6 important facts about how our brains remember information

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

From our article, you will learn about several principles that will help your brain learn new languages, master musical instruments, pump kitchen skills and simply extract knowledge from books.

Everyone has their own little tricks to help you remember more and better. From putting a book of poetry under the pillow for children to sketching their thoughts. Science, on the other hand, describes a number of common features of how the human brain receives new information.

1. We remember what we see better

The brain uses 50% of its resources to analyze the information it sees. In other words, half of its power is devoted to the processing of visual processes, and the rest is divided among the rest of the body's abilities. Moreover, vision directly affects other senses. A perfect example of this is a test in which 54 wine lovers were asked to taste several samples of a grape drink. The experimenters mixed tasteless, odorless red dye into white wines to see if the participants could spot the trick. They failed, and red went instead of white with a bang.

Sight is such an important part of how we interpret the world that it can overwhelm other people's senses.

Another surprise discovery related to vision is that we see text as separate images. As you read these lines, your brain perceives each letter as a picture. This fact makes reading incredibly inefficient compared to obtaining information from images. At the same time, we pay more attention to moving objects than static ones.

Images and animations can speed up your learning curve. Add doodles, photographs, or newspaper and magazine clippings to your notes. Use colors and diagrams to illustrate new knowledge.

2. We remember the big picture better than its particulars

As you explore a myriad of new concepts, it's not hard to drown in an ever-increasing stream of data. In order to avoid overload, it is necessary to look back and outline the big picture. You must understand how fresh knowledge fits into a single puzzle, how it can be useful. The brain assimilates information better if it makes a connection between it and something previously known within the same structure.

For a better understanding, let's give a metaphor. Imagine your crinkles are a wardrobe with many shelves. As you lay out more and more clothes in the closet, you begin to separate them according to different criteria. And here's a new thing (new information) - a black jacket. It can be sent to other knitted things, put in a winter wardrobe, or assigned to dark brothers. In real life, your jacket will find its place in one of these corners. In your brain, knowledge connects with everyone else. You can easily remember the information later, because it is already permeated with the threads of what is firmly stuck in your head.

Keep in sight a large outline or lists of notes that explain the whole picture of what you are learning, and add new elements each time you go along the hard way.

3. Sleep strongly affects memory

Research has shown that a full night of sleep between cramming and exam significantly improves results. One experiment tested participants' motor skills after intensive training. And those subjects who slept 12 hours prior to testing performed far better than those tested every 4 hours of waking hours.

The nap also adds a positive effect. Within the walls of the University of California, it turned out that students who kemaril after solving a difficult task performed the following tasks better than those who did not close their eyelids.

It is important to know that sleep is good not only after, but also before training. It turns the brain into a dry sponge, ready to absorb every drop of knowledge.

Try to practice new skills and read before bed or nap. When you wake up, put on paper what you have learned.

4. Lack of sleep is detrimental to learning

Lack of awareness of sleep and underestimation of its importance adversely affects the "flexibility" of your convolutions. Science is still very far from a detailed description of all the healing functions of rest, but it clearly understands what the lack of it leads to. The lack of sleep forces the head to slow down, to act without a healthy risk according to formulaic patterns. In addition, the chance of getting physical damage increases due to the fatigue of all the "cogs" of the body.

In terms of learning, lack of sleep reduces the brain's ability to accept new information by 40%. So there is no need to torment yourself at nights with low efficiency, it is better to rest and wake up fully armed.

The results of research from Harvard Medical School contain interesting numbers: restricting sleep in the first 30 hours after learning something new can negate all achievements, even if you get a good night's sleep after those days.

Normalize the amount and frequency of sleep during training. This way you will be much more attentive and avoid memory lapses.

5. We ourselves learn better when we teach others

Information is absorbed better if it has to be shared with someone in the future. In this case, we structure knowledge better and remember more important details.

This is confirmed by a very revealing experiment. Scientists divided the participants into two equal groups and gave them the same tasks. According to legend, half of the subjects had to convey their knowledge to other people a little later. It is not hard to guess that future “teachers” showed a deeper level of assimilation. Researchers have seen with their own eyes the power of a “responsible mindset,” which has yielded such an effective result.

Approach learning from a “mentor” perspective. So your subconscious mind will force the brain to distinguish the subtleties of similar definitions, carefully disassemble the material and delve into the nuances.

6. We learn better with alternation tactics

Often times, repetition seems like the only sure way to memorize information or hone a skill. You have used this method more than once when memorizing a poem or throwing into the goal with one hand. However, a less obvious alternation tactic may be more effective.

For example, in one experiment, participants were shown paintings of different artistic styles. The first group was shown sequentially six examples of each style, and the second - mixed (different schools in random order). The latter won: they guessed belonging to the style twice as often. Curiously, 70% of all subjects before the study were convinced that the sequence should give odds to the alternation.

You shouldn't get hung up on penalties only during training. When studying a foreign language, mix memorizing words with listening to speech in the original or in writing.