Memory is a process that takes place in human psyche, thanks to which the accumulation, saving and display of material is carried out. Memory in psychology is the definition of the brain’s ability to perform the functions of remembering, storing and recreating experience. Also this mental process allows a person to remember experiences and events of the past, consciously thinking about its value in his own history and comprehend the feelings and emotions that are associated with it. This process allows a person to expand his cognitive abilities. This property also has complex structure, consisting of some functions and processes that ensure the perception of information from the surrounding reality and its recording in past experience. Internal memory is a complex process in which the perception, accumulation, storage, systematization and very rapid reproduction of information is carried out.
Memory in psychology
Memory in psychology is the definition of a person’s ability to remember, retain, reproduce and forget information own experience. This property helps a person move in space and time. There are different psychological theories, which have their own view of this concept.
IN associative theory the key concept is association. In memory, it connects parts of the perceived material. When a person remembers something, he begins to look for a connection between these materials and those that need to be reproduced. The formation of associations has patterns: similarity, contiguity and contrast. Similarity is manifested in the fact that the material that is memorized is then reproduced through connection with similar material. Contiguity occurs when incoming material is remembered in relation to previous material. The contrast is expressed in the fact that the material that should be remembered is different from that which is retained.
According to behavioral theory, memorization of material is facilitated by special exercises. Such exercises help to better and faster fix attention on objects and episodes. Several factors influence quality memorization: age, individual characteristics, interval between exercises, volume of material and others.
In cognitive theory, this process is characterized as a certain set of blocks and processes of transformation of information material. Recognition is provided by blocks alone expressive features material, others create a cognitive orienting map of information, with the help of others the information is retained, the fourth block transforms the material into a specific form.
Activity theory considers this process as an active component of the connection between a person and the world. This occurs through the processes of analysis, synthesis, grouping, repetition and identification of features; with their help, a mnemonic image is also created, a unique form of material in which a person’s personal attitude lies. Memorization is also influenced by external stimulus signs, which later become internal and the person, guided by them, controls this process.
Types of memory
This process is multi-level and multifunctional; such complexity requires the distinction of several of its types.
Inner memory reflects the biological processes of human memorization of information.
External memory is recorded on external means (paper, voice recorder). The distinction between other types is based on the nature of mental activity, the characteristics of ideas, the nature of the connection with the target activity, the duration of storage of images and the purposes of the study. The simplest distribution this process into internal and external. Division into types based on the nature of mental activity: figurative, motor, verbal-logical and emotional.
Figurative memory is the process of memorizing images that were formed on the basis of material from sensory systems. As a result, in the imaginative process there are also types of memory, depending on the main analytical system: visual (fixing images of objects or people with whom contact often occurred); auditory (image of sounds that a person once heard); gustatory (tastes that a person once felt); olfactory (the image of smells with which a person can associate some memory); tactile (images of tangential sensations that are reminiscent of objects or people).
Motor memory- this is a type thanks to which people learn to ride a bicycle, memorize a dance, play games, swim, and also do any labor activity and various appropriate movements.
Emotional memory- this is the ability to remember feelings, experiences or, to remember emotions and their relativity to a specific situation at that moment. If a person did not have this mental process, then he would be “emotionally stupid” - this is the definition of a person’s state in which he looks unattractive, uninteresting to others, a kind of robot-like object. The ability to express your emotions is the key to mental health.
Verbal-logical memory divided into words, judgments and thoughts. It is also divided into mechanistic and logical. Mechanistic involves memorizing material through its constant repetition, when there is no awareness of the meaning of the information. Logical – makes semantic connections in memorized objects. Beyond the level of awareness of the material being memorized, memory is of two types: implicit and explicit.
Implicit – memory for information that a person is not aware of. Memorization occurs in a closed manner, independent of consciousness and inaccessible to direct observation. Such a process is carried out with the need to find a solution in some situation, but even then the knowledge that a person has cannot be realized. An example of such a process is that a person, in the process of his socialization, perceives the norms of society and is guided by them in his behavior, without realizing the basic theoretical principles.
Explicit memory occurs when the acquired knowledge is used absolutely consciously. They are retrieved and recalled when there is a need to solve some problem using this knowledge. This process can be: involuntary and voluntary. In an involuntary process, traces of images remain that arose unconsciously, automatically. This type of memorization is more developed in childhood; it weakens with age.
Arbitrary memory– this is purposeful memorization of an image.
Depending on the duration of time, memory is divided into instantaneous, short-term, operational, and long-term.
Instant Memory, also called sensory, is reflected in the retention of information perceived by sensory analyzers. It, in turn, is divided into iconic and echoic.
Iconic is a kind of sensory recorder of visual stimuli. With its help, information is recorded in a holistic form. A person never distinguishes between iconic memory and environmental objects. When iconic information is displaced by other information, the visual sense becomes more receptive. If visual material arrives too quickly, then there is a layering of one information over another, which is still retained in memory, and has also passed into long-term memory. This is called the reverse masking effect.
Echoic memory– after-image, images are stored in it for no more than 2-3 seconds, when there was an influence of the auditory stimulus.
Short-term memory promotes a person’s memorization of images after a single, short-term perception of them and instant reproduction. In such a process, what matters is the number of stimuli that are perceived, their physical nature, and their information load is not taken into account.
Short-term memory has a certain formula that determines the number of remembered objects. It sounds like “seven plus or minus two.” When a person is presented with stimulus material depicting a certain number of objects, he can remember 5 or 9 objects from them for up to 30 seconds.
RAM– saves a trace of the image that is necessary to perform the current action.
Long-term memory can store traces of images very for a long time and allows them to be used in future activities. Thanks to such memorization, a person is able to accumulate knowledge, which he can later retrieve either at his own request or through external intervention in the brain (with the help of).
Depends on target research activities There are special types of this mental process: biological, episodic, associative, reproductive, reconstructive, autobiographical.
Biological or also called genetic, is determined by the mechanism of heredity. It presupposes a person’s possession of such patterns of behavior that were characteristic of people in more early periods evolution, this is expressed in reflexes and instincts.
Episodic is a repository of fragments of material that are tied to a specific situation.
Reproductive involves repeating the reproduction of information, recalling the original appearance of the stored object.
Reconstructive helps restore the disrupted sequence of stimuli to their original form.
Associative memory forms functional connections, that is, associations, between objects that are remembered.
Autobiographical memory helps a person remember the events of his own life.
