How do you memorize stuff? If there is something you want to remember for a while? What is the best way to do so?
There are several types of memory. There is short term memory, such as remembering the phone number long enough to dial it, or where you put your keys when you came in an hour ago. There is long term memory, such as remembering the house we lived in as a kid.
A new study suggests that the best way to commit something to long term memory is to repeat the learning at intervals that are widely spaced.
Participants in the study were asked to memorize obscure facts. Did you know that in Europe, Norway is the country that eats the most spicy Mexican food, or that Rudyard Kipling invented snow golf?
The study demonstrated that increasing the time between sessions going over the facts lowered the “amount of forgetting” at later times.
So if there is something you want to put in long term memory, you should have several well spaced attempts at memorization.
The authors of the study say that if you want to remember something for a week, go over it once a day. If you want to remember it a year later, go over it once a month.
I guess the only problem is at the later date being able to remember to go over it again.
photo credit: Margaret Anne Clarke
[tags]long term memory,, memorize[/tags]
