Introduction
If someone tells you to remember a phone number or address, it can feel like an easy task at first. You repeat the numbers to yourself, either aloud or in your mind. But after just a few seconds you might find yourself starting to doubt your own memory. Was it 5-7-3 or 3-7-5? Our brain is always seeking new and useful information, and as a result it will try to throw away information that seems old or irrelevant, such as a random string of numbers or an address. There are ways of helping our minds retain information, however, and in this activity you will explore ways that we lose and keep memories.
Background
Short-term, or working memory, is a way of describing most people’s abilities to store a small amount of information for a brief period of time in a readily accessible form. Short-term memory has a short duration (thought to be on the order of seconds or minutes) but is quickly and easily accessed. People don’t have to stop and think to remember something in short term memory—they can access it quickly and easily.
There are many techniques for improving memory retention (capacity to store information over time). Such techniques include visualizing the information in a surprising way or linking pieces of information together so that one reminds you of the other. In the case of visualizing information this could be as simple as remembering you parked your car on the fifth floor in the D section by picturing five dogs sitting in your car! In addition, linking information could help you remember your grocery list. If you need to purchase cereal, milk, fruit, cheese and eggs, you could imagine the cereal in a bowl, with milk pouring over it and pieces of fruit on top. Then imagine cracking an egg over everything, and it’s full of melted cheese! These may seem simple or even silly, but they are time- and scientist-tested for improving memory retention. In this activity you’ll test the recall of a few friends or family members, and learn a few tricks for improving memory!
Materials
- Piece of paper
- Pen or pencil
- At least four volunteers
- Quiet place to test your volunteers
- Clock or timer
Preparation
- Use your pen and paper to create a table with five columns and five rows. Label the columns’ top boxes accordingly:
- first column: “Volunteer Name”
- second: “Single Digit 1 Minute”
- third: “Single Digit 2 Minute”
- fourth: “Multiple Digit 1 Minute”
- fifth: “Multiple Digit 2 Minute”