Memory training
Training happens when people don't even notice it. Memorizing the list of products needed in the store, the names of new acquaintances, dates of birth - all this is training for a person. But there are more specific exercises for development, they help much better memorization, focusing on the specific development of these abilities. If memory develops, then other mental processes (thinking, attention) also develop simultaneously.
There are exercises for developing this process, the most common ones will be briefly described below.
Memory development in adults exercises are very different. A very popular exercise is Schulte tables. They contribute to the development peripheral vision, attention, observation, speed reading and visual memory. When looking for sequential numbers, vision fixes only a few cells, so the location of the desired cell and the cells of other numbers is remembered.
Development exercise photographic memory according to the Aivazovsky method. Its essence is to look at an object for five minutes. Afterwards, close your eyes and restore the image of this object in your head as clearly as possible. You can also draw these images, this will help improve the effectiveness of the exercise. It must be performed periodically so that visual memory develops well.
Exercise playing matches helps train visual memory. To do this, you need to put five matches on the table and look at their location, then turn away, take five more matches and try on another surface to recreate the location of the matches that were memorized.
Exercise roman room helps develop the ability to structure stored information, but with its help it also trains visual memory. It is necessary to remember the sequence of objects, their details, color, shape. As a result, more information is remembered and visual memory is trained.
There are also exercises to train auditory memory.
Development of memory in adults, exercises must obey certain rules. The first exercise is reading aloud. When a person voices memorized material, he develops his lexicon, improves diction, intonation, improves the ability to add emotional coloring and brightness to your speech. The auditory components of what is read are also better remembered. You need to read easily, take your time, read as you speak. There are some rules: pronounce words clearly, with appropriate placement, pronounce each word expressively, do not “eat up” the ending, pronounce the text as if it were the speech of a diplomat or speaker expressing his own thoughts on some serious issue. If you read for at least ten or fifteen minutes every day, adhering to all the rules, you can notice results in your life within a month. oratory skills and auditory memory.
Regular study of poems is good and in a simple way in memory training. When studying a verse, it is necessary to understand its meaning and highlight the techniques that the author used. Divide it into semantic components, highlight the main idea. When learning a poem, it is important to repeat it all the time, saying it out loud, using intonation, conveying the mood of the author, thus further developing diction. You need to repeat it many times, and over time the number of repetitions will decrease. When pronouncing a verse in your head or out loud, the articulatory apparatus is activated. Studying a poem is used for long-term memorization of abstract information. Such memorization occurs, for example, in studying the multiplication table, or memorizing the number Pi.
Auditory memory develops through eavesdropping. When you are among people, in transport or on the street, on a bench, you need to focus on the conversation of other people among themselves, comprehend the information, try to remember it. Then, when you come home, speak out the conversations you heard with the appropriate intonation and remember the expressions on people’s faces at the time of the conversation. By practicing this very often, a person will be able to learn to perceive text fluently by ear and will become much more attentive and sensitive to intonation and tone.
An effective method is the development of memory using the methods of special services. This is a training program that is based on techniques used in intelligence agencies. The effectiveness of such a program has been verified by intelligence officers and counterintelligence officers. This method is presented in the book by the author Denis Bukin, which is called “Development of memory according to the methods of the special services.”
IN modern world Almost everyone is accustomed to the fact that they always have a phone, tablet, or organizer at hand, which stores the necessary information and can always be seen there. Routine work, overloading the memorization process with unnecessary information, and the inability to systematize this information leads to a weakening of mnemonic processes. The book describes a profession in which a well-developed memory is the key to success, or rather, it is vital - this is an intelligence officer. He cannot save the operation plan or map on his phone, he does not have time to leaf through a notepad. All important information should be stored only in the head, all the details, so that they can be clearly reproduced at the right time. Each chapter of the book describes each stage of an intelligence officer's career. Each stage contains techniques, exercises and instructions for them.
Memory development
Developed memory is a very big plus for a person’s personality, as in Everyday life, and at work. In most professions, developed memory is highly valued; it is a great advantage, helping to achieve great achievements at work and take on greater responsibility. Exist certain ways for the development of this process. To remember something, you need to focus on the process, on the material itself. You need to comprehend the information, look for parallels in it in relation to your experience. The more chances there are to establish such a connection, the better the memory will be.
If you need to remember some element, for example, a name, phone number, number, you don’t need to immediately rush to a notepad or the Internet for the answer. Within a couple of minutes, you need to abstract yourself from everything external, look into the depths of your brain and try to remember yourself.
If you need to remember something very important, you need to create some kind of image, a very vivid association in your head regarding it. The brain remembers something original much easier, which makes it easier to remember the right thing. To easily remember numbers, you need to divide them into groups, or, as in the previous method, create associations.
Very effective method memory development there is a simulator for the development of cognitive abilities, called the Vikium project.
In order to remember something well, you need to immediately after perceiving the information, speak it, then retell it to someone else, this will make it easier to remember and better understand the meaning of the material.
Very simple method, which can be applied everywhere, is the mental solution of the simplest arithmetic problems.
Also, the simplest way to develop memory is to replay the events of the day in your head. It is better to do this at the end of each day before going to bed, recreating all the details and episodes, feelings, experiences, emotions that filled this day. You also need to evaluate your actions and actions performed on this day.
Reading books contributes to the development of memorization, the brain concentrates, the text is perceived, and details are stored in memory.
Effective memorization involves understanding the meaning of the text. It is very unprofitable to memorize material mechanically without retelling it in your own words. Such a process will stop at the level of RAM and will not move into long-term memory.
To develop memory, you need to accustom yourself to repeat information, at first it will require multiple repetitions to memorize, after such frequent repetition the brain will be developed enough to remember information faster.
Mechanical movements of the hands help in the development of memory. When a person does some long-term action with his hands, brain structures are activated.
Studying foreign languages Also good remedy to improve memory.
A person’s emotional state will play a significant role. When a person is calm and happy, he will be able to quickly and easily remember information and reproduce it than a person in a state of anger or anxiety.
To develop memory you need to work on it, focused and purposeful. Laziness will contribute to the degradation of the human psyche, and good memory obviously won't characteristic feature such a person. Developed memory opens up great prospects for a person; thanks to memory, one can achieve high results, both at work and in communication.
With the help of neurobics, you can also develop and support this mental process. There is relevant literature that describes a lot of methods for developing this process.
Using the methods described above, you need to load your memory; without regular training, it will weaken, fail and accelerate the aging of thinking.
There are a few more rules that must be followed to effectively develop this process. In order for the memory to be good, it is necessary for the brain to be functional; for this it must be saturated with oxygen, which enters the blood. To do this, you need to often be in the air, take breaks from mental work for a few minutes, do exercises and exercises that promote a rush of blood to the brain.
