Memory

Source:

http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/allinthemind/memory---the-thread-of-life/4409988#transcript


Memory - The Thread of life

 Learning
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Suparna Rajaram: If we want to create more enduring memory for what we have learned, a number of researchers have shown that studying a few times but testing yourself over and over again can really create this kind of long-lasting knowledge. So we wanted to understand why, why is that repeatedly studying something doesn’t endure? It seems so intuitive and it seems effective because we do well in exams after we cram, but the question is six months later can we still have that knowledge at our disposal; and we wanted to understand why is it that this knowledge just dissipates over time.
So in a very detailed set of experiments that we did what we were able to uncover is fascinating. Repeated study does improve retention in the short term. There’s a lot of information that’s retained but it’s not organised very tightly or very efficiently or in ways that its meaning can emerge and become really centralised. But repeated retrieval allows that process to take place where we are able to align what we have just learned to our pre-existing knowledge in a much more efficient way. And those structures are larger in size, they are tighter in size and they don’t splinter over time the way knowledge structures splinter if only repeated study practice was used.
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 Suparna Rajaram: I think taking tests is a very good idea, I imagine it would not be a very popular recommendation, when people take repeated tests it seems like a very averse-like thing to do, but having done it once or twice it gets easier, you become a smart test-taker. You also in the process get to retain what you’re learning. So it is important to remember that repeated study in the short run affords a larger amount of retention, and that can fool us into thinking that a larger amount has been retained and so that must be the more effective method. And repeated tests might just home in on a lesser amount, but it helps us get down to the important pieces that we can then hold on to.
So frequent testing is a good idea, and I will go on to say that because every exposure to information creates memories. It’s very important that if students are taking repeated tests, and when they give incorrect answers it’s very important to correct those answers. Because over time students might lose the information on which answer was correct and which was incorrect, they might just remember an answer and that could be a problem. So that is another caveat to how we might go about setting up our educational practice based on this research.

 Keeping your memory in old age
Suparna Rajaram: You actually pose a very good question about how this might interact with ageing, even a normal healthy ageing mind and brain starts to exhibit some deficits in memory and the deficits are largely isolated to the episodic memory deficit — being able to remember day to day things. So could repeatedly rehearsing information help? Here’s the interesting part about repeatedly going over something in your mind that has happened. It’s much more similar to what I call repeated testing, because we go over information by self generating, we think about what had happened all over again by ourselves. So if somebody else tells us what happened it is going to be less effective in terms of holding on to it than if we thought about it ourselves and we were the ones who narrated it over and over again to others.
So could it help with ageing? And I would say it should help because even though there are episodic memory deficits as people get older, one of the less obvious strengths that remain fully intact with ageing is that people organise information just as well as young adults do. So when the ability to organise information is present then rehearsing information is definitely going to pick up on that ability and the two would interact to help.

Our memory
Elaine Reese: I think that it’s formative in our sense of self. So if you think about autobiographical memories, no one else has exactly the same set of memories that you have or that I have. It’s what makes us unique as a person.

 The effect of speaking with children
Elaine Reese: Yes, we’ve been working on that with a new group of teenagers ranging in age from 12 to 20. And what we’re finding is that those adolescents whose mothers talked with them in this elaborative way about the past, that they have what we call more coherent memories as adolescents. By coherence I mean that when they’re talking about sometimes difficult events that have happened in their lives, or life changing events, that they are able to talk about them in a more structured way to get some meaning out of that event for who they are. And we know that those young adults who have a more coherent life story, they also have better wellbeing so they have lower rates of depression and anxiety and higher life satisfaction. So it somehow all seems to come together in the late adolescent period as what we’re finding.

family stories
Elaine Reese: Yes, and you can add to it and provide more details over time and they will be interested in different aspects of it. And some family stories are just fun and funny, such as we hear about a lot of family misadventures on holiday, so we’ve got some great stories about rushing to catch the plane to Singapore, and the nappies all came out of the bag...and families retell those stories just for fun but I think they also have a bonding function for the family and they can really pull families together that yes, we got through that hard time and we made it through as a family.

Elaine Reese: One puzzling finding that I’d like to explore more is with younger adolescents we are finding that the adolescents who tell the more coherent stories actually have higher rates of depression and this is with, say, 12- to 14-year-olds. We think what’s happening is that when young adolescents are first starting to make meaning out of life events and trying to connect all these things that have happened to them and trying to figure out what it means for themselves, they’re not really completely ready to do that, I think they still need parents' help in structuring the things that are happening to them. So one thing I’m really interested in doing is trying to find some way to help parents talk with their young adolescents, especially about the negative things that have happened to them and to help them find some way of coping, because we know that’s when a lot of young adolescents start to experience depression symptoms for the first time. So it’s something that I feel quite strongly about, having two adolescents myself — 12 and 16 — and I’d really like to know if there’s some way that family storytelling can help.
Lynne Malcolm: So perhaps there is an argument for family storytelling to be important consistently right through?
Elaine Reese: Yes, probably it’s going to be important in different ways for children at different ages. So with the really young children we know it’s important for their language development, their storytelling and for their memory, and I think as children get older and as we find out more, we’ll find that it’s very important for their self-esteem and self-concept and their wellbeing.