Memory

Memory is something small that can impact our lives greatly in multiple contexts, and can sometimes seem impossible to fix. Hopefully the information we've gathered can help!

​

You might hear "get more sleep!" as a common piece of advice for a multitude of things, including physical illnesses, issues with focus, and energy levels. However, sleep also helps restore and rebuild our fading memories of the day’s experiences, and consolidates our memories by replaying recent learning and strengthening neural connections. This is known as the information-processing model, which proposes that dreams may help sift, sort, and fix the day's experiences in our memory. It reactivates recent experiences stored in hippocampus, the memory center of your brain and shifts them for permanent storage elsewhere in cortex.
 

The encoding specificity principle is the idea that cues and context specific to a particular memory will be most effective in helping us recall it.  Memories are context-dependent and are affected by cues we have associated with that context. For example, you may study Spanish better in a Spanish classroom than at home in your room.

Similar to the encoding specificity principle, mood-congruent memory discusses the tendency to recall experiences that are consistent with one’s current good or bad mood. If you learned and processed certain information when you were in a positive mood, you may have a better time trying to remember that info when you reach the same mood again.
 

There are also multiple strategies for remembering things:

Mnemonics - These are memory aids that use vivid imagery, organizational devices, and letters. One of the most common types involves creating acronyms, where a certain short word or phrase has each letter represent a word or idea that needs to be remember. Many of the following strategies fall under this category as well.

Chunking - Organize items into familiar, manageable units. This often occurs automatically. For example, if you're trying to remember a long list of groceries, it may be much easier when you separate them into different food groups, each with less items. We remember best when we organize into personally meaningful arrangements

Hierarchies -  Organize broad concepts by dividing and subdividing into narrower concepts and facts. This once again breaks things into smaller groups and helps us retrieve info more efficiently.