If a person smokes and does not train his memory, he prescribes for himself a rapid deterioration of mental processes. If a person smokes and trains his memory, such processes begin a little later, but still faster than in people who do not smoke at all.
Adequate sleep promotes the development of this process and ensures brain activity. If a person does not get enough sleep, his memory is impaired. biological level unable to work as required. Because the brain depends on the biological rhythms of day and night, so only at night are brain cells restored and the next morning, after sleeping for seven or eight hours, a person will be ready for a productive working day.
To maintain mental flexibility, you need to give up alcohol. How more people uses, the more damage he causes to his brain. Some people have the experience of not remembering half of the events that happened after drinking alcohol. Especially when you need to learn some material, you should avoid drinking even wine and beer, not to mention stronger drinks. For good developed memory you need to eat right, especially foods that contain phosphoric acid and calcium salts.
All of the above methods and rules, if applied in combination, guarantee the development and preservation of memory for many years.
Memory development in children
From early childhood, memory development occurs in several directions. The first path assumes that mechanical memory gradually begins to change, is supplemented, and then is completely replaced by logical memory. The second direction involves direct memorization of information, gradually turning into indirect, which is used in memorizing and reflecting various mnemonic means. The third way is involuntary memorization, which dominates in childhood, but becomes voluntary with age.
Creation internal methods memorization depends on the development of speech. Memorization that switches from externally mediated to internal, associated with the metamorphoses of speech from external to internal.
Development of memory in children up to school age , in particular, the process of direct memorization proceeds a little faster than the formation of indirect memorization. And at the same time, the gap in the performance of these types of memorization in favor of the first becomes larger.
Development of memory in children of primary school age is expressed by the simultaneous development of direct memorization and indirect, but the rapid development of indirect memory. Developing at a rapid pace, indirect memorization is catching up with direct memorization in terms of productivity.
The development of this process in preschool children is expressed by a gradual transition from unintentional to voluntary memorization. In children of the middle preschool period, by about the age of four, memorization and reproduction, which have not yet been amenable to learning mnemonic functions and in natural conditions developments are involuntary.
Under the same conditions, older preschoolers are characterized by a gradual transition from involuntary to voluntary memorization of material. At the same time, in the corresponding processes, an almost independent process of development of special perceptual actions begins, the development of mediating mnemonic processes aimed at improving the memorization and display of materials.
Not all of these processes develop equally in all children with age; some tend to outstrip others. Thus, voluntary reproduction develops faster than voluntary memorization and surpasses it in development. Memory development depends on the child’s interest and motivation in the activity he performs.
The development of memory in preschool children is characterized by the predominance of involuntary, visual-emotional memory. In junior - middle preschool period, well-developed mechanical and spontaneous memory.
The development of memory in children of primary school age proceeds quite well, especially with regard to mechanical memorization and its progression over a period of three to four years of study, which occurs very quickly. Logical and indirect memory is slightly behind in development, but this is a normal process. Children are fully equipped with rote memory in their learning, work, play and communication. But special training in mnemonic techniques for children from their first years of education significantly improves productivity logical memory. Failure to use these techniques, or inept use of them in practice, may be the reason for the poor development of voluntary memory in young children. Good development This process for children is facilitated by the use of special mnemonic tasks; they are placed in front of children according to their activities.
a form of mental reflection, in the consolidation, preservation and subsequent reproduction of past experience. The main physiological mechanism of P. is the formation, preservation and revival of temporary nerve connections in the cerebral cortex. P. can be genetic, long-term, individual, short-term, sensory, etc.
Excellent definition
Incomplete definition ↓
MEMORY
psychophysiol. a process that performs the functions of consolidating, preserving and subsequently reproducing past experience (in the form of images, thoughts, actions, feelings). Provides the accumulation of impressions about the world around us, serves as the basis for the acquisition of knowledge, skills and abilities and their subsequent use. Saving experience creates an opportunity for a person to learn and develop his psyche (perception, thinking, speech, etc.).
P serves as a necessary condition for the unity of the psyche. a person's life, his personality.
Physiol. the basis of P. is the formation of temporary nerve connections that can be restored and updated in the future under the influence of various factors. irritants.
In accordance with the functions of P., its main ones are distinguished. processes of memorization, storage, reproduction, and forgetting. Chief among them is memorization, which determines the strength and duration of preservation of the material, the completeness and accuracy of its reproduction. Basic the conditions for the productivity of memorization are related to whether it occurs in the form of an involuntary or voluntary process. A person’s use of acquired experience is carried out through the restoration of previously acquired knowledge, skills and abilities. Naib. its simple form is recognition, carried out under conditions of repeated perception of objects that were previously fixed in the P. A more complex form is the reproduction of such objects of past experience, which in this moment are not perceived. Recognition, as well as reproduction, can be voluntary or involuntary. Forgetting manifests itself in different ways - from dep. errors in recollection and recognition to the point of impossibility not only to remember, but also to recognize previously perceived Forgetting can be stable, long-term and temporary.
Exist different types P, functioning in every person, and at the same time the most. type of P. characteristic of a particular person. Types of P. differ depending on the nature of the material being remembered, the method of memorizing it and the time of retention in P.
In accordance with the type of material being remembered, verbal (verbal), figurative, motor and emotional P. was distinguished. A detailed description of these types of P. was given by P. Blonsky, who considered them as genetic. stages of P. development - from motor to emotional, figurative and further to verbal as the highest type of human P. Depending on which analyzer accepts the max. participation in the perception of memorized material, visual, auditory, tactile and other types of P are distinguished.
The connection between two methods of classifying types of P. is expressed both in the fact that material of the same type can be perceived through different modalities, and in the fact that with the help of one modality one can perceive different types material.
From the end 50s 20th century, especially in connection with the study of problems of engineering psychology, special importance is attached to the study of the question of the duration of information storage. On this basis, memory is divided into sensory (storage no more than 1.5 s), short-term (no more than 30 s) and long-term (permanent storage).
Exist individual differences P., which manifest themselves in the primary development of one of the types of P. - verbal, figurative, emotional or motor. Information corresponding to the predominant type of P. is better remembered and restored. Within the specified basics. There are separate types of P. subtypes (eg, P. for faces, for numbers, etc.). Individual differences in P, determined by the method (modality) of information perception, are widely known. In this case, one of the following types of information is remembered better than others - visual, auditory, tactile, etc. For example, people with more developed visual memory better remember verbal material perceived visually, and those with better developed auditory memory. , remember the same text more easily if they perceive it by ear.
