall the name of a client or associate you ju
st met? How would you like to go to the bank and not fumble for your account num
ber every stinking time? Everyday scenarios like these are classic examples of o
ur need for memorization. The function of memory has so many more applications,
too public speaking, schoolwork, studying, research, the list goes on and on. Imag
ine if we could be better at it.
Would you believe that memorization is not an innate ability but rather a learne
d skill? Approaching the topic from this paradigm changes everything. You can le
arn how to memorize. You can become a memory expert by application and sheer for

ce. You have the power to memorize anything and everything.

How Our Brain Memorizes Things
Before we get to the memorization techniques, first a science lesson on how the
brain stores memories. You likely know that the brain is a complicated, beautifu
l system of working parts. Two of those working parts the neurons and the synapses a
re flexed during the memory-creating process. Neurons are the parts of the brain
that send and receive electrical signals. Synapses are the roads that connect t
hem.
How Your Memory Works (and Three Ways to Improve It)
When memories are recalled, a series of neurons sends signals throughout the bra
in, creating a sequence that represents the memory. This pathway has been tested
by scientists who can send electrical shocks into the brain, masquerading as th
ese initial neuron signals, that can initiate a memory sequence. The stronger th
e synapse, the greater chance that a memory can be recalled.
Consistent use of synapses often creates stronger connections, similar to exerci
sing. So, say, recalling your old apartment number or childhood home phone is ea
sier than a bank account number because an address or phone gets used more often
. Weak signals i.e., bank-account signals lack the ability to create the cascade of
neurons essential to initiating a memory.
The Problem with Memory Today
One of the leading voices on memorization is Joshua Foer, a journalist by trade
who trained himself in one year s time to become a memorization national champion
(Foer s exploits are documented in the book Moonwalking with Einstein). His perspe
ctive on the topic of memory points to an interesting, 21st century problem: Ext
ernalizing vs. Internalizing.
Technologies (iPhones, software, etc.) have made our modern world possible,
but they ve also changed us. They ve changed us culturally, and I would argue that t
hey ve changed us cognitively. Having little need to remember anymore, it sometime
s seems as if we ve forgotten how.
With so many apps and tools at our disposal, memorization has transferred from a
purely mental exercise to a tangibly outward endeavor. (Foer is not quite the f
irst to share this sentiment. Socrates was sour on writing because he feared it
would weaken memory.)
Three Techniques to Become a Better Memorizer
Construct a Memory Palace
The ancient Greeks and Romans did not have the luxury of an iPhone or Evernote.
When their scholars and orators remembered something, they did so the old-fashio
ned way: mentally. The common technique of the time was a Memory Palace, also kn
own as the method of loci, also known as mental mapping.
How to Use Mind Maps to Unleash Your Brain's Creativity and Potential
Mind mapping is one of the best ways to capture your thoughts and bring them to
life in visual
Read more
The technique works like this:
Visualize a familiar space in your life, i.e. your house or your workplace.
Find five rooms or areas in this space.
Choose five large items in each room to serve as files for your memorizing.
Assign each of these five large items a number, beginning with one and going
room to room in ascending order. For instance, in your office, your desk may be

1, your office chair 2, your bookcase 3, your whiteboard 4, and your door 5. In
the break room, begin with the break room table at 6, the sink as 7, etc., etc.
Number as many items in as many rooms as you wish, and keep in mind that you ca
n always add more items and rooms later. It is helpful to number the items in an
orderly way as they flow in the room.
How Your Memory Works (and Three Ways to Improve It)
At this point, your Palace is constructed. Now, let s fill it.
Picture what it is you want to remember.
Associate this memory with an item in a room.
Let s say you want to commit to memory each of the 12 teams in the Pac-12 football
conference (to impress your boss, a Cal grad). Based on the above Memory Palace
that I constructed in the workplace, the list might look something like this:
A wildcat is chewing on my desk (Arizona)
The devil is napping on my office chair (Arizona State)
The giant bear is pawing at Malcolm Gladwell s Blink in my bookcase (Cal)
A buffalo is drawing caricatures of me on my whiteboard (Colorado)
A duck is laying eggs on my door jamb (Oregon)
A beaver is chewing off the legs of the break-room table (Oregon State)
Someone stuffed a tree down the garbage disposal in the sink (Stanford)
(and so on and so forth for UCLA, USC, Utah, Washington, and Washington Stat
e)
How Your Memory Works (and Three Ways to Improve It)
The visualization is important. The more vivid these scenes appear in your imagi
nation, the more likely it is that you will recall them. Joshua Foer, the memori
zation champion, found that visceral, lewd, or bizarre imagery often worked best
. This is called the Von Restorff effect.
Create a Peg System
An ideal technique for memorizing lists, similar to the scientific method of say
ing no, the peg system functions in a similar way to the memory palace: Create an
association between what you want to memorize and what your mind already knows.
To use the peg system, you assign words to a list of numbers, creating a mental
image for each peg. Then, you can attach what you wish to memorize to these pre-me
morized pegs, creating a vivid connection in your mind.
The initial pegs can be created with anything. Common starting points are words
that rhyme with each number or shape corresponding to the shape of each number.
Here s a rhyming example for one through ten:
1 = sun
2 = shoe
3 = bee
4 = spore
5 = jive
6 = ticks
7 = heaven

8 = grate
9 = wine
10 = hen
Once you commit your pegs to memory, then you can begin associating your to-be-m
emorized lists. Let s say, for instance, that you need to memorize a shopping list
. Your list might look like this:
Bananas: A banana-shaped sun
Toothpaste: A shoe full of toothpaste
Birthday card for mom: A bee writing a sweet message in a greeting card
Memorize Verbatim Text
The above techniques work great for memorizing individual items. But what if you
have a chunk of text you want to commit to memory? You can try a Memory Palace
of paragraphs or a Peg System of key points, but here s an even better option: the
first-letter text method. The method is not a visual one, like the methods list
ed above. The key to the first-letter text method is good, old-fashioned hard wo
rk:
Practice recalling, not repeating: This is the crucial concept of any type o
f memorization. The act of reading something you want to memorize fires differen
t connections than the act of recalling. This is how you learn to memorize your pr
actice recalling, not repeating.
Recalling vs. repeating might sound like semantics, but the distinction is notab
le. If you want to memorize a large chunk of text, you are better off recalling
it within your mind than reading it over and over on paper. This is how the firs
t-letter method functions. Take the first letter from each word in your chosen t
ext. This becomes your study guide. Let s use a couple paragraphs from Martin Luth
er King s I Have a Dream speech as an example.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation wh
ere they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of the
ir character.
I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill an
d mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crook
ed places will be made straight; and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and
all flesh shall see it together.
And here s what it looks like with the first-letter text method (Productivity501 h
as a helpful tool on their website).
I h a d t m f l c w o d l i a n w t w n b j b t c o t s b b t c o t c.
I h a d t o d e v s b e, a e h a m s b m l, t r p w b m p, a t c p w b m s;
t g o t L s b r a a f s s i t.
Now, instead of reading the text verbatim, you are recalling the text. Your brai
n is exercising its synapses in a way that will lead to better memorization. Rea
ding through those first letters, you may find yourself recalling bits and piece
s from the full text. Good. Great! The more practice, the easier it gets.
Other Notable Methods
Psychology research has gone into the theory of mood memory: If you want to

remember something, get back to the mood you were in when you experienced it.
The Link System works in a similar way to the Peg System, albeit without the
numerical order. Say you need to memorize a list of arbitrary terms a dog, a cake
, a house, the rain. With the link system, you visualize an interaction between
each consecutive item, e.g. a dog eating a cake, a cake filling a house, a rains
torm of houses.
Ron White, a former memorization national champion, has an intriguing method
for recalling numbers. He assigns each friend a number, and he needs to memoriz
e a new number, he simply pictures his friends in a particular order.
Associating a name with a personality trait or visual cue is an effective me
thod. The Office s Michael Scott took this to a famously insulting extreme.
Ben Pridmore, a World Memory Champion, once memorized a deck of cards in 24
seconds. His Pridmore technique, documented here, is quite extensive.
(Aside: What does it take to be a Grand Master of Memory? You must memorize the
order of 10 decks of cards in 60 minutes, memorize 1,000 random digits in 60 min
utes, and memorize the order of one deck of cards in less than two minutes.)
What Works for You?
Memorization on a small scale in the work place or a large scale at the national c
hampionships often comes back to the same foundation of visualizing, associating,
and recalling. Some of the above methods might work wonders for you, or perhaps
you have muddled together your own system that you swear by. I have been wanting
to memorize a famous speech for some time, and I plan on giving the first-lette
r text method a go. How about you?
}
When lost car keys, missed appointments, and forgotten passwords are every day o
ccurrences, it gets frustrating. If your memory isn't as good as it used to be,
as good as you'd like it to be, here are some of my favorite easy ways to compen
sate for a "less than perfect" memory.
How Your Memory Works (and Three Ways to Improve It)
How would you like to be able to recall the name of a client or associate you ju
st met? How would
Read more
This post originally appeared on Pick the Brain.
Checklists
Surgeons, pilots, and emergency workers use checklists. Shouldn't you? Create a
checklist for any task you do regularly like paying bills or household chores. C
hecklists are particularly helpful for tasks that are done infrequently such as
doing your taxes, seasonal home maintenance, or taking a vacation. That way you
don't have to rethink the entire process every time it rolls around. Create a Wo
rd document or Excel spreadsheet so you can easily make changes when it's time t
o update the list.
?Four Skills That Will Turn You Into a Spreadsheet Ninja
Spreadsheets are one of the most mystifying pieces of software you'll encounter
in your adult
Read more
Reminder Notes
I'm never more than a few feet away from a pad of Post-its. I have them everywhe
re scattered around the house, in my car, and in my purse. When I have a "memory-w
orthy" thought I take comfort in knowing I don't have to actually remember it. I
prefer writing things down but sending yourself a text message works, too.
Built-in Redundancy
For things you absolutely must remember, have a backup. You probably already put

birthdays, appointments, or when to pay bills on your calendar. But also mark y
our calendar seven days before the event to give yourself time to buy a gift or
make a payment.
Keep a spare car key in your purse or wallet. It's much less likely you'll lock
both your keys and your purse in the car at the same time. But it still can happ
en. (Ask me how I know this!) Give an extra house key to a neighbor or hide one
outside (but make sure it's in a really, really secure spot). No hiding a key un
der the door mat or in a fake rock by the front door. In my previous home I used
to hang a house key on a nail under my deck. Getting to it involved removing a
piece of lattice and crawling in some dirt. Not very likely a burglar would figu
re that one out!
How to Hide Your House Keys in Plain Sight
Your welcome mat is not a secure key hiding place, neither is the frame over you
r door or the
Read more gizmodo.?com
Do you have an old pair of eyeglasses laying around? Think about where you could
use them as a backup. I keep a serviceable but outdated pair in the car. If I w
ere to lose my good pair I can still see my way back home. I've also gotten caug
ht out leaving the house wearing my prescription sunglasses only to find I'm dri
ving back in the dark. Wearing shades. Not a good idea.
Organization Stations
Keep everything you're likely to forget in one convenient place by the door. Hav
e a station either a small table, a basket, or a rack with hooks with everything you
need when you leave the house purse or wallet, brief case, glasses, phone, outgoi
ng mail, or to-do lists.
Keep your car keys in a dish or on a hook by the door. Always put them back firs
t thing when you walk in the door so you won't have to tear through the house lo
oking for them. This is especially important if you aren't the only person using
that vehicle.
Password Manager
It's amazing how many bits of data we all have to know phone numbers, birthdays, a
ppointments, passcards, pin numbers, bank account numbers, social security numbe
rs, and on it goes. But with a password manager you won't need to remember any o
f them.
Which Password Manager Is The Most Secure?
Dear Lifehacker, I'm looking for a password manager, after you convinced me I re
ally need to
Read more
A password manager is a program that creates passcards so you can log into your
online accounts automatically. You only need to remember one master password (of
your own creation) and the rest is taken care of with a click of your mouse. If
you shop, pay bills, or bank online, this really saves you time, frustration, a
nd some serious brain strain.
A password manager also makes your computer and online information more secure.
Now you can make your passwords complicated, since you no longer need to remembe
r them. Did you know the two most common passwords are "123456? and "password"?
Seriously.
If you are guilty of using the same simple password for all your logins, you rea
lly need to get a password management program! It could save you from being hack
ed or from having your identify stolen. Your passwords should like more like "tO

&G3JubZQ" and less like "1234?.

"Control + F" Command
Have you ever read something on a webpage and wanted to refer back to it but cou
ldn't find it again? That's where the Control F function comes in handy.
If you want to search for a particular word or phrase on any webpage or document
, hold the CRTL button down, then click the F key. Enter the word or phrase you'
re looking for and it will be highlighted for you. This is almost as good as hav
ing a photographic memory! Google has found that 90% of computer users don't kno
w the Control F command, but now you'll be part of the 10% that do.
You don't need an exceptional memory to function well in this busy and informati
on-loaded world. An arsenal of the right tools, tips, and tricks can definitely
help your life run more smoothly. What are some of your favorite tricks for keep
ing on top of all that you have to remember?
}
The science of memory (and 4 uncommon ways to enhance it)
Posted by Belle Beth Cooper
I have a pretty bad memory, it seems. I know people say that all the time, but h
ere s why I think it actually applies to me:
In pretty much all of my childhood memories, I m around 10 years old, as if no
thing ever happened before that.
My poor co-founder, Josh, has to replay almost entire conversations before I
recall having had them. On a regular basis.
Unless my high school was running way off the curriculum, I just don t remembe
r anything I learned there. Every time someone asks me about a high-school level
concept in science, or maths, or even something I should know as a writer, like
what a past participle is, I draw a blank.
It s a bit of a struggle having a bad memory. It makes conversations frustrating (
mostly for the other person), makes a lot of tasks take longer because I have to
look up things I should remember, and it means I usually need some basic introd
uction to any topic before I can follow the latest news.
Since I ve been reading and writing more about the brain, memory is one area that s
really fascinated me, because I d like to improve mine. So today I had a look into
the basics of memory: how it works, what types of memory there are and why our
memories aren t as reliable as we think.
How memory works
Creating memories, like learning new things, is all about creating and strengthe
ning connections between the neurons in our brains (called synapses):
synapse
When we create a new memory, a pattern of brain activity occurs, and we store wh
at s called a memory trace. This is like the seed of the memory, before it gets st
rengthened and grows by connecting to other, related memories we have. To make s
ure we hang on to that memory for the long-term, studies have shown that our bra
in recreates that exact same pattern of brain activity while we sleep. This is k
nown as memory consolidation.
Obviously the last step, and the one we re probably most familiar with, is recalli
ng those memories. The way this happens is a reconstructive process. Rather than
reproducing an event exactly as it happened, like a video camera might, our mem
ories actually just offer up fragments. Without realizing it, we stitch these fr

agments together into a narrative that helps us understand what happened.

The different types of memory
I always thought memory was memory, pretty much, but it turns out there are a bu
nch of different types:
Declarative memory: Facts and knowledge, like the capital city or your birth
date.
Episodic memory: Memories about life events, like your last birthday party o
r your first day of school.
Procedural memory: Your own how-to manual, essentially. Memories about how t
o ride a bike or cook your favorite meal.
Semantic memory: Meanings and concepts that you ve learned, especially useful
for reading.
Spatial memory: Your map of the world, inside your head. These cover your en
vironment, landmarks and objects.
Each type of memory relies on a different area or combination of areas in the brain.
There s one more type of memory, though: working memory.
Working memory is kind of like the brain s notepad. It s the place we dump stuff whi
le we re using it, before either forgetting it or moving it to long-term memory. I
t s main use is for temporarily storing small bits of information until we ve used t
hem up.
Because it s like a workspace for the brain, working memory is limited in how much
we can keep there. The general rule is that most adults can hold 3 5 pieces of in
formation in working memory at a time.
If you ve ever repeated a phone number to yourself over and over until you dial it
, that s your working memory at play. Once you dial the number, you don t need to re
member it anymore so you let go of it and it disappears.
There are a few theories about how this really works in the brain. One of the mo
st popular theories is the multi-component model, which was first proposed in th
e 1970s. This model breaks down working memory into three parts:
The central executive, or control centre
The phonological loop
The visuo-spatial sketchpad
working memory
The central executive is in charge, so it monitors and coordinates the two other
parts. The phonological loop processes words and speech-related sounds, like wh
en you repeat the phone number, or if you try to remember a string of words. The
visuo-spatial sketchpad handles information about your environment and objects
like size, shape, color and where things are around you. If you re trying to remem
ber a driving route for the first time, that s when this part of your working memo
ry would come in handy.
In 2000, the psychologist behind this model, Alan Baddeley, introduced another s
ection that reports to the control centre: the episodic buffer. The episodic buf
fer connects information from the phonological loop and visuo-spatial sketchpad,
and long-term memories. It temporarily holds episodes of memories made up of bits
of varied information, whereas the other two parts of the model only hold infor
mation specific to their related areas.
episodic_buffer

