Memory Surprises
Summary
Introduction
Have you ever wondered why some things are easy to recall, while others need hours of study? For example, you might be able to recollect what happened at your birthday party without any practice, but you need hours of study before you can recite a few lines for a theater play. Our mind stores and remembers information in fascinating ways. Remember to do this activity and you will be surprised at what your memory can do for you!
Background
You might have noticed that the human memory often fails to produce an exact replica of what was, but it excels at creating a reconstruction or interpretation. If you hear a story or explanation, you quickly pick up the essence of it. Your mind jumps in to classify, label, fill in, or even distort details so the story or explanation makes sense to you. It makes connections to knowledge that is already in your memory. That interpretation can be stored in your memory and is rather easy to recall, much easier than remembering an exact copy of the story or explanation you heard. It takes a lot of effort to store an exact copy so that you can reproduce it later.
There might be a reason why nature has evolved in such a way. This flexible method of storing information allows us to more easily combine separate ideas and make connections, or to recognize the known in unknown situations. We can change our viewpoint and change how we remember things accordingly. It seems like our memory is designed so we can easily use and generalize memories from the past to plan and do better in the future—a valuable survival skill! Being able to remember exactly what happened, or what was said, read or heard might not be as important for survival.
Materials
- Paper
- Pencil
- Partner
Instructions
- Read the following list of words or ask your partner to read the list aloud for you: bed, dreams, cozy, rest, night, tent, blanket, yawn, snore, nap. We will come back to this list later in the activity.
- If you use money, draw from memory a coin or bill you use frequently. If you are not that familiar with money, choose an object you use or see frequently that has a fair amount of detail. It could be the wrapper of your favorite candy, a soap bottle, the painting hanging in your living room, etc. Draw this object from memory. It is important to add as many details as you can remember. Do not worry about your drawing skills—this activity is about remembering details. Is it easy to recall how the object looks? Do you feel unsure about some of the details?
- If you have the object you drew available, compare your drawing to the real object. Are the details in your drawing placed correctly? Did you accurately remember how the object looked? If you did, why do you think this was the case? If you did not, why do you think it can be hard to accurately remember how objects look, even the ones you see frequently?
- Back to the list of ten words. Here are three words: bed, car, and sleep. Which of these words were part of the original list? How sure do you feel about your answer?
- Look back at the list or have someone read the words for you. Were you correct?
- If you are like most people, you thought ‘sleep’ was part of the list while it was not. Why do you think most people think this word was part of the original list? What could this tell us about our memory?
Extra: Do you think it is necessary to distract the mind between hearing or reading the list of words and the question which words were part of it? Find some volunteers to try it out!
Extra: Do you think the list paper, story, reading, magazine, school, study, pencil, and chapter can trick people into believing the word ‘book’ was part of it? Why do you think this? Be sure to test it on some volunteers!
Extra: Can you create a list of words that can trick people into believing a different word was part of it?
Observations and Results
Was it hard to accurately remember the details of an object you see frequently? Were you convinced ‘sleep’ was a word that appeared in the list? If that was the case, you are like most people. Our memory rarely produces an exact copy of what was. Rather, it reconstructs what was, while keeping what our mind identified as the essence intact.
Your memory stores enough information to easily recognize objects you see or use frequently, as that is all you need to perform well in daily tasks. Unless you paid very close attention to the details at some point in the past, your memory did not store them, and you cannot recall them when asked to make a drawing. If you compared your drawing with the real object and identified the details that were distorted or left out, you will probably remember more details the next time you draw this object. Paying attention in a meaningful way helps build memory.
The test with the ten words also shows how our memory is good at recalling the general idea— the concept— but not the exact words. Did you notice that all the words in the list revolve around the concept of sleep? The mind picks this up and remembers it, and, when asked later, it is convinced sleep was part of the list.
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Additional Resources
- Study Skills Science: Investigating Memory Mnemonics, from Scientific American
- Sentient Skills Science: What Makes Some Memories So Memorable?, from Scientific American
- Science Activities for All Ages!, from Science Buddies
