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In a book published a few years ago, a famous neuropsychologist named Lurija talks about a journalist who never forgot anything. Nothing could be more wonderful, you might think. But that is not so’s not the case. Not being able to forget is as disabling as not being able to remember. Not being able to forget means we cannot overcome pain and loss; it doesn’t allow us to think. In fact, the memory is in a delicate equilibrium between remembering and forgetting, corresponding to the two sides of the same coin.
In order to remember things, we have the habit of writing them down: appointments, shopping lists, notes we take in class and phone numbers, but it has not always been like this. Before the invention of the printing press, information was mainly transmitted by word of mouth, and techniques such as mnemonics were used to remember it. To retain new information, we need above all to concentrate and pay attention. A lot of research has shown that dividing attention resources during retention causes a marked deterioration in the performance of the memory. Other research shows that when scant attention is paid, retention occurs but is minimal. This is the case with subliminal perception, like when anaesthetised patients remember things that occurred during the time they were anaesthetised or the phenomenon of retaining material presented during sleep.
So the first good retention rule is to focus your attention on the material to be remembered. We need practice to become perfect at memorising, but it is not a simple repetition of the information. The BBC had to change the wavelength of its transmissions a few years ago and invested a lot of money in advertising campaigns for the new frequencies in radio messages. Even though the listeners had heard the message a hundred times, the BBC was forced to send out stickers displaying the new wavelengths because the message had not been memorised at all.
Since practice makes perfect, the material to be remembered needs to be organised and processed. To remember a list of words for example, the word association that belongs to the same category helps the memory. For example, newspaper can be associated with a sheet of paper. The words can be memorised according to their sound or how they look visually. It seems that visual memory is the longest lasting and therefore a word is memorised more easily if represented or accompanied by an image. For example, the Romans used the so-called memory theatre - imaginary rooms in which the various parts of an orator’s speech were visualised. Verbal mnemonics are used to remember dates: a consonant is associated with each number and words or sentences are constructed by interposing the vowels. Or we can remember the number of days in the months of the year thanks to a rhyme.
Another mnemonic consists of associating a concrete word to each number that rhymes with it, for example, 'two’ with ‘you’. Once this association has been consolidated, a list of words can be memorised by associating the word with one that rhymes with the number, creating bizarre and unusual pairs. Another mnemonic technique is that of reduction. To remember the six main emotions, a word can be formed using their initial syllable (fear, anger, sadness, joy, disgust, happiness - FEANSAJODIHA). The secret of the mnemonic therefore lies in connecting the new material to that which has already been consolidated in our memory. Just like when we know someone, we relate them to other people of our acquaintance who have the same name.
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