The last thing to remember about working memory is that it requires your attenti
on. If you re focused on something in front of you, your working memory won t take i
n information about something happening nearby, even if your senses can pick it
up. Working memory is all about the things we want to hang on to, temporarily, a
nd because it s so limited, it can t waste space on taking in everything around us.
Why our memories aren t reliable
Funnily enough, our memories are nowhere near the reliable encyclopedia of life
that we think they are. There are a few different ways they can be changed, and
most of them happen without us even realizing.
Unstable memories
Remember how I said before that memory is reconstructive? And how we put togethe
r memory fragments into a narrative that makes sense to us? Well, this is kind o
f where our memory lets us down, in a way.
Because we don t have an exact replica of the event we re remembering, we re prone to
(subconsciously) add new information that we have now, when we recall the memory
, or mix up the fragments we have. If you ve heard about people uncovering repress
ed childhood memories, this is often rebutted with research into how malleable o
ur memories can be. The process of recalling our memories is tainted by our bias
es and our experiences, and we don t even realize we re altering our memories as we
recall them.
A good example of this is an experiment done by psychologist Frederic Bartlett.
He asked participants to read a story and then retell it. Later, he went back to
the study participants and asked them to retell the story from memory at variou
s points, even up to a year later. What he found was really interesting: not onl
y did the story change, as you might guess, but without realizing it, each perso
n emphasized and removed different details, depending on which ones they thought
were important, and they rationalized any parts of the story that had confused
them originally. Each person had saved memory fragments about the story, and the
n stitched them back together into a narrative that made sense to them.
There is an upside to this, however. Some scientists have proposed that the reas
on we have a reconstructive memory, which requires this fragment stitching proce
ss, is because it helps us to predict the future. Whereas a complete reproductio
n of a past event might help us to relive that event more clearly, little fragme
nts help us focus on the parts of the past that had an effect on us and to use t
hose to make decisions about events that haven t taken place yet.
Changing memories
When we recall past memories, something strange happens: the original memory tra
ce that we consolidated into our long-term memory during sleep quickly becomes u
nstable. This means it s prone to alteration, and that s when we tend to subconsciou
sly change our memories during the recall process.
We can actually use this to our advantage in some ways. For instance, emotionall
y charged memories can be softened over time by recalling them in safe environme
nts and removing the negative associations they bring. One study on associative
memories in drug addicts showed that when they were shown videos of drug use and
paraphernalia, it often prompted a desire to use drugs. When participants watch
ed the video ten minutes before an hour-long period of being exposed to those sa
me images, their drug cravings were reduced, because they d just had a new experie
nce of seeing those images and then not taking drugs. So over time, the associat
ion of seeing drug-related media and drug use could be replaced with new associa
tive memories.
Sleeping on your memories
Sleep is obviously hugely important for a strong memory, since researchers have

found that this is when the consolidation process happens. It follows, then, tha
t sleep deprivation can be detrimental to the creation and strengthening of our
memories.
Not only does sleep deprivation make it harder for us to consolidate new memorie
s into long-term storage, it also makes it harder to recall the ones that are al
ready there. In fact, after long periods of sleep deprivation, we become more pr
one to generating false memories i.e. believing things that never happened are act
ually real memories.
Improving your memory
Now that I know a bit more about how memory works, I ll be sure to focus on gettin
g enough sleep. What about other ways to improve memory, though? There are a few
things you can try, though research into how well these methods work is still i
n the early stages so there aren t any guarantees. But if your memory is as bad as
mine, they re probably worth a try anyway.
Drink coffee: though studies into the effects of caffeine on memory in the p
ast have mostly shown no effect, one study found that taking a caffeine pill imm
ediately after learning something new would help with the memory consolidation p
rocess. So instead of having your coffee first thing in the morning, try startin
g your day with some reading or a learning exercise (I m going to try a quick Fren
ch lesson) before your caffeine hit. This may help whatever you just read or lea
rnt to stick.
Keep some rosemary around: researchers have found in a couple of different s
tudies that the scent of rosemary can improve cognitive abilities, particularly
memory recall. It couldn t hurt to have some fresh rosemary growing nearby your de
sk or home office.
Eat blueberries: several studies have touted the memory-enhancing effects of
blueberries and even just blueberry juice. One long-term study of nurses eating
habits found that those who ate the most blueberries and strawberries delayed th
eir memory decline up to 2.5 years compared to other nurses of the same age. The
great thing about this research is that it showed just a couple of servings of
berries per week were enough to make a difference.
Meditate: It s still fairly debatable whether we can seriously increase our wo
rking memory, but some studies have shown it s possible. In particular, meditation
and mindfulness-training (training to improve focusing abilities and attention
span) have proven to increase working memory. Meditation appears to improve our
abilities to block out external influences and ignore, or calm, the voices in ou
r heads, which could leave room for greater working memory capacity.
mastering-memory
I still have a bad memory. But at least I have some ideas for how I can improve
it, now. I ve just finished stocking up my fridge with berries, so it must be time
for another coffee.
+_
did it.
I bought the sewing machine, a dress form, a table everything. I m going to teach my
self how to sew.
The only problem? I have no idea where to start.
I m the person that buys the new thing and immediately dives into the most difficu
lt possible project. This is usually followed by immense frustration and sometim
e after that quitting.

Well, not this time. This time I m going to do it right. In order to do that, I wa
nted to understand a bit more about what I can do to promote the best possible l
earning experience. Hopefully what I found out can be of use to you as you begin
to tackle something new in your life.
Tip 1: Know how you learn
You know how in cartoons the really smart characters always had obscenely big he
ads to house their incredibly intelligent brains? Okay, so we know that s not how
real intelligence works, but certain areas of your brain do expand while you are
in the process of learning something new.
Some neuroscientists believe this occurs when your brain is trying to solve a pr
oblem it doesn t know the answer to. Your brain (or more specifically your cortex)
doesn t necessarily know which area of the brain is best equipped to solve the pr
oblem or learn a new skill. So it recruits a good portion of the cortex, like a
search committee, to hunt for the answer. When this happens, your cortex expands
.
To make the most out of your time spent learning, space it out.
Popular convention, or perhaps all those nights spent cramming for tests in coll
ege, might have you believe that those short bursts of study time are the best.
Research shows that spacing out your studying over a period of time is actually
the best way to enhance your memory of the material.
In fact, if you want to remember something for 5 years, your best choice is to s
pace out your periods of study around 6-12 months. That seems completely counter
intuitive but doing this helps the brain build a sturdy foundation for knowledge
.
When your brain has finally solved a problem, the cortex will once again contrac
t. The skills that we acquired during that learning period remain. And because t
he brain work this way, it means making mistakes is vital to the learning proces
s.
Tip 2: Get comfortable making mistakes
You may as well get used to making mistakes right now because when we learn some
thing new, we can t help but make them. Our ability to make and learn from our mis
takes is essential to acquiring a new skill and even to our very evolution and s
urvival.
The brain s medial frontal cortex (located in the frontal lobe) monitors negative
feedback, action errors, and decision uncertainty it s perfectly suited to process o
ur mistakes. The frontal cortex adapts based on negative feedback or diminished
rewards and it does that through yes, you guessed it, dopamine!
muppet flailing arms
Dopamine is the chemical responsible for things like motivation and pleasure.
When you do something correctly certain dopamine receptors send
o your brain. This opens what is known as the Go pathway, which
ntal cortex and facilities further action. This also encourages
ty (a nice word for learning) and helps to teach the neurons to
excited activity the next time you encounter that task.

reward signals t
engages your fro
synapse plastici
repeat that same

If you make a mistake or receive negative feedback, the NoGo pathway is engaged.
When we don t receive that anticipated dopamine from trying something new or comp
leting a task (et al.) the synaptic plasticity of the NoGo pathway is activated.

This basically means you re training your brain to not make similar mistakes in t
he future.
Human beings are works in progress that mistakenly think they re finished.
lbert

Dan Gi

I love that quote by Harvard psychologist and author Daniel Gilbert. If you beli
eve that your work is done, that everything is finite (including your intelligen
ce) what purpose would you have to learn anything new? We are in a constant stat
e of flux and that itself should excite you.
When we make a mistake, we essentially have two ways we can respond:
Wake up call: we see the negative outcome as a call to action and seek to ch
ange it by diverting more of our attentional resources to finding a solution.
Shut down: sometimes we can see our mistakes or errors as a threat, we choos
e not to focus on the mistake as a way to protect ourselves. The downside of tha
t? Our attention plummets.
When you choose option one what you are saying is this, I have the power and the
ability to improve with effort I can overcome these challenges. This is what is oft
en referred to as the growth mindset. This is what you want!
If you make a mistake don t freak out, don t give up. Realize that everyone makes mi
stakes and that by doing so, you are actually training your brain to make the sa
me ones in the future. Without mistakes, we simply would not be able to learn or
grow.
Tip 3: Save the coffee for later
Before you pillory me, just hold up for a second. I m not saying you can t have your
legal liquid cocaine substitute. I love coffee, this is generally how I drink i
t:
drinking coffee
Caffeine excites us, well not really. Caffeine enables the neurotransmitters dop
amine and glutamate to do the exciting by mimicking adenosine which is responsible
for slowing down nerve cell activity and making you feel sleepy. Caffeine, howe
ver, has no desire to slow you down.
We ve all read the studies about how caffeine could help us live longer, improve o
ur memory it is the silver bullet that will fix all our problems. But how useful i
s it when it comes to helping us learn and recall information?
It s not going to possess you with magical skills and it won t unlock hidden fountai
ns of intelligence inside of your brain. Caffeine can help with certain types of
learning, and certain kinds of memory recall but there are caveats. Caffeine appe
ars to help us the most when we are acquiring information passively, it doesn t he
lp us at all when we are doing intentional learning.
sewing room
look no coffee!
A recent study by Johns Hopkins University suggests that it might be better for
us to hold off on coffee until after we are done learning a task. The researcher
s administered caffeine pills to some of the study participants after they had c
ompleted a task that required memorization.
Twenty-four hours later, the individuals who had ingested caffeine were able to
recall the photos they had seen more accurately than the individuals who had ing
ested the placebo. This may occur because caffeine increases the production of t

he neurotransmitter norepinephrine which is usually released in stressful situatio

ns and helps memories form.
If you really want to maximize your learning time, it may be best to save the co
ffee for later. In fact, if you really wanted to improve your learning and memor
y, skip the coffee altogether and take a short nap.
Sleeping shortly after learning something new aids in memory formation by streng
thening the synapses that you ve just spent all that time forming in your brain.
Now we know that when we learn something new, a neuron will grow new connecti
ons on a specific branch. Imagine a tree that grows leaves (spines) on one branc
h but not another branch. When we learn something new, it s like we re sprouting lea
ves on a specific branch. Wen-Biao Gan, PhD
Sleep helps to solidify what we have learned and it helps to clean out old memor
ies from our brain to make room for the new ones. So perhaps when we are learnin
g something our best choice is to sleep more? Now, that s something I can get behi
nd.

Understanding a bit more about how the brain learns and formulates memories some
how calms me. It helps remind me that we don t learn everything all at once and th
at s okay. In fact, that s more than okay, that s a good thing. Take your time, make m
istakes, and get some sleep those are three simple tips that can help us no matter
what we were are doing.
}
I ve been attempting to learn French for a while now, and it s a slow process. It s al
l much harder this time around than it was to learn English, my first language.
All this effort made me wonder if there were some tricks to learning a foreign l
anguage that I d been missing. It turns out, it s just a tricky thing to do once you r
e an adult.
How we learn language
Learning language is something we re born to do. it s an instinct we have, which is
proven, as one research paper says, just by observation:
To believe that special biological adaptations are a requirement, it is enou
gh to notice that all the children but none of the dogs and cats in the house ac
quire language.
As children, we learn to think, learn to communicate and intuitively pick up an
understanding of grammar rules in our mother tongue, or native language. From th
en on, we learn all new languages in relation to the one we first knew the one tha
t we used to understand the world around us for the first time ever.
Although language is something we learn, research has shown that the instinct to
do so is present from birth. Not only are we inclined to process and adopt lang
uage, but it seems that the human brain has common linguistic constraints, regar
dless of the language we ve learned. Certain syllables, which aren t common in any l
anguage, are difficult for the brain to process, even in newborns who haven t star
ted learning any language yet.
Learning a foreign language
When it comes to learning a second language, adults are at a disadvantage. As we
age, our brain s plasticity (its ability to create new neurons and synapses) is r
educed. Following brain damage that causes a loss of speech, for instance, resea
rchers have observed that children are more likely to regain the power of speech

, by creating new pathways in the brain to replace the damaged ones.

One theory of why learning a foreign language is so hard for adults focuses more
on the process we go through to do so, rather than the loss of plasticity. Robe
rt Bley-Vroman explains in Linguistic Perspectives on Second Language Acquisitio
n that adults approach learning a new language with an adult problem-solving pro
cess, rather than in the same way a child develops language for the first time.
Although this means adults generally progress through the early stages of learni
ng a language faster than children, people who are exposed to a foreign language
first during childhood usually achieve a higher proficiency than those who star
t out as adults.
There s still hope, though. A study of secondary language pronunciation found that
some learners who started as adults scored as well as native speakers. It s also
been shown that motivation to learn can improve proficiency, so if you really wa
nt to learn a language, it s not necessarily too late.
Give yourself the best chance
If you want to put in the effort to learn a new language, try these methods that
are known for improving learning and memory.
1. Spaced repetition
Spaced repetition is a proven memory technique that helps you keep what you ve lea
rned strong in your mind. The way it works is you revise each word or phrase you v
e learned in spaced intervals. Initially the intervals will be smaller: you migh
t revise a new word a few times in one practice session, and then again the next
day. Once you know it well you ll be able to leave days or weeks between revision
s without forgetting it.
Here s a diagram that shows how the
ch new repetition:

forgetting curve drops less dramatically with ea

Forgetting Curve
I like using Duolingo for vocabulary and phrase practice because it takes care o
f spaced repetition for me. The app keeps track of which words I haven t practiced
for a while and reminds me to strengthen my understanding of those. During each
lesson, it mixes up familiar and new words to space out the repetition.
2. Learn before you sleep
One of the many benefits we get from sleep is that it helps to clear out the bra
in s inbox
the temporary storage of new information and memories from our time awake
. We need sleep (even just a nap) to move anything we ve recently learned into our
brain s long term storage. Once it s safely stored, spaced repetition will help to
strengthen the connection so we can recall the information faster and more accur
ately.
3. Study content, not the language
Although most language learning classes and progams focus on purely learning the
language, a study of high school students studying French found that when they
studied another subject taught in French instead of a class purely to teach Fren
ch, the students tested better for listening and were more motivated to learn. S
tudents in the standard French class scored better on reading and writing tests,
so both methods clearly have merit.
Once you ve mastered the basics of a new language, try including some content on a
topic you re interested in to improve your understanding. You could have conversa
tions with friends learning the same language, read articles online or listen to
a podcast to test your comprehension.

4. Practice a little everyday

If you re busy, you might be tempted to put off your studying and cram in a big ch
unk of learning once every week or two. However, studying a little every day is
actually more effective. Because your brain s inbox has limited space and only sleep
can clear it out, you ll hit the limit of how much you can take in pretty quickly
if you study for hours at a time.
Studying in small chunks every day combines spaced repetition with the best use
of the brain s temporary storage.
5. Mix new and old
The brain craves novelty but attempting to learn lots of new words or phrases at
once can be overwhelming. Novel concepts work best when they re mixed in with fam
iliar information.
When you add new words to your vocabulary, try spacing them in-between words you r
e already familiar with so they ll stand out your brain will latch onto them more ea
sily.
}
ve been learning to build iOS apps in Objective-C for the past few months and I m f
inally starting to really get my head around it. It s been a lot harder and taken
a lot longer than I expected.
I often get stuck, frustrated, and spend many more hours searching for bug fixes
than actually writing code. But it s an amazing feeling to play with an app on my
phone and know that I built it from scratch.
I ve learned a lot along the way not just about developing iOS apps, but about progr
amming in general, and even about my own learning process. I ve also run into prob
lems that I might have avoided if I d taken a different approach to learning Objec
tive-C.
Looking back at my experience here are some things I d do differently if I was lea
rning to code today.
Find a coding buddy
I ve yet to find a method of learning that beats having a real person to talk to.
My co-founder Josh, who s mostly a Python developer, has practically learned Objec
tive-C alongside me thanks to fielding my many programming theory questions ( How
does an if statement work again? ) and helping me with debugging when I m truly stuc
k.
At the very least, having a patient coding buddy who can explain fundamental pro
gramming principles is a huge help. Josh will often help me think through the mo
st logical way to approach a problem, before I work out the specifics of doing s
o in Objective-C.
Use every resource out there
If you re not lucky enough to have a patient programmer around to field your quest
ions, here are some other places to get help from real people:
Stack Overflow
Mostly useful for specific syntax or implementation questions, Stack Overflow is
one of my most-visited sites these days. I haven t asked any questions there myse
lf yet (and I m wary of doing so, as the community can be quite hostile to beginne
rs) but I ve rarely needed to most of my questions can be solved by browsing through
answers to other people s questions.
Treehouse

Treehouse teaches programming through video courses and has built-in community f
orums where you can discuss bugs you re having trouble with or specific exercises
from the courses that you re stuck on.
askadev
Askadev lets you connect to an experienced developer when you need help. I haven t
tried this service so I don t know how useful it is or whether it covers all prog
ramming languages, but it s free so you might want to try it out next time you re st
uck.
Codementor
If you re willing to fork over some cash to get help from an experienced developer
, Codementor will match you up with someone who knows the language you re learning
. They cover Android, iOS, HTML, CSS, PHP, Python, and lots more.
Rubber duck problem solving
If you haven t read it before, this post on rubber duck problem solving is really
useful. The principle is this: explain your problem, out loud, to a rubber duck
or other cute inanimate object, like your toaster. The process of talking throug
h your problem out loud will often help you realise the answer (or at least wher
e you re going wrong) all by yourself. I ve found talking through my code out loud i
s an incredibly useful habit and I try to do it every time I get stuck before as
king someone for help.
Learn the principles
One of the main things that has held me back in my time learning to code is misu
nderstanding or being unfamiliar with technologies I m working with. For instance,
working with APIs means I need to understand how APIs work, how to use POST and
GET requests, and how to parse JSON data. I need to know I m going to receive JSO
N data, even.
Learning Objective-C isn t all I need to know to build an iOS app at least, not the
kind I want to build. I made the mistake of thinking Objective-C was all I neede
d to know. And even worse, I often get stuck because Stack Overflow answers, onl
ine tutorials, and book chapters will explain how to do something in Objective-C
, completely skipping over the necessary web-based principles I need to know, be
cause they assume that knowledge.
If I was starting over today, I would refresh and build on my knowledge of HTML
and CSS first. And when I started working with something new that I didn t know mu
ch about, I d learn about it in general before attempting to implement it in Objec
tive-C.
Start with any language
If you re really not sure where to start, or what you want to build, don t let it ho
ld you back. Although I spent time learning Ruby and Python, and haven t finished
any projects with either of those languages yet, I don t feel like that time was w
asted.
A common starting point for beginners is to learn to build websites with HTML an
d CSS. These are actually markup languages so it might seem like a waste of time
to start there if you actually want to build mobile or web apps. But even in th
is case, you ll gain knowledge and experience that will help you when you move on
to learning a programming language.
If you re keen to start learning to code but don t know where to start, pick a book,
tutorial, or online course that you like the look of, and go for it! You can al
ways switch to learning a different language once you have a better idea of what
you want to build.