One of the factors that determines individual differences in P. is the functioning of the nervous system. However decisive factor there are differences in the activities carried out by people. Accordingly, the most. development is achieved by those types of P., which are more often used by humans.
The work of any person is individual, unique, because it is a reflection of the unique “pattern” of the activity of a particular individual.
The study of individual differences in P. is important both for determining general patterns functioning of P, and to identify reserves for its development in a particular person.
Since ancient times, great importance has been attached to P., but the first attempts objective research were undertaken only in the end. 19 in In accordance with the associationist concept of P., the entire mechanism of memorization comes down to the formation of associations between impressions, directly next friend after each other (G Ebbinghaus, G Müller, F Schumann, A Pilzecker, etc.) Experimental studies of associationists revealed a number of important patterns in the field of P. However, due to the fact that associationists studied only the quantitative and temporal factors of P. (changes in the number of memorized elements when different numbers repetitions of the presented series and depending on their distribution in time, the dependence of the preservation of elements of the series on the time between memorization and reproduction, etc.), their studies did not address such important problems as the dependence of P. on the direction and content of the subject’s activity, the connection between P with perception, thinking, speech and personality as a whole.
Representatives of gestal psychology (V Kohler, K Koffka, M Wertheimer) emphasized the importance of structuring material when memorizing K Levin, unlike other representatives of this direction, emphasized the role of the needs and intentions of the subject in the processes of learning, but interpreted this role as a means of changing tension in the power a field in which a gestalt is formed.
According to the ideas of A Bergson, there are two types of P. P - habit, P. of the body, the cut is based on physiol. mechanisms of the brain, and P. -memory, P. of the spirit, not directly connected with the brain. This theory of two types of P. subsequently served as the basis for a number of authors for a sharp contrast between mechanical and semantic P.
The concept of P. in behaviorism is close to the associationist one. E. Thorndike, K. Hull, B. Skinner emphasized the role of reinforcement in the occurrence of a reaction to a stimulus, but did not take into account the dependence of this reinforcement in humans on his conscious activity and personality characteristics. Based on the recognition of commonality in the behavior of animals and humans, behaviorists studied the issues of assimilation and learning ch. arr. on animals, which did not allow us to give an exhaustive, meaningful description of P.’s processes in humans.
The dependence of P. phenomena on a person’s personality was noted by Z. Freud. According to Freud, everything that does not correspond to a person’s subconscious drives is repressed from P., and, on the contrary, everything pleasant for him is preserved. This dependence has not received experimental confirmation. Freud's position on the primary role of the subconscious in the activities of P. remains debatable.
P. Janet considered P. as an action that gradually becomes more complex and changes in its content in the course of history. development He emphasized the social conditionality of human development and showed its dependence on the activities of people. F. Bartlett pointed to the social aspect of human behavior, explaining with the help social connections distortions of the memorized material that arise during reproduction.
The social nature of P.’s development was studied by L. S. Vygotsky, giving a special role in cultural development humanity to the invention and use of signs and believing that with their help the transformation of directly occurring mental processes occurs. processes into mediated ones, Vygotsky saw the essence of P. in active memorization with the help of signs. P. I. Zinchenko and A. A. Smirnov made great contributions to the study of P.
Modern P.'s research abroad is carried out mainly by representatives of cognitive psychology (R Atkinson, A Badley, etc.) One of the main. principles of this direction - the idea of the inextricable connection of all mental. processes that represent a single cognitive (cognitive) sphere of a person. Accordingly, P. is considered as one of the aspects general process information processing in humans Under the influence of the technical (cybernetic) approach, a block model of information processing appeared, in accordance with the cut cognitive sphere is a set of information. storage facilities (blocks) where incoming material is processed. The P. trace passes sequentially through all the blocks until it is received for permanent storage in the long-term P. block.
In Fatherland psychology, the problems of operational P., the structure of mnemich are studied. actions, encoding information, volume of information, identification mechanisms, etc. Philosophy is being developed. problems of P. theory
P.'s development and ways of her education. P. in a child until about 4 years of age is involuntary. Already in the 1st month of life, elementary sensory impressions, movements, and emotional states are consolidated. By the end of the 1st half of the year, recognition and then reproduction of images of missing objects appears. As the child masters the skills of walking and speaking, P. begins to develop rapidly as a result of the child’s expanding contact with objects and objects. verbal communication. In the process of enriching sensory experience and consolidating it in the speech of children, P. becomes more and more durable. If a 1-year-old child retains impressions for 1-2 weeks, then by the end of the 3rd year they can persist for up to 1 year. In P.’s upbringing, already in the 1st year of life it is necessary to use the child’s indicative reactions to new objects. In the future, it is necessary to expand and deepen the child’s need for familiarization with objects, his practical. And play activity.
In preschool age bas. the place is still occupied by involuntary P. Along with figurative P., preschoolers also develop verbal-logical. P. in its specific form. By the age of 5, the child begins to develop voluntary P. processes, and the beginnings are formed. ability to memorize and recall. In order to prepare children for school, it is necessary to stimulate their development of arbitrary logical thinking. P., using for this not only practical. and play activities, but also classes in children. garden. Let's experiment. data suggests great opportunities development of higher forms of P. in preschoolers in the process of special. training and education.
P.'s further development occurs in the process of training and education at school. Uch. activities are increasingly demanding high requirements to involuntary and especially to voluntary P. of students. Ability to manage your P. - necessary condition consciousness and strong assimilation of knowledge, formation of various. skills and abilities. Children entering school speak only the beginning. skills of arbitrary P.: their verbal-logical. P. is concrete in nature and is closely related to figurative P. By developing concrete verbal and logical language in younger schoolchildren. P., it is necessary to create a basis for the development of abstract verbal-logical. P. for schoolchildren cf. classes, improving it further at Art. schoolchildren.
It is important to take into account the meaning of voluntary and involuntary P. in teaching. work and the relationship between them. If we focus on voluntary P. without fully using the regularities of involuntary P., this often leads to schoolchildren’s formal assimilation of knowledge and to shortcomings in the development of the P. itself. In conditions of optimal organization of teaching. material involuntary P. achieves high productivity in the process of mastering certain knowledge, skills and abilities; with its results, it prepares the ground for the productive work of arbitrary training. Only in these conditions are cramming and formalism in the acquisition of knowledge excluded.
