When most of us witness a performance like that of Simon Reinhard, we think one of two things: First, maybe he’s cheating somehow. Memory is also a series of processes: how does that information get filed to begin with and how does it get retrieved when needed? His record in this task-called “forward digit span”-is 240 digits! In some ways memory is like file drawers where you store mental information. In fact, Simon would have been happy to keep going. For a final trial, 50 digits appeared on the screen for 50 seconds, and again, Simon got them all right. Then came 30 digits, studied for 30 seconds once again, Simon didn’t misplace even a single digit. No one in the audience (mostly professors, graduate students, and undergraduate students) could recall the 20 digits perfectly. In the next phase, 20 digits appeared on the screen for 20 seconds. After the series disappeared, Simon typed them into his computer. On the first round, a computer generated 10 random digits-6 1 9 4 8 5 6 3 7 1-on a screen for 10 seconds. In 2013, Simon Reinhard sat in front of 60 people in a room at Washington University, where he memorized an increasingly long series of digits. Classic mnemonic systems, known since the time of the ancient Greeks and still used by some today, can greatly improve one’s memory abilities. The key to good retrieval is developing effective cues that will lead the rememberer back to the encoded information. Good encoding techniques include relating new information to what one already knows, forming mental images, and creating associations among information that needs to be remembered. The key to improving one’s memory is to improve processes of encoding and to use techniques that guarantee effective retrieval. Failures can occur at any stage, leading to forgetting or to having false memories. Remembering episodes involves three processes: encoding information (learning it, by perceiving it and relating it to past knowledge), storing it (maintaining it over time), and then retrieving it (accessing the information when needed). “Memory” is a single term that reflects a number of different abilities: holding information briefly while working with it (working memory), remembering episodes of one’s life (episodic memory), and our general knowledge of facts of the world (semantic memory), among other types.
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