Find a project you really care about

Probably the biggest learning curve for me has been finding the motivation to st
ick with my desire to learn to code. I ve attempted it a few times in the past: le
arning HTML and CSS when I was a teenager, learning the basics of Ruby a couple
of years ago, and learning Python more recently.
When I decided to try learning Objective-C it wasn t because I liked the language
any better than Ruby or Python, or because I knew anyone who d already learned it,
it was simply because I have a list of ideas for iOS apps I want to build and I r
eally want to build them.
My motivation for learning Objective-C is higher than it was for learning any ot
her language so far because I m motivated by personal projects I want to make.
Most importantly, when the going gets tough and I feel frustrated and stuck, I d
on t give up because I m building a project I really care about. And every time I mana
ge to implement something new and it turns out well, the pay-off is even better
because it s part of my passion project.
If you re considering learning to code and you don t have any restrictions on which
language or platform you choose, I would definitely recommend choosing a project
you re really passionate about and basing your language choice on what the projec
t requires.
Everyone learns differently, so you ll probably have a different experience to me,
but if you re just starting out or thinking about learning to code, I hope my exp
eriences and mistakes can help you learn even faster.
}
Some days I get hundreds of emails a day. It really sucks.
The worst part is that most of the emails are important and I physically can t res
pond to all of them.
They might be emails from students of One Month Rails who are frustrated? ?I want
to help them out. Other times they re from people who have read my posts and want
to meet up. Or they re just from friends.
My personal policy is to read every single email I get. That means every day I h
ave to set aside at least an hour to go through all my email and decide what urg
ently needs to be responded to and what doesn t.
In an effort to help people cut through the noise with their emails, and hopeful
ly free up a little bit of my time, I wanted to share a few tips that I ve found a
re helpful when writing to people who are inundated with email.
Screen Shot 2015-03-10 at 4.15.04 PM
This is an Unsplash Story by One Month CEO Mattan Griffel. The Unsplash photo ap
pearing in the original post is by Alejandro Escamilla.
1) Keep it short
If you can keep an email to less than 2 or 3 sentences, it s much easier to read i
t right then. If your email is longer than a paragraph or two, people will often
put off reading it and it will probably take you longer to get a response.
Here s a really long email I got recently (you don t have to read all of it, just sk
im it):
Hi Mattan,

My name is (redacted), I am recent graduate originally from California but a

m currently living in (redacted) and am looking for work. I have a Bachelors Deg
ree in Accounting, but am not having much luck finding work in that field and to
be honest with you I am struggling with the idea of being an accountant as a ca
reer. I sort of always had that thought in the back of my mind while in school b
ut stuck with it because I think it is a skill set that is often overlooked by y
oung entrepreneurs, which is more of what I see myself as.
Today on the news here they ran a segment stating that multiple companies wi
thin the city of (redacted) are looking for coders. I have always been intereste
d in the idea of coding but have very limited experience. The extent of my exper
ience in coding comes from creating some macros in the visual basic editor in Mi
crosoft Excel, which I found to be quite enjoyable.
I checked out the website that was advertised and I think this may be someth
ing I want to pursue. I was wondering if you could offer me some advice on where
to begin. Here is the website in case you want to check it out: (redacted)
After looking through the minimum requirements I see that I am lacking the f
ollowing:
development experience
familiar with an at least one imperative (C/C++, Java, Javascript, C#, Pytho
n, Ruby, etc.) or functional language (Haskell, Scala, F#, Clojure, etc)
Understand basic control structures and elements of programs like loops, var
iables, functions, and potentially objects and classes.
First thing that I did after seeing the requirements was type in how to code o
n YouTube and that is how I came across you and your talk How to Teach Yourself C
ode . What I am wondering is if the advice from the video still applies today and
if Rails is still the way to go or where you would start if you were in my situa
tion. One extra thing to consider is that my PC is in California and at the mome
nt all I have access to is my chromebook. Will this be sufficient to get started
or will I need something with a traditional OS?
Sorry for such a long introductory email, but I hope you get a chance to rea
d this and respond.
Thank-you for the video and talk, I will be diving into more of the details
you discussed in the coming days.
Hopefully some of that snow in NY is starting to melt!
Woah? ?this is way too much work to read. You could take all the info above and bo
il it down into three simple sentences:
Hi Mattan,
I just saw your How to Teach Yourself to Code talk from Internet Week but noti
ced it was recorded almost two years ago. Does your advice in the video still ap
ply?
If so, can I use a Chromebook or will I need something with a more tradition
al OS?
That s better. I know that a lot of the background info is missing, but people ten
d to think that they need to provide way more info than the reader actually need
s.
2) Format for readability and clarity

It s easier to read emails that are broken down into one or two sentences per para
graph than long paragraphs.
Here s an example of an unformatted email I got recently:
Hi Mattan,
I took your April skillshare omrails class. It was a great intro class. Curr
ently I m following your advise by doing the Hartl tutorial. I have a question if
you can give me some suggestions. Is there an equivalent to Hartl s Rails tutorial
for iPhone app development? My personal goal is to create a Rails website for m
y wife s jewelry business, then an iPhone app to go along with the website idea. Y
our help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
Do you see how it s really hard to read? You can t skim it and have to do a lot more
work to figure out what he or she is actually saying. Here s one that would have
worked way better:
Hi Mattan,
Thanks for the One Month Rails class! I m following your advice by doing the M
ichael Hartl Ruby on Rails Tutorial.
Quick question: Do you know of any classes like the Hartl Tutorial but for i
Phone apps?
The second is way easier to read and figure out what exactly the person is askin
g you. Break your paragraphs down into shorter sentences, separate your call to
action, and use bold/italics for emphasis and to draw the readers attention to t
he important parts.
3) Make it clear what you want me to do
Nothing drives people crazier than an email where someone sends over a lot of in
formation but doesn t say what they d like you to do. I often respond to those immed
iately by asking: What do you want me to do?
Do you want me introduce you to someone? Do you want me to read your blog post a
nd give you feedback? Do you want me to respond with whether I ll be able to atten
d an event? Be clear and say it explicitly up front.
Here s a really unclear email I got recently:
I just got done watching your presentation on computer programming I m 14 and
wanted to learn it s something I ve always wanted to do. Could you please help me in
any way possible I really want you to respond.
The call to action here is just help me, but I really have no idea what that means
and how to respond to it. Compare the email above to something more concrete:
Hi Mattan,
I m 14 and want to learn about programming. What s the #1 resource you d recommend
?
If you must send a long email with a lot of information, put the call to action
up at the top. Something like: I m sending this email to see if you can attend the
event below. Just respond with a Yes or No .
This also helps the reader decide if they should forward the email to someone el
se, which they do often if they re used to delegating tasks.
4) Be reasonable with your request

It s so easy these days to send off an email in 30 seconds that would take someone
over an hour to respond to.
Please don t tell me to go to your startup s website and give you feedback. To actua
lly give your product or website a thorough review and analyze it in a way that
is useful actually takes a lot of work.
If I can respond to something in less than two minutes, I ll do it immediately. Wh
at do you want feedback on? The business model? The color of your button? The te
xt? Be specific and reasonable.
Here s an example of one of the bigger tasks people often ask me to do for them:
Hi Mattan,
(redacted) here. You don t know me, but your post on getting accepted to YC fi
red me up just now.
Having just submitted a late application to YC myself (as a single non-techn
ical founder) I was curious if you might give me some feedback on my application
. It hasn t been rejected yet. And my company s been featured in Popular Mechanics (
attached), Fox Business (video link) and has 300+ paying customers so I d like to be
lieve I have a shot. But getting a YC alum s opinion would be really eye-opening.
(then they attached their 1000+ word application)
If you want someone s feedback on something, be concrete and ask a specific questi
on that can be answered in a few minutes.
Please don t expect the reader to do the work to figure out what you want them to
do. I consider that lazy. Don t ask What do you think we could do to get more custo
mers?
On the same note, don t email someone asking to pick their brain about something.
I was wondering if my cofounder and I could take you to dinner/lunch, we d lov
e to tell you what we re working on and pick your brain.
Brain picking meetings are extremely exhausting because they don t have a concrete g
oal and you spend most of the time trying to figure it out. Usually they re a sign
that the person emailing isn t really sure what they want, they just want to meet
in person.
Here s my typical response to both of the emails above:
Sorry? ?I can t meet up in-person? ?but I m happy to help. So email me any question
anytime. I m not good with big general, Here s my entire situation? ?what do you think
of it? kind of questions, but pretty good with specific questions.
In order of priority and amount of work involved, here s what I usually agree to:
Giving short response? ? Thank you ? or That means a lot
Answering a specific question? ?if I can do it in less than 2 minutes
Getting on a quick Skype / Google hangout / phone call? ?usually 15 minutes or
so
Grabbing a coffee in person? ?usually 45 minutes
This means that if you ask to meet up for coffee but I think we could do it over
Skype, I ll push for that instead.
5) Show me why I should take the time to help you

Honestly, this sounds harsh but it s important.

In the past, I tried to meet up with everyone who emailed me.
I agreed to coffees and lunches, listened to a lot of stories and gave a good de
al of advice about what I thought they should be doing. Then I d inevitably be fru
strated when people didn t listen to any of my advice. Or they d argue with me about
why I m wrong.
Sometimes they d come back to me a month or two later and just ask me the same que
stions. It felt like Groundhog s day.
These days I try to prioritize the people who I think I m going to be able to help
out the most.
The best way to figure that out is to see whether you ve done something awesome in
the past, something that indicates that you ll be doing awesome things in the fut
ure.
I often check people s LinkedIn profiles through Rapportive when they email me
see where they re working, where they went to school, and what their deal is.

I ll

For example, I ve learned that people who are currently working in finance but thi
nking about starting their own startup are almost always a red flag. (No offense t
o finance itself, I studied finance).
Going to a good school is a plus. Working at a startup I ve heard of is a plus. Be
ing a consultant or running a small company is usually a minus.
If you don t have anything yet in terms of experience, then put together a good lo
oking website (not a deck) that makes it look like you put some real thought int
o what you re trying to do.
}
Whether you want to learn a new language, learn to cook, take up a musical instr
ument, or just get more out of the books you read, it helps to know how your bra
in learns. While everyone learns slightly differently, we do have similarities i
n the way our brains take in new information, and knowing how this works can hel
p us choose the most efficient strategies for learning new things.
Here are six things you should know about the brain s learning systems.
1. We take in information better when it s visual
The brain uses 50% of its resources on vision.
Think about that for a minute. Half of your brain power goes to your eyes and th
e processes in your brain that turn what you see into information. The other hal
f has to be split up among all the other functions your body has.
Vision is not only a power-hungry sense, but it trumps our other senses when it
comes to taking in information.
visual brain
Image credit: Amit Kapoor

Storytelling with Data

See | Show | Tell | Engage

A perfect example of this is an experiment where 54 wine aficionados were asked

to taste wine samples. The experimenters dropped odorless, tasteless red dye int
o white wines to see whether the wine tasters would still know they were white b
ased on the taste and smell. They didn t. Vision is such a big part of how we inte

rpret the world that it can overwhelm our other senses.

Another surprising finding about vision is that we treat text as images. As you
read this paragraph, your brain is interpreting each letter as an image. This ma
kes reading incredibly inefficient when compared to how quickly and easily we ca
n take in information from a picture.
More than just static visuals, we pay special attention to anything we see that s
moving. So pictures and animations are your best friends when it comes to learni
ng.
Action: Find or make flash cards with images on them. Add doodles, photos, or pi
ctures from magazines and newspapers to your notes. Use colors and diagrams to i
llustrate new concepts you learn.
2. We remember the big picture better than the details
When you re learning lots of new concepts, it s easy to get lost in the barrage of i
nformation. One way to avoid being overwhelmed is to keep referring back to the
big picture. This is probably where you ll start with something new, so coming bac
k to explore how the new concept you just learned fits into that big picture can
be helpful.
In fact, our brains tend to hang onto the gist of what we re learning better than
the details, so we might as well play into our brains natural tendencies.
When the brain takes in new information, it hangs onto it better if it already h
as some information to relate it to. This is where starting with the gist of an
idea can be helpful: it gives you something to hang each detail on as you learn
it.
I read a metaphor about this concept once that I loved: imagine your brain is li
ke a closet full of shelves: as you add more clothes they fill up more of the sh
elves and you start categorizing them.
Now if you add a black sweater (a new piece of information) it can go on the swe
ater shelf, the black clothes shelf, the winter clothes shelf, or the wool shelf
. In real life you can t put your sweater on more than one shelf, but in your brai
n that new piece of information gets linked to each of those existing ideas. You l
l more easily remember that information later because when you learned it you re
lated it to various other things you already knew.
Action: Keep a large diagram or page of notes handy that explains the big pictur
e of what you re learning and add to it each major concept you learn along the way
.
3. Sleep largely affects learning and memory
Studies have shown that a night of sleep in-between learning something new and b
eing tested on it can significantly improve performance. In a study of motor ski
lls, participants who were tested 12 hours after learning a new skill with a nig
ht of sleep in-between improved by 20.5%, compared to just 3.9% improvement for
participants who were tested at 4-hour intervals during waking hours.
Naps can improve learning just like a full night of sleep can. A study from the
University of California found that participants who napped after completing a c
hallenging task performed better when completing the task again later, compared
to participants who stayed awake in-between tests.
Sleeping before you learn can also be beneficial. Dr Matthew Walker, the lead re
searcher of the University of California study, said Sleep prepares the brain lik
e a dry sponge, ready to soak up new information .

Action: Try practicing your new skill or reading about it before going to bed or tak
ing a nap. When you wake up, write some notes on what you remember from your las
t study session.
4. Sleep deprivation significantly reduces your ability to learn new information
Sleep deprivation is a scary thing. Because we don t fully understand sleep and it
s purpose yet (though we have some ideas) we don t always respect our need for sle
ep.
But although we can t say definitively what sleep does for us, we know what happen
s if you don t get enough. Sleep deprivation makes us play it safe by avoiding ris
ks and leaning on old habits. It also increases our likelihood of being physical
ly injured, since our bodies don t perform as well when we re tired.
Most importantly for learning: sleep deprivation can cut your brain s ability to t
ake in new information by almost 40%. Compared to getting a good night s sleep and
waking up refreshed and ready to learn, an all-nighter doesn t seem worth the eff
ort.
1200px-Effects_of_sleep_deprivation.svg
Image credit: Mikael Hggstrm
A Harvard Medical School study found that the first 30 hours after learning some
thing are critical, and sleep deprivation during this time can cancel out any le
arning benefits of getting a full night s sleep after those 30 hours are up.
Action: Forget all-nighters. Save practice and study sessions for days when you re
alert and well-rested. And definitely avoid sleep deprivation right after learn
ing something new.
5. We learn best by teaching others
When we expect to have to teach other people what we re learning, we take in new i
nformation better. We organize it better in our minds, remember it more correctl
y, and we re better at remembering the most important parts of what we ve learned.
One study told half the participants they would be tested on the information the
y were learning, and told the other half they would have to teach someone else w
hat they learned. Both sets of participants were tested on the information and d
idn t have to teach anyone else, but the subjects who thought they d be teaching oth
ers performed better on the test.
The study s lead author, Dr. John Nestojko, said the study implied that students mi
ndsets before and during learning can make a big difference to how well we learn
new information. Positively altering a student s mindset can be effectively achiev
ed through rather simple instructions, he said.
Though we don t realize it, learning with the idea that we ll have to teach this inf
ormation later tends to invoke better methods for learning subconsciously. For i
nstance, we focus on the most important pieces of information, the relationships
between different concepts, and we carefully organize the information in our mi
nds.
Action: Keep a notebook or blog where you write about what you ve learned. Write a
bout each new concept you learn as if it s a lesson for others.
6. We learn new information better when it s interleaved
A common learning approach is what UCLA researcher Dick Schmidt calls block pract
ice . When you practice or focus on learning one particular thing over and over, t

hat s block practice. For instance, you might study history for a few hours in a r
ow, or practice just your serve in a tennis lesson.
Schmidt advocates a different approach to learning called interleaving, which mi
xes up the information or skills you practice. Another UCLA researcher, Bob Bjor
k, studies interleaving in his psychology lab. One of his experiments involves t
eaching participants about artistic styles by showing them a series of images on
a screen. Some of the participants are exposed to block practice of artistic st
yles (all 6 examples of a painter s style are shown before moving on to another pa
inter s style), while others have their images interleaved (examples of different
painter s styles are mixed in together).
When the two groups are tested afterwards on how well they can recognize a paint
er s style in a painting they haven t seen before, the interleaving group usually sc
ores around 60%, while the block group scores around 30%.
Surprisingly, around 70% of the participants in this experiment say they think t
he block practice was most effective in helping them learn. Clearly we have some
work to do to understand what helps us learn best.
Bjork believes interleaving works better because it plays into our natural abili
ties to recognize patterns and outliers. When applied in the real world it also
provides an opportunity for us to review information regularly, as we interleave
what we already know with new information.
Some examples for interleaving could be cycling through three different subjects
you need to study before exams, practicing speaking, listening, and writing ski
lls of a foreign language in tandem rather than in blocks, or practicing your fo
rehand, backhand, and serves in a single tennis lesson rather than setting aside
one lesson for each.
Action: When you re learning or practicing a new technique, practice it interleave
d with other techniques. For instance, if you re practicing a particular golf swin
g, practice other swings at the same time to mix it up. If you re learning new inf
ormation, mix in information you already know old vocabulary words and new when yo
u re learning a foreign language, for instance.
As Bob Bjork says, we all need to become smarter learners. In almost any job, you
have to keep managing some new kind of technology, he said, so just knowing how t
o manage your own learning is very important .
_
If there s one thing I ve learned over the past five years of working as a journalis
t it s that success can come down to the two seconds after you first meet someone.
First impressions can make or break your career.
I ve had key interviews go to hell just because something didn t feel right from the
start. It s frustrating because it s out of your control and no matter how hard you
try, once someone has passed initial judgment on you, there s almost no way to ch
ange their mind.
But it s not just journalists that deal heavily in the trade of first impressions ou
r happiness, success, and even careers are all based on how we get along with ot
her people.
But what controls the way we feel about someone (or the way they feel about us)
within those first few moments?
Playing well with others
Despite what business classes or seminars might tell you about decision-making,

not all choices can be made rationally.

Genetically, we have been hardwired to make quick decisions everything from whethe
r we find someone attractive to how much we trust them happens in a matter of se
conds.
You might think you re just following your intuition but what happens in those ini
tial moments isn t just coming from your gut.
It s a type of unconscious thinking called rapid cognition that author Malcolm Gla
dwell describes as something that moves a little bit quicker and acts slightly mo
re mysterious than the deliberate decision-making style of thinking we re more acc
ustomed to.
Beyond the immediate instinctual fight or flight response that occurs when we ar
e under stress, rapid cognition is the ability to dig deeper and gauge what is r
eally important from a very quick experience.
Thin slicing through life
Rapid cognition plays a powerful part in our day-to-day lives.
Think about basketball players with court-sense
d oeil (literally the power of the glance ).

or military generals who show

coup

These are people with a powerful ability to rapidly parse through the huge amoun
t of available information and decide what is most important without taking the
time to engage in slower, rational ways of thinking.
And they re doing it unconsciously.
Psychologists have been calling this phenomenon thin-slicing and studies have show
n that what we perceive in just a few seconds might take months or years of eval
uation with the rational part of our minds.
Thin-slicing is not an exotic gift. It is a central part of what it means to
be human. We thin-slice whenever we meet a new person or have to make sense of s
omething quickly or encounter a novel situation. We thin-slice because we have t
o, and we come to rely on that ability because there are lots of situations wher
e careful attention to the details of a very thin slice, even for no more than a
second or two, can tell us an awful lot. Malcolm Gladwell, Blink.
Strange encounters
So how does our unconscious mind thin slice when we first meet people and how do
es that affect our impression of them?
Well, we re not totally sure. Yet.
But what scientists have discovered is that the unconscious mind is powerful eno
ugh to create a lasting impression of a new person.
In the 90s, Harvard-educated psychologist Nalini Ambady and her colleague Robert
Rosenthal undertook a series of experiments comparing the ratings given to coll
ege professors by classes at the end of the semester with ratings that another g
roup of students gave the same professors based only on three ten-second silent
video clips shown prior to any actual lectures.
What the researchers found was that both groups basically agreed on how good or
bad the professors were.