Involuntary logical P. develops successfully as a result of systematic. students' fulfillment of academic, cognizant tasks. Its improvement is directly related to the development of schoolchildren's thinking, to the formation of their analysis, synthesis, abstraction, generalization, comparison, classification, etc. Arbitrary logical. P. develops as a result of performing mnemonic. tasks, and its improvement is associated with students’ mastery of ways of thinking as methods of memorization and reproduction. The development of thinking, being an immediate condition for the development of involuntary P., also serves as a necessary prerequisite for the development of voluntary P. Before applying the classification of objects for memorization purposes, the student must first learn to classify in the process of performing cognizance. tasks.
Thus, main the path of development of involuntary and voluntary logical. P. (in its concrete and abstract form) consists in the formation in schoolchildren of processes of understanding and thinking as specially aimed cognitions. mental actions, bringing them to generalized skills and abilities and using them as memorization and reproduction techniques. For the purpose of rational use of involuntary and voluntary P. in students’ assimilation of knowledge and the creation of conditions successful development these basic types of P. it is necessary to teach schoolchildren to distinguish between cognitions. and mnemic. tasks (understand, understand and remember the material) and equip them with the ability to perform them in different ways. It is taken into account that ml. In schoolchildren, the memorization mindset usually dominates over the understanding mindset, so the latter is often replaced by the former (for them, understanding is more difficult than memorization if the latter is accomplished by simple repetition). This substitution leads to the formal nature of knowledge, the habit of mechanics. memorization, developmental delay logical. P. Meanwhile, mechanical. memorization associated only with repetition of material, without understanding it, is not inevitable. It is the result of shortcomings in the management of the development and upbringing of P. in children. P.’s upbringing must be associated with the education of all aspects of the schoolchildren’s personality, with the education of motives for learning, a sense of duty and responsibility, and habits of willful efforts and so on.
Lit.: Rybnikov N. A., Memory, its psychology and pedagogy, M.-L., 1930; Leontiev A. N., Development of memory, M., 1931; Blonsky P. P., Memory and thinking, M., 1935; Smirnov A. A., Memory and its education, M., 1948; him, Problems of the psychology of memory, M., 1966; 3 a and k about in L.V., Pamyat, M., 1949; Questions of the psychology of memory. Sat., ed. A. A. Smirnova, M., 1958; 3 and and -ch with and to about P.I., Questions of the psychology of memory, in the collection: Psychological science in the USSR. t. 1, M., 1959; Smirnov A. A., Development of memory, ibid.; Zinchenko P. I., Rep-kina G. V. On the formulation of the problem of RAM, VP, 1964, No. 6; Zinchenko P.I., Sereda G.K., Involuntary memory and learning, SP, 1964, No. 12; Rogovin M. S. Philos. problems of memory theory, M., 1966; Age and individual differences in memory, ed. A. A. Smirnova, M., 1967; Sokolov E. N., Memory mechanism, M., 1969; Let's experiment. psychology. Sat. art., ed.-comp. P. Fresse and J. Piaget, trans. from French, in. 4, M, 1973; Kladki R., Human Memory, trans. from English, M., 1978; Reader on general psychology. Psychology of memory, M., 1979; A t k i -son R., Human memory and the learning process, trans. from English, M., 1980.
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All living beings have memory, but it has reached the highest level of development in humans. Memory connects the past with the present. It is memory that allows a person to be aware of his “I”, to act in the world around him, to be who he is. Human memory is a form of mental reflection, consisting in the accumulation, consolidation, preservation and subsequent reproduction by an individual of his experience. Ours is a functional formation that does its work through the interaction of three main processes: memorization, storage and reproduction of information. These processes not only interact, there is a mutual conditionality between them. After all, you can only save what you remember, and reproduce what you save.
Memorization. Human memory begins with memorizing information: words, images, impressions. The main task of the memorization process is to remember accurately, quickly and a lot. There is a distinction between involuntary and voluntary memorization. Voluntary memorization is activated when the goal is to remember not only what is imprinted in his memory, but also what is necessary. Voluntary memorization is active, purposeful, and has a volitional beginning.
What is personally significant, connected with a person’s activities and his interests, has the nature of involuntary memorization. When remembering involuntarily, a person is passive. Involuntary memorization clearly demonstrates such a property of memory as selectivity. If you ask different people, what they remember most at the same wedding, some will easily talk about who gave what gifts to the newlyweds, others - what they ate and drank, others - what music they danced to, etc. However, neither the first, nor the second, nor the third set themselves a clear goal of remembering something specifically. Selectivity of memory worked.
It is worth mentioning the “Zeigarnik effect” (which was first described in 1927. Soviet psychologist Bluma Vulfovna Zeigarnik (1900-1988): a person involuntarily remembers incomplete actions, situations that have not received a natural resolution, much better.
If we were unable to finish drinking something, eating something, or getting what we wanted, while being close to the goal, then this is remembered thoroughly and for a long time, and what was successfully completed is forgotten quickly and easily. The reason is that an unfinished action is a source of strong negative ones, which are much more powerful than positive ones in terms of impact.
Many scientists have studied memory techniques. In particular, the German psychologist G. Ebbinghaus formulated a number of principles of memorization. He believed that repetition (indirect or direct) is the only relative guarantee of the reliability of memorization. Moreover, the result of memorization depends to a certain extent on the number of repetitions. Ebbinghaus's law states: the number of repeated presentations required to learn the entire series grows much faster than the object of the presented series. If a subject remembers 8 digits from one presentation (display), then to memorize 9 digits he will need 3-4 presentations. The scientist also emphasizes the importance of the volitional factor. The higher the concentration of attention on any information, the faster the memorization will occur.
However, it has been found that rote repetition is less effective than meaningful memorization. The direction of modern psychology - mnemonics - is engaged in the development of numerous memorization techniques based on the principle of associative connection: translating information into images, graphs, pictures, diagrams.
Highlight four types of human memory in accordance with the type of material being remembered.
1. Motor memory, i.e. the ability to remember and reproduce a system of motor operations (drive a car, braid a braid, tie a tie, etc.).
2. Figurative memory - the ability to save and further use the data of our perception. It can be (depending on the receiving analyzer) auditory, visual, tactile, olfactory and gustatory.
3. Emotional memory captures the feelings we have experienced, a feature emotional states and affects. A child who is frightened by a large dog, most likely, even as an adult, will experience hostility towards these animals for a long time (memory of fear).
4. Verbal memory (verbal-logical, semantic) - highest form memory, unique to humans. With its help, most mental actions and operations are carried out (counting, reading, etc.), and the information base of the human is formed.
In different people to a greater extent one or another type of memory is developed: athletes have motor memory, artists have figurative memory, etc.
