8.11: Remedies

Hypnosis is not the Answer

We often hear that people can recall things under hypnosis that they couldn’t otherwise remember, and to some extent this is true. But hypnosis does not provide a magic route into memory. In fact, people under hypnosis are particularly susceptible to misinformation effects, often stemming from leading questions from the hypnotist. They are also susceptible to misattribution of source, since an accomplished hypnotist can often get them to believe that they really remember something which the hypnotist in fact suggested to them while they were hypnotized. Indeed, hypnosis is often an effective technique for implanting false memories. Hypnotists can induce their subjects to “recall” all sorts of outlandish things while under hypnosis, including alien abductions and events from “previous lives.”

Safeguards

We can put the elements we have learned together by asking what makes memories more accurate and what make them less so. The lessons are completely general, but to make this more concrete, think about eyewitnesses. What would help make eyewitnesses more accurate? From what we have learned, it would be useful to encourage them to use retrieval cues by asking the witness to visualize the crime scene, recall the weather and time of day, remember their mood, sounds, the obvious things that they saw, and so on.

What would make eyewitnesses less accurate? We should avoid asking leading questions or making even vague suggestions that could lead to source misattribution or misinformation effects. It would be better to encourage the witness to recount their memories without any interruption and noting every detail, however trivial. We should only ask questions after they have completed their story. These techniques do improve the reliability of witnesses, in some studies by as much as 50%. The idea is simply to use the elements that improve memory, (e.g., retrieval cues), while steering clear of the more easily avoided phenomena, (e.g., leading questions), that lead to mistakes. The lessons here are perfectly general. They apply to a therapist trying to find out about a client’s childhood, in daily life when we wonder if someone else’s memories are accurate, and to ourselves when we are trying to remember some fact or event.

Ways to Improve Memory

There are many techniques for improving your memory. We will focus on those that are especially relevant to college students, namely doing a better job of remembering what you learn in your courses, but many of the points apply to a much wider range of settings.

Be Active

It is almost impossible to remember (or even to fully understand) material if you are passive. If you just sit back and listen, you will retain very little of what you hear. Being active doesn’t mean multitasking, though. If you are watching tv and reading your textbook, you aren’t likely to remember much of either. Being active means doing the following:

Integrate the Material with What You Already Know

We remember what we are actively involved with. So, organize material in a way that allows you to fit it into a pattern that connects with things you already know. We are much better at remembering things we understand. So, you need to integrate new material with your current knowledge. Think about ways to apply what you are learning in this class to things that are important to you. In a later chapter, we will discuss probabilistic reasoning. While this might seem boring, if you play poker or other card games you are going to see a marked improvement if you manage to integrate the new information. Similarly, while the authors have worked hard to give you examples for the concepts in this text, coming up with your own examples is going to improve retention considerably. Integrating the material with the rest of the things that you know will help you see patterns and connections, and that will help you remember and apply it.

To integrate new information with things you already know, you need to put things in your own words, think of examples from your own life, and ask how the principles would apply outside of class. Otherwise, the material will simply seem to be a series of isolated, unrelated facts that don’t add up to anything. This explains why so many students struggle in classes like math and English – it can be hard to see how the content has a direct impact on your life.

Here’s an example from earlier in this textbook. Most of you can repeat the definition of a valid argument. But unless you understand why validity is so important and learn to distinguish valid from invalid arguments, you won’t really understand the definition or be able to integrate it with other things you have learned. In fact, you won’t even be able to remember the simple definition for very long.

Lectures

You will play a more active role in your own learning if you sit near the front of the classroom and get involved. You should take notes; this not only gives you a record to study later, but it reduces passivity. But the notes should be brief, in an outline style. Write them as if you were writing newspaper headlines: pack as much information as you can into the fewest words. You should also put things down in your own words. This requires more mental effort, but this effort will make it easier to understand and remember the material.

Asking questions and giving examples when a teacher asks is also important. When you ask questions about things you don’t understand you are actively working to learn the information. Don’t assume it will click eventually—ask! Similarly, framing the material into your own examples forces you think about the material as it is being discussed, and it gives you immediate feedback about how well you understand.

Most forgetting takes place soon after learning. So, it is very useful to quickly review your notes soon after a lecture. It is also better to spend a few minutes reviewing it several times than to spend a lot of time reviewing it once.

Recordings Aren’t Much Good

Recording lectures is a very bad way to learn. It encourages passivity. You just sit back, tune out, and let the recorder do the work. But the recording can’t distill and organize material, much less put things into your own words. You also lose out on the visual information, which is better for conveying certain concepts and principles than words are. Finally, the recording of all the lectures between two exams will be 20 or 30 hours long, and the chances that you—or anyone—would really listen to all of them are very slim. And even if you do, you will be so overwhelmed by 20 hours of tapes that you won’t be able to remember much of what you hear.

Reading

Quickly skim through section titles to get a sense of organization. Then read with your mind in gear; if something is unclear, try to understand it before going on to the next thing. Finally, after each section, pause and ask yourself what its main points were and try to think of ways the material is relevant in your life outside the classroom.