As far as their performance ratings were concerned, the first impression gleaned
from ten-seconds of silent video counted for almost as much as a whole semester s
worth of interaction.
But if we re not consciously and rationally judging people, what causes us to init
ially like or dislike them?
Nobel Prize-winning author and psychologist Daniel Kahneman believes the answer
lies in heuristics? ?the mental shortcuts that we use to help us make decisions.
According to Kahneman one of the most powerful mental shortcuts is one he calls
What You See Is All There Is? ?the idea that when the mind makes a decision it dea
ls only in known knowns and largely ignores facts that might make the decision mor
e complex.
The problem is, when we meet someone and we only know a limited amount about the
m, our mind looks to affirm those beliefs and ignores other complexities.
We turn people into an embodiment of the few facts we know about them.
It s why
.

so what do you do?

is the worst question to ask when you first meet someone

Falling prey to these unconscious biases can have a lasting affect on your relat
ionship too, as gathering more information about the person, in most cases, will
only serve to reinforce our original, biased judgment.
We believe what we first see because it s the easiest option? ?even if it ends up be
ing false.
It s what s on the outside that counts
Along with these unconscious biases that affect what we think of new acquaintanc
es what s even more strange is that our appearance can immediately determine the w
ay people think of us.
A recent study out of the University of York showed that we associate specific f
acial traits with someone s personality.
Faces that are more feminine or that naturally appear happy are consistently rat
ed as being more trustworthy, while competence, dominance, and friendliness are
also regularly attributed to certain facial traits.
The study went as far as to create cartoon-like faces that produced predictable
first impressions when shown to new participants.
facial features large
How to make a good first impression
While it may seem impossible to get past these unconscious biases (short of reco
nstructive surgery), there are some ways you can help your cause.
Preparation is key when meeting new people and certain actions can increase your
chances of quickly getting into someone s good books.
Get out of your shell
Studies have shown that people who communicate in an expressive, animated fashio
n tend to be liked more than difficult-to-read people.
Psychologists call this the Expressivity Halo? ?the idea that we feel more at ease
with people who are easy to read. It might also explain why you hated that guy u

ntil you got to know him .

When we feel shut out emotionally by other people we automatically attribute it
to a sense of egoism when really it can often be racked up to insecurity or plai
n old shyness.
Find commonalities
According to the Similarity Attraction Hypothesis, we re also more inclined to lik
e people we have something in common with.
When you go to meet someone influential find out what their hobbies are or what
books or movies they enjoy. Connecting on this level is a great way to solidify
a good first impression.
And it can even help salvage a bad first impression. When we find out we share s
omething in common with another person we react on a reflexive level rather than
an analytical one.
Our mind may know that rationally we don t like this person, but we still can t help
feel a sense of affection for them, which could lead to a change in our initial
impression.
Learn to listen
It s probably common sense at this point, but being a good listener can also help
put you into someone s good graces when you first meet them.
Much like sharing in any common hobbies or likes, showing someone that you care
about what they re saying creates a lasting positive impression in that person s min
d.
Here s one of my favourite quotes from Chuck Palahniuk s Fight Club:
This is why I loved the support groups so much, if people thought you were dy
ing, they gave you their full attention people listened instead of just waiting f
or their turn to speak.
It shouldn t take someone dying to make you a good listener, and if it does it s pro
bably a safe bet to say you re not well liked.

We may have been conditioned over the years to unconsciously judge others but th
at doesn t mean there is no way to give yourself a leg up when making a first impr
ession.
Understanding the weird unconscious workings of the brain can help to ensure you
have a healthy start to any relationship.
After that, well, it s up to you.
}
I ve noticed how seemingly small things like font and the spacing between letters
can impact how I feel when reading online.
The right font choice along with the absence of sidebars and popups makes everyt
hing feel easier and better to read.
Websites like Medium, Signal vs. Noise, and Zen Habits are like yoga studios for
content. Their presentation of content puts me at peace while reading, allowing
me to fully focus on the stories without distraction.

Just look at the difference between Medium and Cracked:

Exhibit A) Medium.com
Exhibit B) Cracked.com
When you compare the two, it s obvious which one makes you feel like crud.
The Cracked layout is painful to look at. Your eyes squint and dart, constantly
second-guessing what you re reading now with what you should be reading next.
After experimenting with how we display content on the Crew blog, I discovered t
here s an element of science behind why we feel this way toward certain typefaces
and layouts.
How we read
When we read, our eyes follow a natural pattern called a Scan Path.
We break sentences up into scans (saccades) and pauses (fixations). Here s the Sca
n Path for a typical reader:
fixation-saccade
Your eyes typically move across a page for between 7-9 letters before needing to
pause to process what you re reading. As you scan a sentence, no useful visual pr
ocessing is happening in your brain. Visual processing is completely dependent u
pon the information taken in when you pause.
So why does this matter? Understanding the way we read is important for designin
g how words look because you can directly impact someone s connection to your writ
ing with the right font and layout.
Why the right font layout makes you feel good
When I set out to write this post, I wasn t sure I d find scientific backing for why
we feel a certain way toward certain fonts.
I thought choosing font was mostly art, with a sprinkle of science.
That was until I came across a study by psychologist Kevin Larson. Larson has sp
ent his career researching typefaces and recently conducted a landmark study at
MIT about how font and layout affect our emotions.
In the study, 20 volunteers- half men and half women- were separated into two gr
oups. Each group was shown a separate version of The New Yorker- one where the i
mage placement, font, and layout were designed well and one where the layout was
designed poorly:
The researchers found that readers felt bad while reading the poorly designed la
yout. Sometimes, this feeling would be expressed physically with a frown.
The corrugator supercilii facial muscles that help produce a frown have been lin
ked to the amygdala, an area of your brain responsible for emotion.
Meanwhile, the participants who read content from the good reading layout, felt
like it took less time to read and felt better.
People exposed to the well-designed layout were found to have higher cognitive f
ocus, more efficient mental processes, and a stronger sense of clarity.
The researchers concluded that well-designed reading environments don t necessaril

y help you understand what you re reading better, but they do make you feel good,
causing you to feel inspired and more likely to take action.
Culture impacts your preference for fonts
One explanation for why some fonts make you feel a certain way is because of dee
p links in culture.
For instance, Courier fonts were designed to resemble old memos written on type
writers:
Many people relate Helvetica with the US Government because it s used in tax forms
.
These associations are difficult to remove and should be considered when decidin
g on a font choice. Here s how Bank of America s website would look with the Impact
font associated with News headlines:
Original Bank of America website:
Bank of America website with Impact font (associated with newspaper headlines):
When the fonts are changed to Impact, Bank of America doesn t exactly seem trustwo
rthy.
Because fonts are designed by humans, there is usually some meaning attached to
them. You don t want to choose a font that is easily associated with something in
our culture that s markedly different than the vibe you re trying to give off.
How to design better content
The quality of your content is the most important thing but how you present that
content by choosing the right font and layout still has its place.
As French poet Paul Claudel put it,

The secret of type is that it speaks.

So how can you design your words to help elicit positive feelings in people? Her
e s a few techniques from typography experts that you might find useful:
1. Choose an anchor font
Type designer Jessica Hische recommends first selecting a typeface for the conte
nt that is most prevalent in your project (most likely your body copy).
This will be the typeface that you base your other font decisions on like headli
nes and subheads.
There s four main categories of fonts to choose from:
Serif Fonts
Letters with short lines coming off the edges. Viewed as more formal
and traditional. Best suited for print.
Sans-serif Fonts Letters without serifs. Viewed as informal and playful. Best su
ited for digital.
Script Fonts Resembles handwriting and often used in formal invitations. Not ide
al for body copy.
Decorative Fonts
t not body copy.

Informal fonts viewed as original. Best suited for headlines bu

For reading on the web, it s best to stay away from script or decorative typefaces
. Most Script and Decorative fonts have low legibility which slows down your rea

ding because you are busy trying to figure out what letters are.
You don t want your readers asking,

was that an a

or an

every word.

If you re scrunching your eyes trying to figure out a word that s a signal that your
brain is dedicating unnecessary energy to identifying words.
Decorative typefaces should be used for content that is meant to be seen at a gl
ance, like in a logo, rather than read as multiple paragraphs in body text.
When choosing a font for body text, it s usually best to stick with a Serif font o
r Sans-serif font.
Some typography experts recommend sans-serif fonts for reading online because th
e quality of screen resolutions is less than in print. But, as screen resolution
s dramatically improve, Serif fonts are becoming easier to read on the web. Cont
ent-heavy websites like Medium use a Serif font (probably to give off the vibe o
f a print editorial).
The most important thing with choosing a font is to make sure the letters are ea
sily decipherable from one another so your readers don t have to spend precious me
ntal energy identifying letters.
There s a trick that Hische uses to make sure your font choice is a good one. She
recommends that you make your fonts pass the Il1 test:
2. Pick a font size bigger than 12pt
In 1929, a study was conducted called the Hygiene of reading. One thing researcher
s were trying to determine was which font size would be best for reading. The st
udy looked at 6pt, 8pt, 10pt, 12pt, and 14pt type sizes.
The researchers concluded that a font size of 10pt font is the most efficient fo
r reading but a lot has changed in how we consume content today compared to the
1920s.
However, as more reading shifts to digital and screen resolutions improve, the w
ay we read content is changing. Many designers mention that 16pt font is the new
12pt font. A recent study has also shown that larger font sizes can elicit a st
ronger emotional connection.
Medium has one of my favorite reading environments online and they use a 22pt fo
nt size. Several of my other favorite websites have adopted a font size over 20p
t for their content:
Medium 22pt
37Signals: Signal vs. Noise
Zen Habits 21pt

22pt

While having a huge font over 30pt most likely wouldn t make sense, many blogs hav
e font in the 10pt-12pt range. Try increasing your font size. If you re using 12pt
font, try increasing to 16pt font. If you re using 18pt font increase to 22pt.
You can feel the difference.
3. Watch your line length
The line length is how far your sentences stretch across the page. The ideal lin
e length should be between about 50-75 characters.
Here s an example of the longest line length from Zen Habits. It s 78 characters, ab
out 6.5 inches:

This line length has been shown to be most effective in helping readers move thr
ough their Scan Path.
If the line length is too short, your reader s rhythm will break because their eye
s must travel back to the left of the page too often.
A line length that is too long makes it hard to find where lines of text start a
nd end. It can make it difficult for your reader to get to the next line without
accidentally jumping to the wrong place.
Research shows that your subconscious mind gets a boost of energy when jumping t
o a new line (as long as it doesn t happen too often) but this energy dwindles as
you read over the duration of the line.
Here s the line lengths from the sites mentioned above:
Medium 75 characters
37Signals: Signal vs. Noise
Zen Habits 78 characters

76 characters

4. Mind your spacing

Adequate spacing between letters is important for your readers to be able to mov
e through sentences fluidly. The tighter your letters are together, the harder i
t is for people to identify the shapes that make up different letterforms.
Take a look at another example from Jessica Hische of the readability of Helveti
ca versus Avenir. Hische recommends Avenir because of its more open spacing:
Proper spacing makes your readers feel good. Here s 5 recommended font combination
s from Google Web Fonts that have good spacing for reading long blocks of conten
t.
I decided to put these tips into practice with our Crew email newsletter campaig
n. Here s a comparison between our original campaign and our new design:
By changing the font and increasing its size, our email content felt much better
.
Packaging content the right way is important and knowing why we feel the way we
do about the look of content will hopefully help next time you design content fo
r a project. As Aarron Walter, author of Designing for Emotion, writes,
People will forgive shortcomings, follow your lead, and sing your praises if you
reward them with positive emotion.
It s important to remember that while there is a science connected to how your wor
ds are designed, no amount of good design can save bad content.
Write well first. Design well second.
}
Treat your reader with respect. Do not underestimate their intelligence or willi
ngness to go on a journey with you. They want to go with you, but you need to gi
ve them a compelling enough reason to follow you.
These were the lessons my teachers tried to impart on us, their eager albeit green s
tudents. The more I write, the more truth I find in those lessons. Perhaps even
more so considering I write for an audience using digital devices.
Reading online is not the same as reading a book. There are limitations and if y

ou want people to read what you have to say, you ve got to know them.
The brain has no reading center
There is really no reason why we should be able to read and yet here we are. If
you consider the history of humans, reading is a relatively new skill that we ve a
cquired. The Gutenberg Press is only about 560 years-old, to put that in perspec
tive modern humans are about 150-200,000 years-old.
When you read something you activate at least three distinct areas of your brain
:
Your knowledge of a language (semantics), the way words sound (phonology), and h
ow that word is supposed to properly appear within your known language (orthogra
phy) work together to create the experience known as reading. This entire process
takes around 300-400 milliseconds, but your brain has to decide to move onto the
next word by the 100th millisecond. That s not a whole lot of time.
Which is why when you read this sentence:
This little piggy went to market.
You see an image of a pig walking to a market in your head. You re using everythin
g you know, the word, your language, how you ve seen those words used before, to c
reate a mental image in your head.
According to NPR here is what is happening:
The brain appears to be taking words, which are just arbitrary symbols, and
translating them into things we can see or hear or do.
Creating that imagery in your head is how you understand the abstraction that is
written word.
When you are reading you also develop a physical landscape for the words. As Sci
entific American explains, a book has physical borders and those help us root ou
r reading and understanding of its contents.
The tactile process of turning a page, of rifling through something, actually he
lps your brain maintain the organization and relative whereabouts of a books con
tents.
Reading online then presents us with a specific set of challenges. You can t sort
through that text in the same way.
This matters.
When you read on a computer the amount you can read and the level at which you a
re reading is diminished. Your brain has to work harder in order to extract the
information necessary to comprehend the text. This is because you can only ever
really experience that text one page at a time.
Your brain is trying to place that text within a structure that you just don t kno
w and that s no easy task (kind of like making a sand castle one piece of sand at
a time).
Another challenge of web content is the light emanating from your computer, whic
h we know causes visual fatigue. Your ability to read a text, to understand that
text, depends on how easy that text is to read. This legibility is impacted (in
part) by resolution, other light pollution, and contrast.

We also over-estimate our ability to understand text quickly when reading materi
als online. What you think you know and what you remember just isn t the same when
reading on a digital device. What you end up doing is not allowing yourself eno
ugh time to fully intake the information. Instead, you just end up moving to oth
er information you assume is relevant.
This is also known as scanning.
You will be most drawn to the information that is important to you, looking for
keywords that match this information. Often without even knowing it, you disrega
rd the other text presented.
Your reading becomes non-linear, it looks more like this:
You want to click on that text, scroll, find out what else is going on. You may
even find (as people from this Washington Post article did) that they have diffi
culty reading books now. The book feels too long, the experience too passive for
the digital consumer. This is what we would expect it is what you would want from
a brain that is constantly adapting, growing, and learning.
Still, it does present certain challenges when writing online versus writing for
a printed document. So how do you bridge that gap between the tactile world of
books and the digital text?
The importance of white space
If you are a purveyor of online content you have a duty to your reader. How text
looks greatly impacts the willingness of your reader to interact with that text
.
You can also notice the effect of white space in printed media:
Every time I open up Vanity Fair to try and read it, I am overwhelmed by the nea
r non-existent margins and minuscule text. Conversely, the generous margins and
text of Heartsnatcher makes me want to read it. It gives my eyes a break.
Readers go through a similar process when they first arrive at a website. They a
re looking for that negative space (also referred to as white space). Negative s
pace is the part of the web page that is left unmarked.
One of the finest examples of writing regarding white space is from designer Mar
k Boulton. He argues that all white space must be considered (especially the whi
te space between letters) as even small adjustments to this can alter a readers
interaction with a page.
Imagine if all of my writing here looked like this:
Ew.
White space instructs the reader without having to explicitly tell them where to
go or what to take away. When used correctly, it gives the page order, purpose,
and direction.
Here s an example of white space being used incorrectly:
That makes my eyes burn.
I have a very bad perception of that web page based only on the fact that it is
a total clusterfuc* of information.
There s a psychological reason for this, we associate white space with sophisticat

ion, elegance, and luxury.

If economy and conservation were your chief concern, then white space would
be at minimum; obviously you would use it all up. So white space is used for pur
ely semiotic values; for values of presentation which transcend economic values
by insisting that the image of what you present is more important than the paper
you could be saving. migr no.26, 1993.
People want to know that you are looking out for them, that you have considered
what you are putting into writing or onto a web page. White space helps you do t
his.
Headings & bullets & titles, oh my
If you present your audience with a wall of text they will leave you swiftly and
without apology. People view their time as precious, they want to find the info
rmation they are looking for and then move on. This is why people scan webpages.
When you give them a block of text and no white space, no headings, and nothing
to help them locate the information they need well you are just making it too damn
hard on them.
People scan a webpage for different reasons, their scanning can be:
Motivated: The desire to read the website (recommended by someone).
Directed: Looking for something specific (an answer to a question).
Impressionable: Not looking for a specific answer, but more of a general int
erest in the topic (an article about something they are interested in).
Headings, titles, and bullets help direct the readers attention. It can keep the
m on the page for longer than if you were to just write paragraph, upon paragrap
h of information. Readers also assume that information that is made distinct for
m other text is more important, their eyes will naturally gravitate to these sec
tions.
Titles: Readers make a decision to continue to scan your document based off of a
title. Articles with short titles are cited more often than those with long tit
les.
Headings: Must be concise and appear different from the rest of the text. Headin
gs help the reader connect to an article. To be done correctly, headlines must b
e informative and factually accurate.
Bulleted Lists: Keep them short and directed. People assume bulleted information
is the most important. It is also the easiest for the reader to scan.
Here s what happens when it is done correctly:
via vox.com
Holy white space, headings, and bold lettering that s easy to read!
The headings tell me exactly what is going to be described in the paragraph. If
I am looking for certain information I don t have strain my eyes in order to read
it. I can readily access it and that makes my eyes and brain happy.
Keep it simple, keep it safe
The phrase too long; didn t read exists for a reason. People don t want to have to go
through the drudgery of reading ten paragraphs of text to come to the same concl
usion that one paragraph of text can get them.

Don t say this:

My cat did the funniest thing this morning. He was being most rambunctious in hi
s attempts to annoy my significant other and I as we partook in our morning toot
h brushing. He sat, as if transfixed, upon the toilet. Staring at us as if to sa
y, Pay attention to me, I m doing something interesting. It was only then that we re
alized he had fallen into the toilet! His once thick, shiny coat, was now soaked
with the water from our latrine. Alas, to be a feline must be a most complex an
d varied experience from which I can never hope to understand.
When you can say this:
My cat fell into the toilet this morning.