Saving information. The main requirement for human memory is to store information reliably, for a long time and without loss. There are several levels of memory, differing in how long information can be stored on each of them.
1. Sensory (immediate) type of memory. These memory systems hold accurate and complete data about how the world is perceived by our senses at the receptor level. Data is stored for 0.1-0.5 seconds. The way sensory memory works is easy to spot: close your eyes, then open them for a second and close them again. The clear picture you see remains for some time, and then slowly disappears.
2. Short-term memory allows you to process a colossal amount of information without overloading the brain, due to the fact that it weeds out everything unnecessary and leaves the useful, necessary for solving current (momentary) problems.
3. Long-term memory ensures long-term storage and application of information. The capacity and duration of storing information in long-term memory can be unlimited. There are two types of long-term memory. The first is at the level of consciousness. A person can remember in his own way, extract necessary information. The second type is closed long-term memory, in which information is stored at the subconscious level. Under normal conditions, a person does not have access to this information; only with the help of psychoanalytic procedures, in particular hypnosis, as well as stimulation of various parts of the brain, can one gain access to it and update images, thoughts, and experiences in all details.
4. Intermediate memory is between short-term and long-term memory. It ensures that information is stored for several hours. While awake, a person accumulates information throughout the day. To prevent the brain from being overloaded, it is necessary to free it from unnecessary information. Information accumulated over the past day is cleared, categorized and stored in long-term memory during night sleep. Scientists have found that this requires at least three hours of sleep a night.
5. Working memory is a type of human memory that manifests itself during the performance of a certain activity and serves this activity.
Playback. The requirements for the process of memory reproduction are accuracy and timeliness. In psychology, there are four forms of reproduction:
1) recognition - occurs when repeating the perception of objects and phenomena;
2) memory - carried out in the real absence of perceived objects. Typically, memories are carried out through associations that provide automatic, involuntary reproduction;
3) remembering - carried out in the absence of a perceived object and is associated with active volitional activity on updating information;
4) reminiscence - delayed reproduction of something previously perceived and seemingly forgotten. With this form of memory retrieval, events that are more recent are recalled more easily and accurately than those that happened in the recent past.
Forgetting is the flip side of memory retention. This is a process that leads to a loss of clarity and a reduction in the amount of data that can be updated in . Mostly forgetting is not an anomaly of memory, it is a natural process that is caused by a number of factors.
1. Time - in less than an hour a person mechanically forgets half of the information he has just received.
2. Active use available information - what is forgotten first of all is what is not constantly needed. However, childhood experiences and motor skills such as skating, playing musical instrument, the ability to swim, remain quite stable for many years without any exercise. It remains on a subconscious level, as if something that disturbs the psychological balance and causes negative tension (traumatic impressions) is forgotten.
Information in our memory is not stored unchanged, like documents in an archive. In memory, the material is subject to change and qualitative reconstruction.
Human memory disorders. Various memory disorders are very common, although most people do not notice them or notice them too late. The very concept of “normal memory” is quite vague. Hyperfunction of memory is usually associated with strong excitement, feverish excitement, taking certain medications or hypnotic effects. A form of intrusive memories is a violation of emotional balance, feelings of uncertainty and anxiety, creating a thematic focus of memory hyperfunction. For example, we constantly remember our extremely unpleasant, unseemly actions. It is almost impossible to expel such memories: they haunt us, cause a feeling of shame and torment of conscience.
In practice, weakening of memory function and partial loss of storing or reproducing existing information are more common. Weakening of selective reduction, difficulties in reproducing material needed at the moment (titles, dates, names, terms, etc.) are considered to be the earliest manifestations of memory deterioration. Then, the weakening of memory can take the form of progressive amnesia, the causes of which are alcoholism, trauma, age-related and negative personality changes, sclerosis, and diseases.
In modern psychology, there are known facts of memory deceptions, which take the form of extremely one-sided selectivity of memories, false memories and memory distortions. They are usually due strong desires, passions, unmet needs. For example, when a child is given sweets, he quickly eats it, and then “forgets” about it and sincerely proves that he did not receive anything.
Memory distortion is often associated with a weakening of the ability to distinguish between one’s own and someone else’s, between what a person experienced in reality and what he heard about, saw in movies or read. When multiple repetitions Such memories are completely personified, i.e. a person begins to consider other people's thoughts as his own. The presence of facts of memory deception indicates how closely it is connected with human fantasy.
It is known that each of our experiences, impressions or movements constitutes a certain trace that can be preserved for quite some time. long time, and under appropriate conditions appear again and become an object of consciousness. Therefore, under memory we understand the imprinting (recording), preservation and subsequent recognition and reproduction of traces of past experience, which allows us to accumulate information without losing previous knowledge, information, and skills.
Thus, memory is a complex mental process consisting of several private processes associated with each other. All consolidation of knowledge and skills relates to the work of memory. Accordingly, psychological science faces a number of difficult problems. She sets herself the task of studying how traces are imprinted, what are the physiological mechanisms of this process, and what techniques can expand the volume of imprinted material.
The study of memory was one of the first branches of psychological science to apply experimental method: Attempts have been made to measure the processes being studied and to describe the laws that govern them. Back in the 80s of the last century, the German psychologist G. Ebbinghaus proposed a technique with the help of which, as he believed, it was possible to study the laws of pure memory, independent of the activity of thinking - this is the memorization of meaningless syllables, as a result, he derived the main curves of memorization (memorization ) material. The classical studies of G. Ebbinghaus were accompanied by the work of the German psychiatrist E. Kraepelin, who applied these techniques to the analysis of how memorization proceeds in patients with mental changes, and the German psychologist G. E. Müller, whose basic research is devoted to the basic laws of consolidation and reproduction of memory traces in humans.
With the development of objective research into animal behavior, the field of memory research has been significantly expanded. At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries. studies of the famous American psychologist Thorndike, who first made the subject of study the formation of skills in an animal, using for this purpose an analysis of how the animal learned to find its way in a maze and how it gradually consolidated the acquired skills. In the first decade of the 20th century. Research into these processes has acquired a new scientific form. I. P. Pavlov was offered study method conditioned reflexes . The conditions under which new ones arise and are maintained have been described. conditional connections and which influence this retention. The doctrine of higher nervous activity and its basic laws later became the main source of our knowledge about physiological mechanisms memory, and the development and preservation of skills and the process of “learning” in animals constituted the main content of American behavioral science. All these studies were limited to the study of the most elementary memory processes.
