Memory – Nature’s Gift to mankind

Humans are blessed with the capacity to retain the learnt material and experiences for a long period of time and then reproduce it through recognition and recall when required, this capacity is termed as memory.

Memory varies from short term memory which is mostly used in daily life, where the content is immediately recalled after the experience and soon forgotten.

Long term memory refers to the memory as a store house where information is stored permanently. If short term memory is used regularly it gets converted to long term memory. Students are immensely benefited by this type of memory.

Part, whole and rote memory - as the name suggests the content is remembered in parts whereas whole memory is photographic memory where nothing is forgotten. In rote memory the textual matter is reproduced may be without any understanding and at times without any error.

Insightful memory is extremely useful for students, as the content is presented through conceptual understanding..

There are techniques suggested to improve memory, experimental studies indicate that retention can be increased by:

Over learning – For students, how much of over learning is required depends on the learner’s mental ability, motivational level and nature of subject matter.

If the content is presented in a meaningful, organized, sequential manner either by clustering, pairing or associating it with related concepts then it is retained for a longer time.

It has been observed that retention is affected by physical environment, social factors such as aspiration level of learners and usefulness of the content. Psychological factors such as interests, attitudes, motivation level and attention also contribute to retention.

Research proves that students are under confident of their learning abilities and overconfident of their memory. It is recommended that they devote more time to studies- they will remember more if they study more, it is one of the secrets to success.