If you want people to read your website, do the following:

Have one main idea per paragraph
Make it half the length of conventional writing
Use active voice to help you achieve concise sentences
Make copy scannable (headings, titles, contrast of text, line height all con
tribute to this)
Are there limitations for writing online? Yes.
Do they have to hinder you? No.
As long as you account for these differences you can make reading content online
engaging, exciting, and easy.
People have not stopped reading, they have just started to read and take in info
rmation differently. Humans are always adapting, and that s not scary to me, that s
thrilling. Reading leaves us with new neural pathways, it allows us to understan
d our environment and our past experiences in new ways.
Each of us has a deeply personal and unique relationship to what we are reading.
That is truly why we must treat how we present information with such care. You
have the ability to create an experience that no one else can create. That is en
dlessly wonderful.
The more you allow someone to lose themselves within your text, the better you c
an help them digest your message. It s why you must consider how text appears to a
reader on any device. Each space is thought out, there s no proverbial stone left
unturned, that is what it truly means to care for your reader.
}
Want to know everything about writing great headlines? It only takes 5 minutes.
Type How to write the best headline into Google and in seconds you ll be overwhelmed
with articles explaining the science behind crafting a header that will get you
clicks, page views, and shares.
Two minutes in you ll have templates and examples of all the top performers like L
isticles, How to s, and Questions.
By the time 5 minutes are up you ll know all about how we have a subconscious urge
to know the answers to posed questions, why we re drawn to numbered lists, and th
at we re all suckers for life hacks and the promise of benefits.
You ll even get some great data takeaways, like the fact that 8 out of 10 people w

ill read headline copy but only 2 will read the rest.
If it s not already, it should be obvious why writing the best headline possible i
s so important and why so much time and effort goes into analyzing what works.
With so much content available your headline is your first and sometimes only ch
ance to stand out.
But a good headline isn t just a means of getting clicks through to your blog post
. A good headline is your first opportunity to build trust with your readership
and to create an honest and safe reading environment that people want to come ba
ck to time and time again.
Sending your reader the right message
As Brian Clark, CEO of Copyblogger, regularly states,
Every sentence has one main goal: to get you to read the next one.
If this is the truth then your headline is the most important sentence you ll ever
write.
The headline s goal is much more important than your body copy. It s a call to actio
n. It s you directly asking your reader to invest their time in your words.
You can think of it as a promise that you re going to fulfill in your post.
It s a setup and there needs to be a pay-off later or else your audience will feel
cheated. It s like telling a joke without a punchline.
This is why honesty is the most important part of your headline.
Beyond the tips and tricks that have been proven to get you clicks, honesty is w
hat ensures that your readers are going to stay to read through the article.
Honesty builds trust, which in turn creates return readers. As Thomas J Watson,
one of the first CEOs of IBM (and one of the greatest salespeople of all time),
said:
the toughest thing about the power of trust is that it s very difficult to buil
d and very easy to destroy.
There s nothing more upsetting than spending time reading through an article only
to realize the headline lied to you.
pickcrew-trust
Why put all of the effort and time into researching and writing a great blog pos
t or article just to kill it by not being honest from the start? For what? Maybe
a few more clicks?
A dishonest headline will lose your audience s trust in a matter of seconds.
Honest headlines that match your body copy bring the right people to your page.
They help build your tribe, your 1000 true fans the people who want to read and sh
are what you ve written.
Four techniques to keep your headline writing honest
As I said earlier, there are thousands of resources out there that will help you
in the art of crafting a headline using time-tested templates, but many fail to
mention the measures you can put in place to ensure that your headline is truth

ful about what readers can expect when they click through.
Here are four techniques I use to check my headline before posting:
1. Make sure your headline is your thesis statement
Your headline needs to wear multiple hats.
On the one hand, it needs to grab your reader s attention and propel them with eno
ugh momentum that they reach the real meat of your article. But its responsibili
ties don t end there.
Creating an honest headline doesn t mean just one that is attention grabbing, but
one that will act as a gateway into the world of the article.
As soon as you cement an idea or a judgment into someone s head, it s almost impossi
ble to get them to change their mind. It s like when you meet someone for the firs
t time having heard things about them from a friend. Your mind works hard to con
firm what you already know about them and will even go out of its way to ignore fa
cts that go against your opinion. It s what psychologists call the confirmation bi
as.
For your article, the headline is
before they meet the real thing.
e able to constantly confirm what
now (or think they know) from the

that first bit of information your readers get

To make your readers feel safe, they need to b
you are saying in the article with what they k
headline.

Your headline needs to be a thesis statement the reader can constantly refer bac
k to.
If you re explaining something long-winded or complex, they can quickly return to
the headline and become grounded in the world of the article again.
When you re writing keep your headline in your mind and ask continuously does this
match up with what I ve promised?
2. Learn from the movies and make sure you have a payoff
In screenwriting, one of the most important principles is Setups and Payoffs if yo
u show your audience something early on, that something needs to be used in a la
ter scene.
If the setup is your promise, the payoff is the fulfillment.
Here s a famous example from Thelma and Louise: Early on when Thelma is packing sh
e throws in her gun seemingly on a whim. If she didn t end up using the gun later
on in the movie we would have felt confused, or worse: cheated.
The idea is summed up nicely by Russian playwright Anton Chekov who is best know
n for saying:
If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following
one it should be fired. Otherwise don t put it there.
500px-chekovs_gun_poster
When you re writing a headline you need to think of it as the setup for the payoff
your readers will get when they finish the article.
That way when the two pieces come together and the audience receives the payoff
they were expecting, they feel satisfied and complete.
3. Ask why your audience would read this

Any journalist will extol the importance of

) in writing a well-rounded article. To me,
y when writing a headline, is the why. It s
It s the thread that ties together and make
n.

the 5 W s (who, what, where, when, why

the most important factor, especiall
what brings everything else together.
sense of the who, what, where, and whe

When you re writing your headline stop and ask why someone would want to read the
rest of the article.
Is it to learn something new (such as, 5 weak words to avoid)?
Or maybe to get your specific insight (Why I killed my standing desk)?
Whatever it is, understanding the why, working it into your headline, and then m
aking sure your body copy accurately and fully answers that question, ensures th
at your readers don t feel cheated.
Why provides context. It gives you the bearing that will guide you through the r
est of the article. If it s not there your readers are bound to get lost and will
end up asking why they wasted their time reading your post.
4. Get to the point quickly
Don t beat around the bush.
One of the most popular things I ve ever written was a post titled How I forgot to
write.
It was a hard article to write. It s scary to put your insecurities on display, bu
t when I did it felt amazing. I wanted to share that with people that honesty and
transparency about who I am and what I can and can t do.
Because the article also included some suggestions on ways to get back into the
flow of writing again I could ve titled it something like 6 steps to get back your
writing chops or Want to be a better writer? Follow these simple tips, but I di
dn t.
Instead, I chose to go with the thing that said exactly what was the core of my
argument.
The headline told exactly what the article would be about the things that had happ
ened in my personal and professional life that caused me to lose my ability to w
rite.
When readers got through to my suggestions of how to break through their own ins
ecurities about writing, they thought back to my headline and how I had executed
on my promise of being open about my own issues. Everything became personal and
relatable.
Writing from your heart and letting go of your own fear of judgment takes time a
nd bravery, but when you do, don t sugar coat it with a weak or misleading headlin
e.
Tell people exactly what you re writing. And if you can t then maybe you shouldn t be
publishing the article anyways.

I don t want people to leave my articles without finishing them. Not just because
it looks good on our blog metrics we send out, but because it aligns with both m

y personal and professional values.

When I publish an article either that I ve written or one of our contributors has,
I want to feel like it is filled with substance things that people care enough ab
out to read thoroughly and hopefully share around.
Honesty can come even before the first few lines of your article. Your headline
is the first and main chance you have to convey honesty to your readership. Don t
let the opportunity pass.
}
Last Tuesday, after running errands, sitting in traffic, and finishing a normal
work day I still had time to read for nearly 2 hours and 45 minutes. In just one
day, I finished nearly half of Essentialism by Greg McKeown. With this kind of
speed, my Amazon Wish List would be toast within weeks.
Now comes the confession: I wasn t actually reading. I was listening. Essentialism
was my first audiobook. It felt a bit like cheating, like audiobook listeners c
ouldn t really call themselves hardcore readers. Another problem? While I easily f
inished the book, I doubt I remember half of the information.
This led me to explore the science behind reading retention. It s easy to blame te
chnology for what appears to be our growing lack of retention. But perhaps we ve b
een asking the wrong questions. Instead of asking on what we should be reading,
we re much better off solving the issue of retention by asking how we should be re
ading.
Reading for Retention
Flipping, scrolling, and skipping, oh my!
In 2013, scientists took 72 tenth graders and put them through a reading compreh
ension test with one catch: some read from paper and others from computer displa
ys. As you probably guessed, the paper readers performed better. What you might
not know is why reading on screens impairs our retention.
One reason is related to our spatial awareness of information. According to rese
archers, we don t just read physical texts; we experience them. Similar to remembe
ring a route you take with your car, you create a mental map of the material whi
le reading. You can remember where bits of information are in relation to one an
other. With e-Readers, that connection between ideas is disrupted. It s more diffi
cult to create a mental image of how the pieces fit together.
There s also the added issue of gauging progress. A scrollbar at the bottom or sid
e of the screen doesn t quite feel the same as holding a thick swath of pages in y
our hands. Why does that matter? The physical properties of a book helps your br
ain create a structure for the information you are reading. An e-Reader has no p
hysical pages, therefore the structure your brain is able to create ends up bein
g more loose and unstable. This leads to worse overall comprehension.
While there seems to be enough evidence to fully condemn e-readers at this point
, another explanation for our decreased comprehension has begun to surface. This
one points the blame on us.
How we read online
How we relate to and experience text online matters more than you might think. A
fter all, not all experiments show decreased comprehension when reading from a s
creen. This has more to do with our mindset towards screens than the actual scre
en itself.
We re pretty shoddy online readers because we associate reading on screens with sh
allow reads (emails, tweets, etc). This promotes a tendency to skim material as

opposed to deep reading, where we digest every individual sentence. Depending on

the device, there s also the temptation to put the book down altogether and switc
h to something easier like reading Twitter feeds instead (Full admission: I do t
his regularly).
Research shows that audiobooks make it even more difficult to pay attention. In
one study, researchers from the University of Waterloo separated individuals int
o three groups?: ?those that read a passage out loud, those that read silently,
and those that listened to the passage being read to them.
The individuals forced to listen to a story being read to them were, well, bored
. Their minds wandered more than those reading the passage themselves (both out
loud and silently). These listeners fared worse on comprehension tests. Presumab
ly, this is because listening to someone else read aloud requires significantly
less work on your part. It s just not active enough to truly engage you.
Improve your reading (regardless of the tool)
While technology might be an awkward third wheel in our relationship with readin
g, it s here to stay. The good news is that we can improve how our brains process
information and retain more information even when reading on screens. According
to Maryanne Wolf, a researcher on the topic of reading comprehension:
The same plasticity [ability of the brain to learn and adapt] that allows us
to form a reading circuit to begin with, and short-circuit the development of d
eep reading if we allow it, also allows us to learn how to duplicate deep readin
g in a new environment.
If we become better online readers, we can increase our comprehension regardless
of the reading medium. Here are some tips to become a deep reader (or listener)
even online:
Consider reading aloud
Anchorman1_2739267b
The same Waterloo researchers that found out just how distracted we are while li
stening to audiobooks discovered that reading text aloud increases comprehension
. When you are forced to read text aloud, you have a default mechanism to alert
you when you stop paying close attention. You ll stop reading words correctly.
One thing I ve found that helps increase my retention with audiobooks is summarizi
ng each chapter once it s finished. When I hear the narrator switch to the next ch
apter, I press pause and vocally replay the important lessons from the last few
minutes. If I can t, it s time to press rewind. Research confirms that summarizing i
nformation helps us to retain more of what we read since we re forced identify the
main points of the text and look past extraneous information.
Train your peripheral vision
With practice, you can naturally increase your reading speed up to a point (Find
out how fast you read here). Tim Ferriss has designed a technique to push your
reading speed even faster by using a tracker (a pen or other tool to follow alon
g as you read) and specific drills designed to help you increase the amount of w
ords you can comprehend that just touch your peripheral vision. That way, your e
yes can focus more towards the center of the page.
While there isn t a direct translation for audiobooks, most audio apps have the op
tion to increase the narration speed beyond 1x. In my experience, my comprehensi
on takes a dive when I go above 1.5x. If you feel like the pace is dawdling, con
sider bumping it up. Similar to learning to read faster, you ll acclimate to the q
uicker pace with practice.
Make reading an active experience

Reading is normally a passive experience. We sit back, grab a cup of coffee, and
curl up with a good book. Contrast that to how Ryan Holiday reads a book. For H
oliday, reading is a very active experience:
If there is something I need to look up, I fold the top corner of the page a
nd return to it later. I carry a pen with me and write down whatever thoughts/fe
elings/connections I may have with a passage. Don t be afraid to tear the book up
with tags and notations.
13064138253_ee6f2a0ddc_k
Mark-up the margins, highlight text, and scribble down memorable passages as you
read or listen. Don t be afraid to put down the text or press pause while you rec
ord a thought to come back to later. This way, you re applying what you re reading r
ather than letting the information wash over you and trying to recall it all lat
er. The benefits here aren t just anecdotal. Research confirms that this style of
active reading actually helps improve comprehension.
Repetition
After I finish a book, it usually sits on the bookshelf or in my Kindle library
until I either move or loan it to someone else. Another tip from Ryan Holiday is
to revisit books you ve read. Bill Clinton, for example, reads Meditations by Mar
cus Aurelius every year. There s a high probability that you ll catch things the sec
ond time around that you missed. While you might finish fewer books over the cou
rse of a year, you ll take more from the books you do finish as opposed to skimmin
g the pages and heading on to the next one.
Put it to use
Writing down your thoughts is an easy way to increase comprehension and think cr
itically about a subject. Take your reading to the next level by writing down th
e main points and what they mean to you. This is about applying what you have re
ad and relating it back to you. If you can do this, you are far more likely to r
ecall what you ve read. You can do this publicly or in a private journal. Ronald R
eagan used a similar system for collecting notes of stories and even jokes.
image-25
The point isn t to regurgitate text like your favorite quotes from the book. Focus
on putting the main points in your own language. Knowing you ll need to summarize
the book later further heightens your attention level while reading.

If the only time you have to read is while commuting to work, audiobooks sure be
at out doing nothing. Similarly, an iPad is certainly slimmer and easier to carr
y than a physical copy of Atlas Shrugged. You re not forced to choose the trade-of
f between ease of technology and knowledge retention. With the proper practice,
you can have both.
}
ruman Capote did not record his interviews for In Cold Blood. Nor did he take no
tes. He had no need to. For Capote had a convenient gift. He simply committed th
e conversations to memory, word for word. From self-imposed tests, he claimed ne
ar total recall through this method. Strange then, that Capote could never recal
l the accuracy of his recall. He boasted 94% one day, 96% the next.
Pieces of Light: The New Science of Memory, by Charles Fernyhough
Pieces of Light: The New Science of Memory, by Charles Fernyhough PR
Capote doesn't appear in Charles Fernyhough's book, but the reason to doubt such
heroic acts of memory is a central theme. Memory concerns itself not with surfa

ce details but substance. Our brains encode what matters to us at the time: the
gun, not the gunman; the story, not the sentence. You remember that Princess Dia
na died. You do not remember the words that told you how.
Memory is quirky. It is selective, fragile and easily fooled. We forget the name
s of lovers, but not the licence plate of the family's old Vauxhall Victor. We m
ake others' memories our own, especially when they make us look good. We rewrite
our pasts, unknowingly in the main, and with alarming ease and regularity. Thin
k hard enough and the imagined becomes the believed. Even if that means you prop
osed to a Pepsi machine. As Fernyhough shows, much worse things happen.
Take Colin. He was driving his truck down a country lane when a Nissan Micra hur
tled round the corner on the wrong side of the road and ran straight into him. T
he driver, an old man who liked a drink, died from his injuries. It wasn't Colin
's fault, but his memory of the crash left him paralysed by guilt. He stopped ea
ting and sleeping. He became housebound. He tortured himself with what-ifs. What
if he'd taken a break that morning, or chosen another route? Then there is the
Polish engineer known as AKP. He sees the new as the old, perhaps because his br
ain errs when it tags fresh experiences: instead of being read as "happening now
" they are read as "happened before". Disordered memories lead to strange behavi
our. Each morning AKP complains the newspaper is full of old stories. To square
the feeling of familiarity, he nips out late at night to read the first editions
. When he visits the cinema to watch a new film, he is convinced he has seen it
before. To make sense of this nonsense, he confabulates a reason: the film is ac
tually about him.
Many of the foibles of memory make sense once we abandon the idea that it serves
only to record the past. Seen through the prism of evolution
and in biology, no
thing makes sense otherwise memory assumes a more crucial role than a recording
device. Our memories of the past help us act in the future: the last time I walk
ed down an alley like this, I got mugged; where have I seen that expression befo
re? My first wife? We remember in order to survive.
Memory doesn't record our lives like a video camera. It reduces life to salient
fragments and encodes those. When we recall an event, the scene is not pulled fu
lly formed from a mental archive, but reconstructed from its constituents in the
moment. We add context, factual details and perspective, each time changing the
flavour of what we recall, tuning it to the present. Our memories are not fixed
, but malleable and dynamic, and this is what makes them so valuable.
A book on the science of memory could easily have been formulaic. The author mig
ht have plumped for chapters on the long history of memory research, interleaved
with compelling tales of outliers who remember all or nothing of their lives. B
ut Fernyhough has written a different book. We are spared a trudge through old a
nd now obsolete studies, and cut straight to the theories scientists knock aroun
d today. He uses a handful of extreme cases to explain how memory can go awry, b
ut more often draws on everyday scenarios, which have the virtue of revealing to
the reader how memory works in ordinary lives.
Much of the book is given over to memoir. Fernyhough gets lost in Cambridge. The
n fails to find a swimming pool in Sydney. Auntie Sheila turns up, though not in
Australia, and not to help out. She is dead, and it's down to the author's sist
er, Clare, to gather bits and bobs from her house, which stir up memories of the
ir own. The wife and kids get a mention, as does Rhett, the godfather. At one po
int, the author embarks on a Sebaldian trek along an estuary in Essex, retracing
against the elements the steps of his divorced, dead father. This takes some ti
me. He tells stories of his father to his children to keep the memory alive, or
at least to implant memories in their brains. These aren't the only passages tha
t seem more for the author's family than the general reader.