The merit of the first systematic study of higher forms of memory in children belongs to the outstanding to a domestic psychologist L. S. Vygotsky, who in the late 20s. first began researching the question of the development of higher forms of memory and, together with his students, showed that higher forms of memory are a complex form mental activity, social in origin, tracing the main stages of development of the most complex mediated memorization. Research by A. A. Smirnov and P. I. Zinchenko, who revealed new and essential laws of memory as meaningful human activity, established the dependence of memorization on the task at hand and identified the basic techniques for memorizing complex material.
And only over the past 40 years the situation has changed significantly. Studies have emerged that show that the imprinting, storage and reproduction of traces are associated with profound biochemical changes, in particular with the modification of RNA, and that memory traces can be transferred humorally, biochemically.
Finally, research has emerged that has attempted to isolate the areas of the brain required for memory retention and the neurological mechanisms underlying remembering and forgetting. All this made the section on the psychology and psychophysiology of memory one of the richest in psychological science. Many of the listed theories still exist at the level of hypotheses, but one thing is clear: memory is a complex mental process, consisting of different levels, different systems and including the operation of many mechanisms.
As the most common ground to highlight various types memory is the dependence of its characteristics on the characteristics of the activity of memorization and reproduction.
In this case, individual types of memory are distinguished in accordance with three main criteria:- by the nature of mental activity, predominant in activity, memory is divided into motor, emotional, figurative and verbal-logical;
- by the nature of the goals of the activity- into involuntary and voluntary;
- by duration of fixation and retention materials (in connection with its role and place in the activity) - for short-term, long-term and operational.
Direct imprint of sensory information. This system maintains a fairly accurate and complete picture of the world, perceived by the senses. The duration of saving the picture is very short - 0.1-0.5 s.
- Tap your hand with 4 fingers. Watch the immediate sensations, how they fade, so that at first you still have the real sensation of the tap, and then only the memory of what it was.
- Move a pencil or just a finger back and forth in front of your eyes, looking straight ahead. Notice the blurry image following the moving object.
- Close your eyes, then open them for a moment and close them again. Watch how the clear, clear picture you see persists for a while and then slowly disappears.
Short-term memory
Short-term memory retains a different type of material than the immediate imprint of sensory information. IN in this case the information retained is not a complete representation of events that occurred at the sensory level, but a direct interpretation of those events. For example, if a phrase is said in front of you, you will remember not so much its constituent sounds as the words. Usually the last 5-6 units from the presented material are remembered. By making a conscious effort to repeat the material over and over again, you can retain it in short term memory for an indefinitely long time.
Long-term memory.
There is a clear and compelling difference between the memory of an event that just happened and events of the distant past. Long-term memory is the most important and most complex of memory systems. The capacity of the first named memory systems is very limited: the first consists of several tenths of seconds, the second - several storage units. However, some limits to the volume of long-term memory still exist, since the brain is a finite device. It consists of 10 billion neurons and each is capable of holding a significant amount of information. Moreover, it is so large that one can practically assume that the memory capacity of the human brain is unlimited. Anything held for more than a few minutes must be in the long-term memory system.
The main source of difficulties associated with long-term memory is the problem of retrieval of information. The amount of information contained in memory is very large and therefore presents serious difficulties. However, you can quickly find what you need.
RAM
The concept of RAM refers to mnemonic processes that serve current actions and operations. Such memory is designed to retain information, followed by forgetting the corresponding information. The shelf life of this type of memory depends on the task and can vary from several minutes to several days. When we perform any complex operation, for example arithmetic, we carry it out in parts, pieces. At the same time, we keep some intermediate results “in mind” as long as we are dealing with them. As we move towards the final result specific “spent” material may be forgotten.
Motor memory
Motor memory is the memorization, storage and reproduction of various movements and their systems. There are people with a pronounced predominance of this type of memory over other types. One psychologist admitted that he was completely unable to reproduce a piece of music in his memory, and could only reproduce an opera he had recently heard as a pantomime. Other people, on the contrary, do not notice their motor memory at all. Great value This type of memory is that it serves as the basis for the formation of various practical and work skills, as well as the skills of walking, writing, etc. Without memory for movements, we would have to learn to carry out the appropriate actions every time. Usually a sign of good motor memory is physical agility person, skill in work, “golden hands”.
Emotional memory
Emotional memory is memory for feelings. Emotions always signal how our needs are being met. Emotional memory is very important for human life. Feelings experienced and stored in memory appear as signals that either encourage action or deter action that caused a negative experience in the past. Empathy - the ability to sympathize, empathize with another person, the hero of a book, is based on emotional memory.
Figurative memory
Figurative memory - memory for ideas, pictures of nature and life, as well as sounds, smells, tastes. It can be visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory, gustatory. If visual and auditory memory, as a rule, are well developed, and play a leading role in the life orientation of all normal people, then tactile, olfactory and gustatory memory in in a certain sense can be called professional types. Like the corresponding sensations, these types of memory develop especially intensively in connection with specific conditions of activity, reaching an amazingly high level in conditions of compensation or replacement missing species memory, for example, in the blind, deaf, etc.
Verbal-logical memory
The content of verbal-logical memory is our thoughts. Thoughts do not exist without language, which is why memory for them is called not just logical, but verbal-logical. Since thoughts can be embodied in different ways language form, then their reproduction can be oriented toward conveying either only the basic meaning of the material or its literal verbal presentation. If in the latter case the material is not subject to semantic processing at all, then its literal memorization turns out to be no longer logical, but mechanical memorization.
Voluntary and involuntary memory
There is, however, a division of memory into types that is directly related to the characteristics of the actual activity itself. So, depending on the goals of the activity, memory is divided into involuntary and voluntary. Memorization and reproduction, in which there is no special goal to remember or remember something, is called involuntary memory; in cases where it is a purposeful process, we speak of voluntary memory. In the latter case, the processes of memorization and reproduction act as special mnemonic actions.
Involuntary and voluntary memory at the same time represent 2 successive stages of memory development. Everyone knows from experience what a huge place in our life occupies involuntary memory, on the basis of which, without special mnemonic intentions and efforts, the main part of our experience is formed, both in volume and in life significance. However, in human activity there often arises the need to manage one’s memory. Under these conditions, voluntary memory plays an important role, making it possible to deliberately learn or remember what is necessary.
- Every time you can’t remember a name or the name of a place, make a note in your diary.
- What if I can’t remember about the diary?..