The 92-year-old grandmother, Martha, makes an entrance too. She spoke some Yiddi
sh growing up in London's East End, but none thereafter. Fernyhough interviews h
er over and over, as a study of memory in the aged. When the author arranges for
a Yiddish speaker to talk to her, the language of her youth prompts Martha to r
emember, for the first time in 70 years, the Lithuanian town her mother emigrate
d from. By the end of the book, Martha is dead too. The author hands out CDs of
his chats with her at the funeral.
The subtitle of Fernyhough's book is "The New Science of Memory", but those who
know their memory science will find little here that is new. The book focuses on
the reconstructive account of memory, an idea Fernyhough ties to a 10-year-old
book by Daniel Schacter, a Harvard psychologist. Fernyhough's writing is fantast
ically clear, but his explanations of how memory works and goes awry are strewn
throughout the text. The ironic effect is that the details are hard to remember.
I wanted a more direct approach, and more explanatory diagrams. The only diagra
m in the book shows a brain with a dozen regions labelled. That is not enough. B
ut these are not major moans. Pieces of Light is utterly fascinating and superbl
y written. I learned more about memory from this book than any other. There are
few science books around of this class
}
Most of us think of memory as a chamber of the mind, and assume that our capacit
y to remember is only as good as our brain. But according to some architectural
theorists, our memories are products of our body s experience of physical space. O
r, to consolidate the theorem: Our memories are only as good as our buildings.
In the BBC television series Sherlock, the famous detective s capacious memory is po
rtrayed through the concept of the mind palace what is thought to be a sort of physi
cal location in the brain where a person stores memories like objects in a room.
Describing this in the book A Study in Scarlet, Holmes says, I consider that a m
an s brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with
such furniture as you choose
The mind palace also known as the memory palace or method of loci is a mnemonic devi
ce thought to have originated in ancient Rome, wherein items that need to be mem
orized are pinned to some kind of visual cue and strung together into a situated
narrative, a journey through a space. The science writer and author Joshua Foer
covered this technique in depth in his book Moonwalking with Einstein, in which
he trained for and ultimately won the U.S. Memory Championship. To memorize lon
g lists of words, a deck of cards, a poem, or a set of faces, mental athletes, a
s they re called, fuse a familiar place say, the house they grew up in with a self-cre
ated fictional environment populated by the objects in their list. In an excerpt
from his book published in the New York Times, Foer describes his own palace co
nstruction:
I was storing the images in the memory palace I knew better than any other,
one based on the house in Washington in which I grew up. Inside the front door,
the Incredible Hulk rode a stationary bike while a pair of oversize, loopy earri
ngs weighed down his earlobes (three of clubs, seven of diamonds, jack of spades
). Next to the mirror at the bottom of the stairs, Terry Bradshaw balanced on a
wheelchair (seven of hearts, nine of diamonds, eight of hearts), and just behind
him, a midget jockey in a sombrero parachuted from an airplane with an umbrella
(seven of spades, eight of diamonds, four of clubs). I saw Jerry Seinfeld spraw
led out bleeding on the hood of a Lamborghini in the hallway (five of hearts, ac
e of diamonds, jack of hearts), and at the foot of my parents bedroom door, I saw
myself moonwalking with Einstein (four of spades, king of hearts, three of diam
onds).
According to Foer, in order for this technique to work, the features of the memo
ry palace must be hyperreal, exaggerating the edges of normalcy in order to stan
d out in the mind. Whether the palace is a modernist bungalow or a faux-Italiana

te McMansion or a mobile home doesn t matter, so long as it is memorable, which is

to say, so long as it is a place.

The philosopher Edward S. Casey defines a place as distinct from a site as a physical l
cation where memories can be contained and preserved. An empty lot, for example,
would be considered a site a generic, boundless locale which possesses no points o
f attachment onto which to hang our memories, much less retrieve them. By contras
t, a place is full of protuberant features and forceful vectors and distinct extern
ally from other places We observe this when an indifferent building lot, easily co
nfused with other empty lots, is transformed into a memorable place by the erect
ion of a distinctive house upon it.
From an architect s perspective, the transformation of a site (or you could call i
t a space) into a place is a two-way process. Erecting a structure enables the s
pace to contain memories, and the installation of memories turns that structure
into a place. In his essay in the book Spatial Recall: Memory in Architecture an
d Landscape, UC Berkeley architecture professor Donlyn Lyndon explains,
Place, as I
understand it, refers to spaces that can be remembered, that we can imagine, ho
ld in the mind, and consider.
Lyndon argues that Good places are structured so that they attract and hold memor
ies; they are sticky or perhaps you would rather say magnetic. He suggests that bui
ldings which try too hard to control the experience of the user ultimately fail
to become true places. Seeking to make each place a singular, memorable work of a
rt often makes the insistence of its vocabulary resistant to the attachment of m
emories to the full engagement of the people who use and live with the building.
This is perhaps why, when building a mind palace, we are told to enhance and dis
tort the standard features of our design. As we add character and color, our own
emotions and reactions become the plaster between the walls of our palace and t
he hooks on which we hang the ace of hearts or the Prince of Wales or the breakf
ast cereal. Just as we usually think of memory as the property of the head, we o
ften place emotion in the heart and reaction in the gut, and suddenly through th
is process, the whole physical body becomes integrated into memorization.
In another essay in Spatial Recall, Finnish architecture professor Juhani Pallas
maa asserts, Human memory is embodied, skeletal and muscular in its essence, not
merely cerebral, later punctuating his point with a quote from Casey, the philoso
pher: ody memory is the natural center of any sensitive account of remembering.
In other words, while the mind palace technique may seem charmingly counterintui
tive to the average rememberer of grocery lists, it is probably the most innate
method of recall we have, if we learn how to use it. Which is, of course, why Sh
erlock Holmes was able to mentally reconstruct crimes in order to solve mysterie
s, and why Joshua Foer had a relatively short road to becoming a national memory
champion.
]
n Italy, working on assignment for several magazines, author Bob Spitz got an un
usual call from the Italian Trade Commission in 1992.
Would you like to be an escort for an older woman?
Spitz was quick to answer,

Lady, I don t do that kind of work.

It s for Julia Child, the woman on the phone informed him. Even quicker to answer th
is time, Spitz said, I ll be right over.
And thus began his month long tour with one of the greatest culinary figures in
American history.

Julia Child would have been 100 years old this August 15. Known for her distinct
vibrato voice, her height and her role in bringing French food across the Atlan
tic in the 1960s, Child stood an impressive 6-foot-2 and couldn t help but be noti
ced.
The first time Spitz met her, all he could hear was a chorus of lunching America
ns chirping, It s Julia. It s Julia. Seated at a hotel in Taormina, he watched her wal
k across the piazza. Every head in the place turned, he says, everyone referring t
o her simply as Julia, not Julia Child.
Though Spitz grew up cooking her recipes, it wasn t until an unplanned month-long
journey through Sicily with Julia Child that he knew he had to write a biography
that captured her spirit.
Together the pair
g her life. Child
medical facility
lative mood, says

ate their way across Sicily, talking about food and reexaminin
had just watched her husband and business partner Paul enter a
as his mental faculties began to fade and she was in a contemp
Spitz.

Of course, that didn t diminish her spirit, which Spitz describes as relentless. Eve
n though she didn t particularly care for Italian food ( The sauces were too boring
for her ), Child took her tour seriously.
We went into the restaurants, but then she would head into the kitchen, often with
out invitation, says Spitz. She talked to the chef, she d shake everybody s hand in t
he kitchen, even the busboys and the dishwashers, Spitz remembers, And always made
sure to count how many women were working in the kitchen.
If Child received warm receptions from vacationing Americans, the Italian chefs
were less than star struck. Many, says Spitz, didn t even know who she was. The Ita
lian chefs, most of them men where we went, were not very happy to see a 6-foot2 woman come into their kitchen and, without asking them, dip her big paw into t
he stock pot and taste the sauce with her fingers. Her brash behavior often broug
ht reproachful, murderous stares, says Spitz. Not easily daunted, she found it a
musing. She would say to me, Oh, they don t speak English. Look at them! They don t kn
ow what I m made of. They don t know what to do with me. It was great, Spitz says.
Few people in Child s life seemed to know what to do with her. She grew up in a co
nservative family in Pasadena, Calif. playing tennis and basketball. After colle
ge and a brief copywriting career in New York, she headed back home and voluntee
red with the Junior League. Craving adventure, she tried to enlist in the Women s
Army Corps but was too tall. Instead, she wound up in the Office of Strategic Se
rvices, beginning her career in Sri Lanka in 1944 before heading to China and ev
entually France after Paul was assigned there.
The rest is a familiar history. She developed a devoted passion for French food
and technique, trained and worked tirelessly to record her findings. The first v
olume of her Mastering the Art of French Cooking was published in 1961, with a s
econd volume to come in 1970. In between, she began her TV career hosting The Fre
nch Chef.
She never tried to work on a personality, Spitz says of the show s success. The day s
he first walked on TV, it was all there the whole Julia Child persona was intact.
Her dedication to getting real French food into American homes that were used to
TV dinners and Jello desserts energized every episode. But Spitz insists, she d
idn t just change the way Americans ate, she changed the way they lived.
Given the opportunity to clear one thing up, Spitz has one misconception on his
mind: Julia never dropped anything. People swear she dropped chickens, roasts never

happened. Likewise, the mythology around her drinking on the show, which was lim
ited to the close of each show when she sat down to enjoy her meal, also develop
ed its own life. Julia was by no means a lush, says Spitz. Although, he adds, when we
were in Sicily, she consumed alcohol in quantities that made my eyes bug out.
She was a woman who liked adventure, Spitz says. The pair would sometimes tour the
Italian countryside by motorcycle. Just knowing that this 80-year-old, 6-foot-2
woman, no less Julia Child was on the back of a motorcycle, riding with me it told
me everything I needed to know about her.
]
On November 19, Rolling Stone magazine ran a disturbing story about the alleged
gang rape of a student named Jackie on the University of Virginia campus.
In the weeks that followed, journalists and pundits picked the story apart. The
Washington Post, in particular, ran a lengthy piece detailing some of the discre
pancies in the rape account: that Jackie's friends say she told them different d
etails about that harrowing evening, and that no man matching the description of
her alleged attacker was part of the fraternity where she says she was raped.
Rolling Stone's managing editor Will Dana has since apologized for the story, sa
ying the magazine made a mistake placing its trust in Jackie. Critics have attac
ked the magazine, wondering why journalists there didn't do their due diligence,
fact checking and corroborating every detail of Jackie's account.
This becomes an especially pressing question since it's clear that the reporter
relied on Jackie's memory
and decades of research have demonstrated that memorie
s are are malleable, fragile, flawed. Memories can be twisted by time. Misinform
ation can skew people's memories of events, and completely fabricated memories c
an even be planted in people such that they weave them into the narrative of the
ir lives.
"Just because someone is telling you something in a lot of detail and with a gre
at amount of confidence," says Elizabeth Loftus, a cognitive psychologist and on
e of America's preeminent researchers on memory, "doesn't mean it happened."
This isn't to say Jackie's story is true, or isn't. I haven't talked to her, and
don't know what did or didn't happen that night. But, assuming Jackie was the v
ictim of gang rape at UVA as she alleges, it isn't all together surprising that
details of her story might be inconsistent and flawed when you consider the scie
nce of memory.
The "misinformation effect" and false memory
In a 2003 article in the journal Nature, Loftus summarized her findings on what
has been dubbed the "misinformation effect"
or errors in memory that can happen
after exposing people to misleading information.
"Just imagining something made it familiar, more plausible" Through subtle sugge
stion or persuasion, she and her co-investigators have been able to plant comple
tely fabricated memories in people during "guided imagination exercises."
They'd ask study participants to imagine being in their houses, hearing a noise
outside, running toward a window, and then tripping and breaking the window with
their hands. To get participants really thinking through the experience, they'd
ask questions like, "What did you trip on?" and "How did you feel?"
A quarter of the participants who imagined the broken-window scenario, Lofus wro
te, later reported increased confidence in the idea that the event actually happ
ened.

Just imagining something made it more familiar, more plausible.

In one study, Loftus asked participants to watch footage of a car accident. Some
subjects were then asked the question, "About how fast were the cars going when
they smashed into each other?" With other groups of participants, the word smas
hed was replaced with less dramatic verbs
collided, bumped, contacted, or hit. T
he people in the "smashed" group gave higher speed estimates compared to the res
t. A week later, they also agreed that they had seen shards of broken glass at t
he scene, though there were none in the film.
In a British study on false memories, adults were led to imagine that they under
went a medical procedure that never took place: it involved a nurse removing a s
kin sample from their fingers.
They then asked the participants about the surgery, as well as other events that
were common in childhood (i.e. a tooth extraction). Study participants who imag
ined the events as opposed to just reading about them
were more likely to believ
e they occurred, with about 30 percent reporting that they underwent the impossi
ble surgery in detail such as, "There was a nurse and the place smelled horrible
." Through imagination, the study authors concluded, people can create vivid mem
ories.
How context and sleep distort memories
Harvard researcher Dan Schacter has written about contextual associations and me
mory distortion. Contextual information about where an event took place can help
us organize memory, but it can also skew our memories.
In one study, participants were asked to remember items in the offices where the
y had just been working. They brought up objects that are typically found in off
ices, but many of which weren't actually in their offices that day. So context c
aused them to alter their memory.
More recently researchers have been looking at the effect of sleep on memory. In
one study, participants were asked to look at photos of a crime and then later
retell the events they saw. The people who were sleep deprived were more likely
to misremember details.
"Our memories are a patchwork or synthesis of events and exposures. some aren't
real"Between the time of the alleged UVA attack (2012) and the reporting of the
story this year, Loftus said, "You could certainly expect memory to fade, to pot
entially be contaminated, even if not from external suggestion."
Trauma memories like a brutal rape can be stored differently, perhaps erroneousl
y. But that's no different from regular memories, Loftus added.
As Vox's Libby Nelson points out, there were reasons Rolling Stone reporter, Sab
rina Rubin Erdely, didn't want to pry too much into Jackie's horrendous assault.
"[She] seems to have thought she was respecting Jackie's boundaries by not inte
rviewing her alleged rapists. She has said that Jackie asked her not to reach ou
t to the supposed assailant, and Erdely says she complied."
But perhaps, if Erdely thought more about the tricks memory plays, she would hav
e worked harder to verify the facts
no matter how sensitive. If you understand t
hat memory is a foggy patchwork or synthesis of events and exposures in our live
s and some memories aren't real
you would probably hesitate before relying solel
y on a person's memory.
"It s very compelling to believe someone's memory," said Loftus, "especially when
they cry. But I've seen people cry over false memories, as well as over real one
s."

+
Here s a weird thought: There s a good chance that at least a few of your childhood
emories never actually happened. You might think you remember your 3rd birthday p
arty when what you really remember are the pictures, or you might believe you ha
ve a very vivid memory from elementary school that in reality happened to your b
rother.

Or, you might even be lifting your memories from the books and movies you loved
as a child. Recently, the writer Elizabeth McCracken realized that s exactly what
she d done, upon rereading the Ramona Quimby books by Beverly Cleary. Have had reas
on to confront this upsetting fact: 87% of my kindergarten memories are in fact
plagiarized from Ramona the Pest, she tweeted last month.
So why does this happen? Why do our brains seem to be so susceptible to false ch
ildhood memories? Elizabeth Loftus, a cognitive scientist at the University of C
alifornia, Irvine, has done extensive research on the malleability of memory, pa
rticularly in children and false memories from childhood. We pick up information
from all sorts of places and times and use it to create our memories, Loftus said i
n an email to Science of Us.
Loftus is the author of a well-known study from the mid-1990s in which she succe
ssfully implanted a false memory in college students about a time they got lost in
the mall as a kid, even though they never had (Loftus and her colleagues checke
d with the students families). But simply by asking leading questions about the s
upposed memory, the researchers got several students to tell them that it had re
ally happened. And the false memory doesn t even have to be very realistic; in a l
ater study, Loftus and her colleagues were able to successfully implant false me
mories in college students of going to Disneyland as children and meeting Bugs B
unny which is not even a Disney character.
Scientists aren t exactly sure why it s so easy to implant fake memories, childhood
or otherwise, said Brock Kirwan, a neuroscientist who studies memory at Brigham
Young University. We know something about the circumstances that make it easier,
but I don't think we know what's going on in the brain exactly, he said. But brai
n scan studies have shown that the neural activity for false memories in adults
look pretty much like the activity for a real memory, Kirwan explained.
To some extent, all of our memories
even the real ones aren t exact recordings of
what happened, which is good and bad, Kirwan said. It's good in that it's really us
eless to have a literal playback of what happened in the past
there's too much t
rivial detail that we don't need. We just need the main, relevant points to make
better decisions in the future. It's bad in that it leaves us open to mis-remem
ber or to confabulate our memories, to mix them up. We saw a darker example of th
is back in the 1980s and 1990s, in a massive child-molestation scandal that wasn t.
Investigators asked very young children leading questions about being molested a
t day care, causing many of the kids to agree that, yes, they were molested thoug
h later evidence showed that this wasn t true.
But why is it so easy in particular to implant false childhood memories in peopl
e s minds? Kirwan explained, If the original memory trace has decayed enough, then
a sketchy false memory is virtually indistinguishable from the real thing, he sai
d. That might make it easier to implant false memories for older
read: childhood
vents.
+
There s a lot to think about when you go out to eat. Bottled or tap? Red or white?
How are we splitting this check? One thing you likely aren t thinking about, howe
ver, is how, when your food eventually comes, your brain will decide whether it s
good or not. After all, it doesn t seem like something that takes a lot of thought
food either tastes good or it doesn t, right?

That s a question that s had scientists attention for some time now. And a fair amoun
t of research has suggested that there s a lot more to how food tastes than
well,
how food tastes. All sorts of contextual factors, from the price of that wine to
the setting for your meal to how the food is arranged on your plate, play a rol
e in whether or not you think something tastes good. When you say that a dish is
delicious, in other words, it s partly your taste buds talking, but there are ple
nty of other voices making themselves heard as well.
One major, largely unexplored factor is the question of whether what you ve alread
y eaten affects your perception of what you re eating at the moment. A study in Fo
od Quality & Preference, released Thursday, sought to answer that question.
Dr. Jacob Lahne of Drexel University s Center for Hospitality and Sports Managemen
t wanted to see how having a mediocre entree after a mediocre appetizer would co
mpare to having the exact same entree after a significantly better version of th
at same appetizer. To do so, he and Dr. Debra Zellner, a psychologist at Montcla
ir State University, had a group of 64 volunteers between the ages of 18 and 63
eat one of two meals in which an appetizer of bruschetta was followed by an entr
ee of pasta with garlic and oil.
The way everything tasted was manipulated in advance: in preliminary work, Lahne
and Zellner developed one recipe for bruschetta that tasters declared to be del
icious, and another that wasn t rated nearly so highly. The entree dish used in th
e experiment was always (purposefully) meh
again, as rated by tasters beforehand
.
For the experiment itself, conducted at Drexel s culinary school, half the partici
pants ate the great bruschetta followed by the pasta, while the other half ate t
he mediocre bruschetta followed by the pasta. Then everyone rated their meals.
The findings were conclusive: The people who ate the good bruschetta before the pa
sta dish enjoyed the pasta significantly less than those who started with the me
diocre bruschetta. In fact, those who had the good appetizer actively disliked,
on average, the pasta that followed, while the mediocre bruschetta group gave th
e pasta a positive overall review (both dishes were rated on a scale from 100 to
-100).
Lahne and his team say this is due to a phenomenon called hedonic contrast, where
the hedonic value, or pleasure, gained from something is significantly impacted
by how it compares to other, similar stimuli. That is, your brain determines how
much you like a dish by how it compares to other ones you ve had lately like, for
instance, that appetizer from ten minutes ago.
The researchers note that this finding has some pretty clear implications in an
appetizer-loving culture like ours: Given that Western
and particularly American
meal structures commonly involve appetizers that are meant to pique the appetite
as overtures to the main course, they write, this result is important: too much dif
ference in quality too much piquing
can lead to reduced enjoyment of the main co
urse.
It s worth keeping in mind the next time your friend wants to share a jumbo plate
of nachos before your burger comes. Don t let your appetizer write a check your en
tree can t cash.
]
hakespeare was right - the smell of rosemary is good for your memory, according
to a new study.
Essential oil of rosemary boosted healthy adults' ability to recall past events
and remember to perform future tasks, which could include taking medication or s
ending a birthday card, at the correct time.

The improvement was unrelated to the participants' mood, suggesting it was havin
g a chemical influence which improved their memory, the study found.
Researchers, who will present their findings at the British Psychological Societ
y's annual conference in Harrogate on Tuesday, said the results could improve th
e everyday lives of people with age-related memory loss.
Rosemary has long been linked to memory and fidelity, and was used by ancient Eg
yptians in weddings and funeral rituals.
Shakespeare, it seems, was also aware of its properties. In "Hamlet," Ophelia re
marks: "There's rosemary, that's for remembrance: pray you, love, remember."
Previous studies had already suggested that compounds in rosemary aroma could im
prove long-term memory and mental arithmetic, by inhibiting enzymes which block
normal brain functioning.
Dr. Mark Moss, who led the study, said: "We wanted to build on our previous rese
arch that indicated rosemary aroma improved long-term memory and mental arithmet
ic.
"We focused on prospective memory, which involves the ability to remember events
that will occur in the future and to remember to complete tasks at particular t
imes [which] is critical for everyday functioning."
Sixty-six participants were divided into two groups and asked to wait in differe
nt rooms, one of which had been scented with rosemary essential oil.
The volunteers then completed a series of memory tests, which included hiding ob
jects and finding them again at a later stage, or passing a specified object to
a researcher at a particular time which had been specified earlier.
People who had been assigned to the rosemary-scented room performed better at bo
th types of test, and were also found to have higher levels of 1,8-cineole, a co
mpound found in rosemary oil, in their blood.
The compound has previously been shown to influence chemical systems in the body
which have an impact on memory.
Jemma McCready, a research intern who carried out the study, said: "These findin
gs may have implications for treating individuals with memory impairments.
"Remembering when and where to go and for what reasons underpins everything we d
o, and we all suffer minor failings that can be frustrating and sometimes danger
ous. Further research is needed to investigate if this treatment is useful for o
lder adults who have experienced memory decline.
]
It can be frustrating when you forget the simplest of things, like someone's nam
e, a house chore, or something at the store. Better memory all comes down to thr
ee factors: motivation, observation, and mechanics.
What is it about the little things that make them so hard to remember? The probl
em mostly lies in our approach to remembering. Jim Kwik is a memory and speed-re
ading expert that travels and teaches his methods all over the country. Recently
he sat down to talk with Lewis Howes on The School of Greatness podcast and sha
red his simple "MOM" system for a better memorization groundwork:
Motivation: What's the fuel? Ask yourself why you need to remember something
. Reasons reap results.

Observation: Memory issues are usually attention issues, not retention issue
s. Be present in the moment, listen, and stay aware of your surroundings as best
you can.
Mechanics: Find a process or trick that works for different situations and p
ractice it. Over and over. You won't get better at memorizing names until you st
art practicing it.
Kwik is quick to note that there is no magical instant way to have better memory
. It's a process that takes some work and dedication, but if you can grasp the m
otivation and observation parts, it will help take you most of the way. Look, li
sten, and when you need to remember something, tell yourself why you need to. Th
e whole talk in the video above is pretty interesting and worth a watch.
}
I developed what appears to be a photographic memory when I was 16 years old. D
oes this kind of memory truly exist, and, if so, how did I develop it?
Peter Gordon, Scotland
Barry Gordon, a professor of neurology and cognitive science at the Johns Hopkin
s University School of Medicine (and no relation), offers an explanation:
The intuitive notion of a photographic memory is that it is just like a photograph
: you can retrieve it from your memory at will and examine it in detail, zooming
in on different parts. But a true photographic memory in this sense has never b
een proved to exist.
Most of us do have a kind of photographic memory, in that most people's memory f
or visual material is much better and more detailed than our recall of most othe
r kinds of material. For instance, most of us remember a face much more easily t
han the name associated with that face. But this isn't really a photographic mem
ory; it just shows us the normal difference between types of memory.
see also:
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d & Brain: Nail Biting May Arise from Perfectionism | Space: Pluto Lover Alan St
ern Discusses Historic July Flyby [Q&A] | Technology: Timeline: The Amazing Mult
imillion-Year History of Processed Food
Even visual memories that seem to approach the photographic ideal are far from t
ruly photographic. These memories seem to result from a combination of innate ab
ilities, combined with zealous study and familiarity with the material, such as
the Bible or fine art.
Sorry to disappoint further, but even an amazing memory in one domain, such as v
ision, is not a guarantee of great memory across the board. That must be rare, i
f it occurs at all. A winner of the memory Olympics, for instance, still had to
keep sticky notes on the refrigerator to remember what she had to do during the
day.
So how does an exceptional, perhaps photographic, memory come to be? It depends
on a slew of factors, including our genetics, brain development and experiences.
It is difficult to disentangle memory abilities that appear early from those cu
ltivated through interest and training. Most people who have exhibited truly ext
raordinary memories in some domain have seemed to possess them all their lives a
nd honed them further through practice.
Various parts of the brain mature at different times, and adolescence is a major
time for such changes. It's possible Mr. Gordon's ability took a big jump aroun

d his 16th birthday, but it's also possible he noticed it only then. Mr. Gordon
might want to have formal testing, to see just how good his memory is and in wha
t areas. Then we can debate the nature-nurture question from harder evidence.
}
Older people with memory problems can boost their brainpower with fish oil suppl
ements, say researchers.
Healthy people with mild memory deficits of events in their past life, so-called
episodic memory, had improved recall after six months of treatment.
A new overview says the omega-3 fatty acid DHA has most benefit for people with
existing memory problems, particularly when they are coping with physical or men
tal stress.
Experts believe supplements rich in DHA from fish oils or other marine sources m
ight slow or prevent mental decline as it is found in reduced amounts in people
with Alzheimer s disease.
Scroll down for video
Supplements rich in the omega-3 fatty acid DHA from fish oils might slow mental
decline as it is thought to help nerve cells communicate with each other
+2
Supplements rich in the omega-3 fatty acid DHA from fish oils might slow mental
decline as it is thought to help nerve cells communicate with each other
But here have been conflicting results from studies, with some showing no benefi
t from supplements in dementia patients.
DHA is an omega-3 fatty acid that is thought to help nerve cells communicate wit
h each other. The richest source of the nutrient is oily fish, such as herring,
mackerel and sardines.
Britons are currently advised to eat at least one portion of oily fish a week bu
t figures show just one in three do so.
In an overview of evidence, scientists from the US and Canada said several studi
es had looked at DHA supplements and their effect on memory.
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The MIDAS study involved of 485 healthy elderly people who complained of memory
problems, says a report in the journal Prostaglandins Leukotrienes and Essential
Fatty Acids.
The findings showed 24 weeks of taking marine oil supplements led to significant
improvements in memory test scores compared with those who had dummy tablets.

It appears that benefits of DHA are best observed during ageing when there is som
e mild cognitive impairment or memory complaint or perhaps when a person is expo
sed to certain chronic physical or mental stressors says the overview.
The best dietary source of omega 3 fatty acids is oily fish because the human bo
dy cannot produce omega-3 fatty acids.
The richest source of the nutrient is oily fish, such as herring, mackerel (pict
ured) and sardines
White fish is also a healthy food including cod, haddock and plaice although it
contains lower levels of essential fatty acids.
Dr Carrie Ruxton, independent public health nutritionist who reviewed the latest
evidence for supplements manufacturer Equazen, said oily fish consumption was f
alling.
On average, Britons were eating around 90g weekly compared with the government s r
ecommended levels of 140g weekly.
She said Studies have variously shown that fish oils lead to better performance i
n working and verbal memory indicating the potential to delay the onset of cogni
tive decline and that supplementation with DHA could improve learning and memory
function.
Two thirds of Briton never eat oily fish, they do not have omega 3 in their diet
and supplements are a good alternative.
We know that people with the greatest cognitive decline have the least amount of
omega-3 in their diet.
}
Our understanding of the neural bases of visual short-term memory (STM), the abi
lity to mentally retain information over short periods of time, is being reshape
d by two important developments: the application of methods from statistical mac
hine learning, often a variant of multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA), to funct
ional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and electroencephalographic (EEG) data s
ets; and advances in our understanding of the physiology and functions of neuron
al oscillations. One consequence is that many commonly observed physiological sig
natures that have previously been interpreted as directly related to the retentio
n of information in visual STM may require reinterpretation as more general, sta
te-related changes that can accompany cognitive-task performance. Another is imp
ortant refinements of theoretical models of visual STM.
Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences 2015, 1:40 46
This review comes from a themed issue on Cognitive neuroscience
Edited by Cindy Lustig and Howard Eichenbaum
For a complete overview see the Issue and the Editorial
Available online 4th September 2014
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cobeha.2014.08.004
2352-1546/ 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Signal intensity-based versus multivariate analyses of fMRI data
Reconsidering the link between delay-period activity and storage

For decades, a governing assumption in STM research has been that the short-term
retention of visual information is supported by regions that show elevated leve
ls of activity during the delay period of STM tasks. Thus, for example, debates
over the role of the prefrontal cortex (PFC) in STM and the related construct of
working memory were framed in terms of whether or not its delay-period activity
showed load-sensitivity
systematic variation of signal intensity as a function
of memory set size 1, 2, 3 and 4]. Similarly, patterns of load-sensitive variati
on of activity in the intraparietal sulcus have been used to test and refine the
oretical models about mechanisms underlying capacity limits in visual STM 5 and
6]. With the advent of MVPA, however, this signal-intensity assumption has been
called into question.

A fundamental difference between MVPA and univariate signal intensity-based anal

yses is that the former does not entail thresholding the dataset before analysis
, but, rather, analyzes the pattern produced by all elements in the sampled spac
e. The analytic advantages to this approach are marked gains in sensitivity and
specificity e.g., 7]. In the domain of visual STM, this was first demonstrated w
ith the successful decoding of delay-period stimulus identity from early visual
cortex, including V1, despite the absence of above-baseline delay-period activit
y 8 and 9]. Subsequently, it was demonstrated that although the short-term reten
tion of specific directions of motion was decodable from medial and lateral occi
pital regions (despite the absence of elevated delay-period activity), this info
rmation was not decodable from regions of intraparietal sulcus and frontal corte
x (including PFC) that nonetheless evinced robust elevated delay-period activity
[10 ]. Further, in these posterior areas the strength of MVPA decoding, a proxy f
or the fidelity of neural representation, declined with increasing memory load.
Importantly, these changes in MVPA decoding predicted load-related declines in b
ehavioral estimates of the precision of visual STM [11 ] (Figure 1). Relatedly, an
fMRI study using a forward encoding-model approach [12 ] has demonstrated that int
erindividual differences in the dispersion (i.e., sharpness ) of multivariate chann
el tuning functions in areas V1 and V2v predicts recall precision of STM for ori
entations [13 ]. Thus, studies [11 ] and [13 ] indicate an important link between the fi
elity of the distributed neural representation and the fidelity of the mental re
presentation that it is assumed to support.
Full-size image (138 K)
Figure 1.
Dissociating elevated delay-period signal from the short-term retention of i
nformation. Summary of results from [11 ], in which subjects were scanned with fMRI
while viewing one, two, or three sample displays of moving dots, then probed to
recall the direction of one. (a) Univariate statistical maps indicating regions
showing load sensitivity during sample presentation, the delay period, or both.
(b) Time series data from sample-only voxels (panel on left) or delay-only voxels.
Teal waveform illustrates decoding performance of a classifier trained at the ti
me point with the maximal stimulus-evoked response (indicated with dot) then swe
pt across the remainder of the trial. Maroon and solid gray waveforms are the an
alogous performance of classifiers trained at a time point late in the delay per
iod, or 2 sec before sample onset, respectively. Asterisks indicate better-thanchance decoding at p < .05(*) and p < .01(**). Superimposed is the trial-average
d BOLD activity, depicted in the dotted waveform and aligned with the vertical a
xis on the right-hand side of the plot. C. Plots of neural precision against beh
avioral precision. Each color corresponds to an individual subject and each digi
t (3, 2, or 1) to that individual's neural and behavioral precision at the corre
sponding memory load. Lines are the fit indicated by ANCOVA (r2 = .35).
Figure options
The localization of visual STM, and insight into mechanism

It is not the case that intraparietal sulcus and frontal cortex are inherently un
decodable (see Box 1), nor that they are never recruited for the short-term reten
tion of information. A determinant of whether a network will be engaged in the s
hort-term retention of a particular kind of information is whether it is engaged
in the perception or other processing of that information in situations that do
not explicitly require STM. Thus, for example, when the short-term retention of
abstract visuospatial patterns [23 ] or dynamically morphing flow-field stimuli [
24] is tested, MVPA reveals delay-period stimulus representation in intraparieta
l sulcus, in addition to occipital regions; the same is true for face, house, an
d human-body stimuli in ventral occipitotemporal regions (e.g., [20 ]). When the to
-be-remembered stimulus affords oculomotor planning, its identity can also be de
coded from oculomotor-control regions of intraparietal sulcus and of frontal cor
tex [25 ]. Indeed, [25 ] demonstrated that an MVPA classifier trained on only one cond
ition attention to a location, planning a saccade to a location, or STM for a lo
cation can decode the other two. This could only be possible if similar patterns
of neural activity, implying similar mechanisms, underlie the behaviors that ha
ve traditionally been categorized as attention versus intention versus retention .
Box 1.
Population coding in PFC

PFC shows increases in activity during difficult versus easy conditions of many
types of task, not just STM (for which load is an operationalization of difficul
ty) [14 ]. With regard to STM, MVPA of neuronal activity recorded from monkeys pro
vides hints of what functions may be supported by the elevated activity measured
in humans with fMRI. In two studies, MVPA revealed a delay-period transition fr
om an initial representation of properties specific to a stimulus, to one of eit
her the item's status as a Go or No-go cue [15 ], or the trial's status as a Match o
atch trial [16 ]. In a test of STM for the color of varying numbers of objects, PFC
represented the passage of time across the delay period and the location of tobe-remembered stimuli, but not the colors themselves [17 ] (cf [18 ]). Consistent with
these unit-level findings, MVPA of human fMRI of STM has shown PFC to encode su
ch factors as stimulus category, attentional context, and match-nonmatch status
of a trial (e.g., 10 , 19
and 20 ]). Thus, in addition to its well-established role in
the top-down control of neural processing (e.g., 14 and 20 ]), another function of P
FC may be the processing of information that, although not explicitly being test
ed, is nonetheless unfolding, and of possible relevance to the organism 17 , 21 and
22].
Patterns of localization can also reflect how the brain supports the strategic r
ecoding of information from the format presented at study into one best suited f
or the impending memory-guided action. One study first presented subjects with a
sample object, then, early in the delay, indicated whether memory for fine-grai
ned perceptual details or for category membership would be tested. For the forme
r, MVPA found evidence for delay-period stimulus representation in inferior occi
pitotemporal cortex, but not PFC; for the latter, the converse was true [19 ]. Comb
ining MVPA with univariate and functional connectivity analyses has revealed a r
ole for frontal cortex and intraparietal sulcus in implementing such strategic s
hifts of mental coding in visual STM [20 ]. MVPA can also track the evolution of me
ntal coding in the absence of instructions, demonstrating, for example, that the
verbal recoding of visually presented information also entails the recruitment
of a semantic code [26].
Neural data also provide important constraints on models of capacity limitations
of visual STM 27 and 28 ]. One influential model holds inferior intraparietal sulc
us to be important for individuating objects that are to be encoded into visual
STM, whereas superior intraparietal sulcus and an area of lateral occipital cort
ex are responsible for identifying these objects [6]. Recently, however, althoug
h the univariate analyses of data from a follow-up experiment [29 ] did reproduce m
any of the findings from the earlier study, MVPA of the same data failed to supp

ort a model of segregated circuits performing these two operations. Instead, the
study of Naughtin et al. [29 ] produced two novel findings. First, the contrasts i
ntended to operationalize individuation versus identification recruited primaril
y overlapping regions, thereby calling into question the dissociability of these
two hypothesized mechanisms. Second, many regions outside of the intraparietal
sulcus regions emphasized by [6] were also sensitive to these contrasts, suggest
ing that broadly distributed systems underlie the control of visual STM ( Box 2)
.
Box 2.
Network-level dynamics in STM
Under conditions for which a stable mental code is assumed (e.g., no instruction
s to strategically recode 19 and 26]), MVPA typically reveals a stable set of regi
ons to represent memoranda across the duration of a delay-period. However, the a
ctivity patterns within these regions can be dynamic. For example, with auditory
STM, the frequency-specific pattern of elevated stimulus-evoked activity transi
tions to become a pattern of negative activity during the delay period [30]. For
visual STM, a classifier trained on a time point early in the trial will often
perform progressively worse as it is slid forward across the remainder of the de
lay period, the converse being true for a classifier trained on a late-in-the-de
lay time point and slid backwards (Figure 1b). This suggests a temporal evolutio
n of the neural code underlying the short-term retention of a subjectively stable
mental representation 11 and 31 ]. It remains to be determined whether these observa
tions from fMRI relate in a meaningful way to the finding of dynamic coding in p
opulations of neurons in monkeys performing tasks requiring sustained attention
to an object 32 and 33].
Signal intensity-based versus multivariate analyses of EEG data
Event-related potential (ERP) correlates of STM
Another neural effect that has influenced models of visual STM capacity limitati
on is the contralateral delay activity (CDA), an ERP component that scales monot
onically with STM load, but asymptotes at the psychophysically estimated capacit
y of an individual [34]. The CDA is widely interpreted as an index of the shortterm retention of information (e.g., [35]), such that, for example, the presence
of a CDA during visual search has been taken as evidence for memory in search 36
and 37], and the diminution of the CDA across consecutive trials requiring searc
h for the same target as evidence for the handoff of the mnemonic representation o
f the search template from STM to LTM [38].
Not unlike with univariate analyses of fMRI data, however, there can be problems
with equating a 1-D, signal intensity-based measure like the CDA with a single
psychological construct (in this case, the short-term retention of information).
For example, empirically, the CDA can be observed during tasks for which it is
unclear that the short-term retention of information is required, such as during
multiple object tracking [39], or during change detection even when the observer
s know that the objects will not disappear from the visual field [40] (p. 8257).
Further, the CDA during STM and during visual search is markedly reduced after i
ntensive visual working memory training, despite the fact that STM capacity is i
ncreased and search performance improves with training [41 ]. Under these conditio
ns, a physiological marker specific to the short-term retention of information w
ould be expected to increase in intensity. An additional challenge to the idea t
hat the CDA is specific to the short-term retention of information comes from th
e proposal that it may, in fact, be the consequence of averaging across trials c
ontaining asymmetric amplitude modulation of alpha-band oscillations [42]. From
this perspective, because the CDA is linked to alpha-band oscillations (and, hen
ce, to a general aspect of neurophysiological state, such as cortical excitabili
ty or inhibitory tone), the CDA may not index a memory storage mechanism per se,
but rather a general mechanism for allocation of resources [43] (p. 903). Perhaps
relatedly, multivariate analyses of alpha-band dynamics have provided important