In this article, we will introduce you to the principles of memory, talk about techniques for memorizing and retrieving memories, share exercises, recommendations from scientists, and unexpected facts about memory. You will definitely remember this :)
How memory works
Did you know that the very word “memory” misleads us? It makes it seem like we're talking about one thing, one mental skill. But over the past fifty years, scientists have discovered that there are several different memory processes. For example, we have short-term and long-term memory.
Everyone knows that short term memory used when you need to hold a thought in your mind for about a minute (for example, phone number, which you are going to call). At the same time, it is very important not to think about anything else - otherwise you will immediately forget the number. This statement is true for both young and old people, but for the latter its relevance is still slightly higher. Short-term memory is involved in various processes, for example, is used to track changes in a number when adding or subtracting.
Long term memory b is responsible for everything that we need in more than a minute, even if during this period you were distracted by something else. Long-term memory is divided into procedural and declarative.
- Procedural memory concerns activities such as riding a bicycle or playing the piano. Once you learn how to do this, subsequently your body will simply repeat necessary movements- and it is controlled by procedural memory.
- Declarative memory, in turn, is involved in the conscious retrieval of information, for example when you need to retrieve a shopping list. This type of memory can be either verbal (verbal) or visual (visual) and is divided into semantic and episodic memory.
- Semantic memory refers to the meaning of concepts (particularly people's names). Let us assume that knowledge of what a bicycle is belongs to this type of memory.
- Episodic memory- to events. For example, knowing when you are last time went for a bike ride, appeals to your episodic memory. Part of episodic memory is autobiographical - it concerns various events and life experiences.
Finally we got to prospective memory- it refers to things you are going to do: call a car service, or buy a bouquet of flowers and visit your aunt, or clean the cat's litter box.
How memories are formed and returned
Memory is a mechanism that causes impressions received in the present to influence us in the future. For the brain, new experiences mean spontaneous neural activity. When something happens to us, clusters of neurons come into action, transmitting electrical impulses. Gene work and protein production create new synapses and stimulate the growth of new neurons.
But the process of forgetting is similar to how snow falls on objects, covering them with itself, from which they become white-white - so much so that you can no longer distinguish where everything was.
An impulse that provokes the retrieval of a memory - internal (thought or feeling) or external event, causes the brain to associate with an incident from the past. works as a kind of predictive device: it constantly prepares for the future based on the past. Memories condition our perception of the present by providing a “filter” through which we look and automatically assume what will happen next.
The mechanism for retrieving memories has an important property. It has only been thoroughly studied in the last twenty-five years: when we retrieve an encoded memory from internal storage, it is not necessarily recognized as something from the past.
Let's take cycling for example. You get on a bike and just ride, and clusters of neurons fire in your brain that allow you to pedal, balance, and brake. This is one type of memory: an event in the past (trying to learn to ride a bike) influenced your behavior in the present (you ride it), but you do not experience today's bike ride as a memory of the first time you managed to do it.
If we ask you to remember the very first time you rode a bicycle, you will think, scan your memory storage, and, say, you will have an image of your dad or older sister running after you, you will remember the fear and pain of the first fall or the delight of you managed to get to the nearest turn. And you will know for sure that you are remembering something from the past.
The two types of memory processing are closely related in our daily lives. Those that help us pedal are called implicit memories, and the ability to remember the day we learned to ride is called explicit memories.
Master of mosaics
We have short-term working memory, a slate of consciousness, on which we can place a picture at any given moment. And, by the way, it has a limited capacity where the images present in the foreground of consciousness are stored. But there are other types of memory.
In the left hemisphere, the hippocampus generates factual and linguistic knowledge; in the right - arranges the “bricks” life story by time and topic. All this work makes the memory “search engine” more efficient. The hippocampus can be compared to a jigsaw puzzle: it connects individual fragments of images and sensations of implicit memories into complete “pictures” of factual and autobiographical memory.
If the hippocampus is suddenly damaged, for example due to a stroke, memory will also be impaired. Daniel Siegel told this story in his book: “Once at a dinner with friends, I met a man with this problem. He politely told me that he had had several bilateral hippocampal strokes and asked me not to be offended if I went away for a second to get myself some water and he didn’t remember me later. And sure enough, I returned with a glass in my hands, and we introduced ourselves to each other again.”
Like some types of sleeping pills, alcohol is notorious for temporarily shutting down our hippocampus. However, the state of blackout caused by alcohol is not the same as temporary loss of consciousness: the person is conscious (although incapacitated), but does not encode what is happening in explicit form. People experiencing such memory lapses may not remember how they got home or how they met the person with whom they woke up in the same bed in the morning.
The hippocampus also shuts down when angry, and people who suffer from uncontrollable rage are not necessarily lying when they claim not to remember what they said or did in this altered state of consciousness.
How to test your memory
Psychologists use different techniques to test memory. Some of them can be done independently at home.
- Verbal memory test. Ask someone to read 15 words to you (only unrelated words: “bush, bird, hat”, etc.). Repeat them: people under 45 usually remember about 7-9 words. Then listen to this list four more times. Norm: reproduce 12–15 words. Go about your business and after 15 minutes repeat the words (but only from memory). Most middle-aged people cannot reproduce more than 10 words.
- Visual memory test. Draw this complex diagram, and after 20 try to draw it from memory. The more details you remember, the better your memory is.
How memory is related to the senses
According to scientist Michael Merzenich, “One of the most important conclusions drawn from the results of the recent study is that the senses (hearing, vision, and others) are closely related to memory and cognitive abilities. Because of this interdependence, the weakness of one often means, or even causes, the weakness of the other.
For example, it is known that patients suffering from Alzheimer's disease gradually lose their memory. And one of the manifestations of this disease is that they begin to eat less. It turned out that since the symptoms of this disease include visual impairment, patients (among other reasons) simply do not see food...
Another example concerns normal age-related changes cognitive activity. As a person ages, he becomes more and more forgetful and absent-minded. This is largely explained by the fact that the brain no longer processes sensory signals as well as before. As a result, we lose the ability to retain new visual images of our experiences as clearly as before, and we subsequently have trouble using and retrieving them.”
By the way, it is curious that exposure to blue light enhances the reaction to emotional stimuli of the hypothalamus and amygdala, that is, the areas of the brain responsible for organizing attention and memory. So looking at all shades of blue is helpful.
Techniques and exercises for memory training
The first and most important thing you need to know to have a good memory is. Studies have shown that the hippocampus, responsible for spatial memory, is enlarged in taxi drivers. This means that the more often you engage in activities that use your memory, the better you improve it.
And also here are a few more techniques that will help you develop your memory, improve your ability to recall and remember everything you need.
1. Go crazy!