new insights into the neural bases of the short-term retention of visual inform
ation.
Multivariate analysis of EEG in STM
Using a multivariate forward-encoding-model approach similar to [13 ], Anderson et
al. [44 ] constructed channel tuning functions for two narrowly filtered components
of the EEG: alpha-band oscillations that were evoked by memory-sample onset; an
d alpha-band oscillations whose amplitude, but not phase, was modulated by sampl
e onset (i.e., induced). Their results indicated that spatially distributed patt
erns in induced
but not evoked delay period-spanning alpha-band activity predict
ed both inter-subject and intra-subject variation in precision of STM for line o
rientation. Note that these results do not necessarily implicate induced alpha-b
and oscillations in the delay-period representation, per se, of stimuli. Alterna
tively, they may reflect distributed patterns of local inhibition and/or the lon
g-range synchronization of localized representations of features, either of whic
h would nonetheless be unique to each stimulus (cf [17 ]). Although several oscilla
tory phenomena have been associated with the short-term retention of information
(including, e.g., local field potential oscillations at different frequencies,
local and distal cross-frequency coupling, phase-amplitude coupling, and long-di
stance spike-field coherence (reviewed, e.g., in [45 ])), their investigation with
multivariate methods (e.g., [46]) will be an important step in determining thei
r specificity for stimulus representation versus their possible contributions to
other processes engaged by STM tasks.
Do distributed patterns of activity reflect STM or attention?
The multivariate methods reviewed here draw on two longstanding assumptions abou
t STM. First, that stimulus representation is accomplished by anatomically distr
ibuted networks. Second, that the short-term retention of these representations
is accomplished via elevated activity in these networks. Most often, however, ST
M tasks confound the focus of attention with the short-term retention, per se, o
f information. Recent studies have addressed this by first presenting two sample
items, then indicating with a delay-period retrocue which of the two will be re
levant for the impending memory probe. (Thus, the cue designates an attended memo
ry item .) Because the first memory probe will be followed by a second delay perio
d, a second retrocue, and a second probe, the item that was not cued during the
initial delay (the unattended memory item ) must be retained in STM, because it may
be cued as relevant for the second probe. Intriguingly, MVPA of fMRI [47 ] and EEG
[48] variants of this task fail to find evidence for an active neural represent
ation of the unattended memory item, even though its active neural representatio
n is reinstated if it is selected by the second retrocue ( Figure 2). 1 These fi
ndings provide empirical support for the possibility that elevated activity may
correspond more directly to the focus of attention than to the short-term retent
ion of information, per se. The short-term retention of information, by this acc
ount, may depend on the establishment of representations encoded in distributed
patterns of transiently modified synaptic weights, a code that would not be dete
ctible by activity-based measurements. This phenomenon has been observed directl
y in the PFC of monkeys performing a visual working-memory task [15 ], and has been
simulated in many computational implementations [49 ]. It has also been inferred
to support the short-term retention of visual information in inferotemporal cort
ex [50], and so need not be assumed to be a PFC-specific phenomenon. An importan
t focus of current study is whether there are differences between the neural rep
resentation of unattended memory items, which are presumed to passively slip out
of the focus of attention versus of items that are intentionally removed from STM
20 and 35].
igh-level cognition, including STM, emerges from dynamic, distributed neural int
eractions that unfold on multiple time scales. The adoption of methods that more
closely align with these principles of brain function is leading to discoveries
with important implications for cognitive models of STM and working memory (e.g
., 51 and 52]), and is informing ongoing research into such questions as the fac
tors that underlie capacity limitations of visual STM 27 and 28 ], and the relation

between STM and attention (e.g., 53 and 54]).

}
here are countless reasons why Americans don't get enough sleep. But here's one
more good reason why we should change that: making time for sleep during the hus
tle of youth and middle age could help memory in old age, new research suggests.
An intriguing new study on the power of a good night s sleep was recently publishe
d by the director of Baylor University s Sleep Neuroscience and Cognition Laborato
ry. As Rick Nauert reports for PsychCentral, Michael K. Scullin pored over 50 ye
ars of sleep research and found something new along the way. The data showed that
investing in sleep during youth and middle age can have big benefits in the futu
re, predicting better mental functions up to 28 years later. People sometimes disp
arage sleep as lost time, said Scullin in a release. His research shows it s anything
but.
In fact, Scullin found a close correlation between cognition and sleep history i
n people of an advanced age. The more sleep people bank at an early age, the bet
ter their memory functions when they re old. Sleeping well still is linked to bette
r mental health, improved cardiovascular health and fewer, less severe disorders
and diseases of many kinds, Scullin notes. If that s not a valid case for a long a
fternoon nap, what is?
But don t worry if you have trouble sleeping now. Another new study published this
week suggests that leading an exciting life could help you hang on to memories
better (even the mundane ones).
}
hen I told people that I was going to write a book on memory, I saw "good luck w
ith that" written on a few faces. Memory is a massive topic. Any intelligent sys
tem needs some way of tracking where it is in time, and that means remembering w
here it has been. No surprise, then, that studying memory proliferates into nume
rous sub-disciplines. You can specialise in short-term memory (memory traces tha
t persist for a few seconds) or cast your net into memories that stretch back th
rough an entire human lifetime. An essential distinction is between memory for f
acts (semantic memory) and memory for events (episodic memory). I was interested
in a branch of memory research that straddles the two: autobiographical memory,
or the memory we have for the events of our own lives.
Roughly four decades of research (with historical precedents that stretch back m
uch further) tell us that this kind of memory is essentially reconstructive. A m
emory is stitched together in the present moment from several different kinds of
information, in a process that's subject to the current beliefs and biases of t
he person doing the remembering. But surveys tell us that many people remain wed
ded to a view of memories as immutable, static possessions. Why do we get memory
so wrong? One possible reason is that memories are precious to us: they define
us in many ways, and so we react with discomfort to the idea that they are the c
onstructions of a story-telling mind.
Although few scientists would quibble with the idea of the reconstructive nature
of memory, there have been some hot new developments: in understanding the soci
al dimensions of remembering, particularly in the very young and very old; in wo
rking out how memory functions in trauma and extreme emotion; and in linking rem
embering the past to thinking about the future, to imagination and to creativity
. Keeping up with the latest research meant that I stuck mainly to journal artic
les when writing Pieces of Light. But several books, although sometimes a little
out of date, had profound influences on my thinking about memory's slippery cha
rms.
1. Why Life Speeds Up As You Get Older by Douwe Draaisma
Memory has been a topic of fascination for centuries. For the long view on how h

umans have gone about studying it, this book by a Dutch historian of psychology
is hard to beat. In poised, humorous prose, he ranges from the stories of respon
dents to an 1899 survey who had "flashbulb" memories of hearing of the death of
Abraham Lincoln, to the diary study of psychologist Willem Wagenaar, who for six
years wrote out a daily memory so that he could test his own forgetting, to the
nineteenth-century French philosopher Jean-Marie Guyau, who asked why the years
speed by more quickly as we age.
2. Searching for Memory by Daniel L Schacter
Harvard psychologist Schacter has been a leading figure in the cognitive neurosc
ience of episodic memory. In this, his first book, he provides a detailed and hi
ghly readable account of how memories are encoded, stored and retrieved, how rem
embering is damaged and preserved in amnesia, and how memories are distorted by
trauma. Particularly interesting is his focus on how memory processes are depict
ed and interrogated by visual artists, although the pictures unfortunately don't
reproduce too well in the paperback. While the field of memory has moved on a f
air bit in the eighteen years since this was published, its erudition and scient
ific authority make it unmatched as an introduction to the study of autobiograph
ical memory.
3. The Craft of Thought by Mary Carruthers
Memory was a big thing when books had to be copied out by hand. Building on clas
sical ideas, such as the "method of loci" attributed to Simonides (think of a pl
ace and fill it with striking images corresponding to the items you want to reme
mber), our medieval ancestors turned remembering into a developed art. Carruther
s provides a brilliant critique of key texts such as Frances Yates's The Art of
Memory, showing that medieval memoria was nothing less than a theory of the reco
mbinative power of thought. Carruthers' dense, ambitious analysis of the medieva
l mind is an extraordinary work of scholarship.
4. In a Strange Room by Damon Galgut
In memory, we narrativise ourselves like novelists. Galgut's unsettling triptych
of travel stories (shortlisted for the 2010 Man Booker Prize) play disarming tr
icks with perspective, as the Damon in the stories flips identities with Damon t
he narrator. Echoing psychologists' distinction between 'field' (first-person) a
nd 'observer' (third-person) memories, Galgut makes austere, uneasy fiction from
the idea that we are both the actors and the witnesses in memory.
5. Memory by Alan Baddeley, Michael W Eysenck and Michael C Anderson
British psychologist Baddeley's work transformed the science of short-term memor
y, or working memory as it is now more typically known. Comprehensive and readab
le, this popular textbook, co-authored with two other eminent psychologists, is
a great resource for those setting out on the academic study of memory.
6. The Mind of a Mnemonist by AR Luria
You can remember too much. In this classic case study, Russian neuropsychologist
Luria tells the story of his patient S. (Solomon Shereshevsky) who harnessed hi
s synaesthetic powers to perform preternatural feats of remembering. Aside from
his scientific prowess, Luria is a wonderfully humane writer, and brings S.'s in
tense, troubled imagination, through which he perceived reality 'as though throu
gh a haze', vividly to life.
7. The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes
To the extent to which they track selves through time, all novels are about memo

ry. But Barnes's 2011 Man Booker-winning novel thinks more deeply about it than
most. Middle-aged protagonist Tony finds himself trying to make sense of past re
lationships and their painful consequences, questioning the reliability of his o
wn story-telling mind as he explores how memories are charged with and shaped by
emotion.
8. Memory: An Anthology edited by Harriet Harvey Wood and AS Byatt
Writers over the centuries have had plenty to say about memory. From Virginia Wo
olf on the birth of the self to Steven Rose on memory molecules, this endlessly
fascinating sourcebook gathers writings from the classical era to the present da
y, covering territory from the literary to the neuroscientific.
9. Austerlitz by WG Sebald
The medium of memory is narrative, and the best writers on the topic can mimic i
ts reconstructive processes. Sebald creates fictions that are like memories them
selves: fragments of fact and imagination restlessly reorganised into shifting r
enditions of the past. Austerlitz's memories of his childhood in Sebald's final
novel build to an anxious, enigmatic portrait of a mind trying to place itself i
n time.
10. In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust
It's not just about the petite madeleine. Proust's name has entered cognitive sc
ience as code for the power of involuntary memory, but there is much more to his
masterpiece than the redolent taste of a tisane-soaked morceau. As critic Roger
Shattuck observed, Marcel's million-word quest to reconstruct his life story sh
ows us how memory orchestrates selves in relation: the person doing the remember
ing held in vibrant tension with the remembered self from long ago. Both co-exis
t in a memory, meaning that remembering is about the present almost as much as i
t's about the past.
_
Welcome to the site! Now that is a lot of questions and I'll try to reply to the
m as succintly as possible. I was in the same situation as you and with the help
of mnemonics, I've managed to go through medical studies quite easily, compared
to my friends.
So before I go into details, contrary to popular beliefs, mnemonics and memory t
echniques are not the easy way out of memorizing large texts and books.
launched wrote:
I've spent the last few months reading every memory book I could find, and I
think I'm ready to start using some of the techniques - but I need some advice
concerning what method would be best for my needs.
Contrary to what other memorizers are saying, even the best ones, mnemotechnics
are not for everyone. The concepts and principles are relatively easy to underst
and but for you to master them, you need to practise, practise and practise even
more. Memorizing a simple shopping list using memory techniques is fairly easy
for the novice but keeping large amount of information and being able to recall
them at will is not that easy.
Before launching yourself into complex, text memorisation, you'll need to have s
ome weapons at your side. Develop a simple 2 digits system for numbers and you'l
l find that helpful along the way. Practise a lot visualization first before tac
kling your textbooks.
Now for your 300 pages text book, the way I would go about it, is not to use a m

emory palace but a journey instead, with 300 loci or 6 journeys with 50 loci eac
h. I would assign a locus within a journey to one page. I would use outdoor jour
neys with large, open spaces instead of objects in a rooms or a house.
I would go through each page first and try to understand the information being s
aid first. Memorizing without comprehension is useless. I would then jot down ke
y points in my own words. I would then try to come up with an image for each poi
nt. Try to use the least amount of images possible. Try to assign one image only
for a point. Be consistent. Always use the same image for the same point. I use
the image of the bad guy in Terminator 2, for T-Cells in Immunology, in various
situations.
Link each image using a story or other linking methods within each page on the s
ame locus. Do this for each page.
Start with the first 10 pages. You'll see at first, that you are taking more tim
e learning them with memory techniques, than doing them by rote. But as you prac
tise and start to develop your imagination and memory power, you'll go faster on
the other pages.
Review each finished page. Review, Review and Review them as many times as possi
ble in your head. When brushing your teeth, in the shower, before going to bed.
Review each page after it's been done, after 3 hours, the next day, the day afte
r, after two days, the next week, the week after and the week after that. You'll
find that it has stuck to your memory.
I still remember information I've memorized last June and I can tell you on whic
h page they were.
There are many other techniques I've developed but I don't know whether it will
work for you. Some of them have to do with speed reading, time management, visua
lization, etc.
Anyway hope you found this little guide helpful. If you have got any techniques
of yours or you are using another method to learn, please do share it with us. :
)
ike I said above, I'm not memorising each information word by word, but visualis
ing an image for a concept or idea. Like I can create an image for Endocarditis
and add information to that image for symptoms, treatments, etc... After many re
views, you'll find that you won't have need for the loci and images because the
information would have been stored in your long term memory. You'll have all the
information at hand just by thinking of endocarditis.
The advantage with this method is that you don't have to have your material with
you to review the course as per the traditional method of rote. You can just go
through your images in your head to make them stick.
The technique is not to do all at once. You do, little by little, mastering the
things you have learnt first before moving on.
The most important thing is not the creation of images or loci but the actual ac
t of reviewing several times.
Later on, you can use the same places for other information.
I'll share all the techniques later on. I'm currently writing them down. It is t
oo long to write all at once here. :)
If you want any help, don't hesitate to ask. I've been there too..

_
am constantly misplacing my keys and I am pretty terrible with names, and somet
imes, I wonder: At what point do these little flaky moments of forgetfulness bec
ome something to worry about? In a recent interview with Newshour, Lisa Genova
t
he neuroscientist and author of Still Alice, now an Oscar-nominated film starrin
g Julianne Moore answered that question, as it's one she apparently hears all th
e time. She briefly explained how medical experts can tell when memory issues be
come troubling:
So the signs are like, you can't remember the name, and then you don't have
the first letter, you don't have the number of syllables. It doesn't then just p
op into your head an hour [later] while you're driving down the street. It's not
going to come on the tip of your tongue, ever. Keys, you can't find the keys an
d when you do, you don't remember what they're for. Or you find them and they're
in the refrigerator or somewhere strange.
_
Listening to Mozart can give your brain a boost, according to a new study.
People who heard the classical composer's music showed an increase in brain wave
activity linked to memory, understanding and problem-solving, researchers found
.
However, no such increases were found after the group listened to Beethoven, sug
gesting there is something specific about the effect of Mozart's music on our mi
nds, they said.
Listening to music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, shown in the portrait above, caus
ed changes in brain wave activity that are linked to intelligence, memory and ha
ving an open mind to problem solving, research from Sapienza University of Rome
shows. The effects were most pronounced in young adults and elderly adults
+4
Listening to music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, shown in the portrait above, caus
ed changes in brain wave activity that are linked to intelligence, memory and ha
ving an open mind to problem solving, research from Sapienza University of Rome
shows. The effects were most pronounced in young adults and elderly adults
The researchers, from Sapienza University of Rome, said: 'These results may be r
epresentative of the fact that Mozart's music is able to 'activate' neuronal cor
tical circuits (circuits of nerve cells in the brain) related to attentive and c
ognitive functions.'
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The results were 'not just a consequence of listening to music in general', they

added.
For the study, which was published in the journal Consciousness and Cognition, t
he researchers used EEG machines to record the electrical activity of the partic
ipants' brains.
WHAT YOUR SPOTIFY PLAYLISTS SAY ABOUT YOUR SOCIAL CLASS
With its roots in the impoverished streets of Jamaica, it might not seem like th
e music of choice for the upper classes, but research has found enjoying reggae
is a sign you're in the social elite.
Researchers have discovered our position on the social pecking order can be betr
ayed by the music we listen to, as well as the music we hate.
While they found some genres like opera and classical music - which have long be
en the preserve of the elite - were most enjoyed by the upper classes, they also
found rock, reggae and pop were also more their taste.
By comparison, those in the lower classes seem to actively dislike most of these
'highbrow' forms of entertainment, preferring country, disco, rap, heavy metal,
easy listening and golden oldies.
Perhaps the only musical genre to cross the social divide was jazz, which was en
joyed by those in all social classes.
The group was made up of 10 young healthy adults with an average age of 33 (refe
rred as the Adults), 10 healthy elderly adults with an average age of 85 (known
as the Elderly), and 10 elderly people with mild cognitive impairment with an av
erage age of 77 (referred to as MCI).
Recordings were made before and after they listened to 'L'allegro con spirito' f
rom the Sonata for Two Pianos in D Major K448 by Mozart, and before and after th
ey listened to Fur Elise by Beethoven.
'The results of our study show an increase in the alpha power and MF frequency i
ndex of background activity in both Adults and in the healthy elderly after list
ening to Mozart's K448, a pattern of brain wave activity linked to intelligent q
uotient (IQ), memory, cognition and (having an) open mind to problem solving.
'No changes in EEG activity were detected in both adults and in the elderly afte
r listening to Beethoven.
'This result confirms that the observed EEG patterns are the result of the influ
ence of Mozart's sonata and not just a consequence of listening to music in gene
ral.
'The preliminary results allow us to hypothesize that Mozart's music is able to
'activate' neuronal cortical circuits related to attentive and cognitive functio
ns not only in young subjects, but also in the healthy elderly.'