Essays on Memories

In a world where memory manipulation is becoming bolder, you wouldn’t believe that in dreams memories are actually being shown. In the book Brave New World, there was a part in the book where the director told Bernard a story about him and “beta-minus,” (Huxley 96). In this brief story, the director told Bernard that he “actually dreams about it sometimes, dream of being woken up,” (Huxley 97). He was reflecting his memory inside of his dreams; which would support “new research targeting relationships between dreaming, memory and the hippocampus is producing a new theory to explain how, why and when we dream of waking life events,” ( Nielsen 1287). Dreams can show past memories or future memories (pre-cognitive dreaming). Humans don’t know it, but by dreaming like this humans manipulate their own memory by repeating it in a dream. Each time humans dream about the memory becomes more vivid.

Manipulating memory could mean the end of the world. Humans would be stripped of all self-taught lessons and would be influenced by the government. All the memories of people should focus on the knowledge from self-taught and pre-taught lessons. Besides some memories, we don’t want to remember, “Freud believed that the conscious mind often dealt with unpleasant or dangerous information by pushing it into unconsciousness, by an act of repression” (Lahey 249).

Essay on memory (150 words)

Falsifying Memories

Most people probably feel really attached to their memories. Although memories may be hazy sometimes, but people usually confidently think that retrieved memories are highly likely to be accurate. Memory tells people who they are, where they come from. It helps to separate today from yesterday. But is memory dependable? Can false memories implant in human minds?

It sounds impossible because the human memory depends on what the person really saw. Nevertheless, a large number of experimental studies by psychologist have proved that human memories can be manipulated. Elizabeth Loftus is a top American cognitive psychologist and expert on human memory who has spent most of her life conducted extensive research on the reliability of our memories. She provided the memories can impact by factors surrounding people, such as environment, mood, or experiences. Many other factors will cause a negative impact on short-term memory recall. The degree of interference is related to the specific type and characteristics of the sound, and even the quiet background sound has a negative impact on the memory. Also, word frequency and speed speech also affect short memory recall.

Essay on memory (250 words)

Things you can do to improve your memory

Surprisingly, the apps on your phone are not the answer. When studying, make sure your basic needs are met. If you are tired, this can keep you from concentrating and why you may read the same paragraph over and over. Take a time out and take a nap. Feeling hungry? Eat. If you are hungry you will pay attention to that more than what you are trying to absorb and learn. Take five minutes to grab a snack.

Your brain needs fuel just as you do. If the information is not that appealing, take time out to do something else. Studying in short increments can help with pesky class readings. Try to break up what you are studying. Studying the same subject over and over can takes its toll. Try to switch it up. Instead of doing psychology eight hours straight, mix it up with math or any other subject that does not pertain to what you are studying. Studying and then going to sleep is the best way to remember what you were learning. When you go to sleep right after learning something new, any new information after that will not push out what you have already learned.

Memory has a lot of components on how it works and things that can affect it. Several different areas of the brain play a role on memory and where it is stored. There is a lot about how the brain and memory works that we do not quite understand. Further research and studies need to be conducted before we can fully understand all the entails how we remember and store our memories.

Essay on memory (450 words)

The site that I chose to use to further my understanding of memorization is simplypsychology.org. The website is current as it is published in 2007, it is relevant and meets the assignment's requirements, and it contains information appropriate for my research assignment. Furthermore, the website is also valid from an authority perspective as it is written and coded by Saul McLeod, who is a graduate-level teaching assistant at The University of Manchester. McLeod also has a degree in psychology and a master's degree in research and is also pursuing his Ph.D. part-time at The University of Manchester.

McLeod basically restates the book's explanation when he describes and explains in-depth the stages of memory: encoding, storage, and retrieval. However, also he goes onto describe how many of the experiments that verify how memories work may be too artificial or meaningless because the setting of the experiment is one that would not be optimal, that is, many of the psychological studies on memory may have low ecological validity.
For my upcoming midterm, I will design and use a study plan that best fits my study needs as well as one that is optimized for my specific goal of doing as well as I possibly can on the midterm.

Firstly, I will pay attention and stay focused on one thing at a time. For me, this means eliminating all distractions, such as my phone, television, and most importantly, others. I have always found that studying alone is much more effective than studying with others as I simply find it too hard to stay focused on the task at hand. Secondly, I will use imagery to help me remember a mental picture of what a word or phrase means. By using imagery, I will also be double-encoding the information and allowing an increased amount of neuron connections to foster. Thirdly, I will rehearse and reconstruct definitions of words and phrases repeatedly until I have the definition memorized for each term. I will do this in the manner of printing off glossary definitions on one side of a paper, then printing off the term on the other side of the paper. In this manner, I will be forced to come up with the term from only seeing the definition, which will result in even further repetition of the word. Finally, I will use personal retrieval cues as much as possible. By linking the terms and phrases to personal applications in my life, I will more deeply encode the material and have a better chance of doing well on the test.

Essay on memory (800 words)

TECHNIQUES AND STRATEGIES TO ENHANCE MEMORY

Every day we are constantly increasing our knowledge in different aspects of the world, memory being the central key in keeping all our knowledge and experiences, and that is why we would only want to enhance it to keep up with our learning ability and make it easier for us to process the memories. There are several techniques and strategies to do so such as exercise, brain challenges –workouts and healthy intake of nutrition, etc.

(Source 5) Exercise; being physically active increases the circulation and efficiency of oxygen and blood that flows to the brain and throughout the body and encourages healthy brain chemicals that protect brain cells (Source 7), which reduces the risk of developing memory loss relating to disorders. (Source 8) By exercising stimulates nerve cells resulting in the strengthening of their interconnections which protects them from damage. “Researchers believe that regular exercise will expand and enhance the brain's memory center by 2% each year where it would usually slowly decline”. (Quote from source 8)

Healthy diet, just as our bodies need nourishment to function effectively so do our brains. By consuming brain-boosting nutrients it will improve our brain power and decrease the risks of memory disorders. Omega – 3 a fatty acid is predominantly beneficial in terms of brain health and decrease the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. (Source 5) Limit intake of calories and saturated fats, by consuming more fruits and vegetables as they are complete with healthy antioxidants such as anthocyanin that shield and prevent brain cells from an impairment, and also encourages the production of new brain cells (Source 7). (Source 12) Anthocyanin safeguards the brain from inflammation and oxidation in which result in the cause of damage to neurons making the brain less effective at communicating. Having a healthy diet equals a healthy brain. (Source 7) Increase intake of vitamin D since it is connected with the increase in cognitive performances, when vitamin D receptors are triggered the nerve growth increases, some metabolic pathways for vitamin D are located in sections of the brain (Source 8) including the hippocampus and cerebellum of the brain in which are accountable in the formation of new memories, planning, and process of information. (Source 7)Although have too much vitamin D can cause diseases, having a healthy moderate amount is recommended.

(Source 5) Brain workouts, from birth to young adulthood this are where the development and expansion of the brain is highest as this is where learning of new knowledge is at its peak. Nevertheless, during late adulthood, the brain has previously identified pathways to rapidly solve complications and consequently finds it easy to execute these difficult tasks and in which uses less energy and mental effort. However, if the same pathways are constantly used then the brain's ability to be challenged and expand to develop is immobilized. Just like any other problem, the more you perform and repeat it the easier it becomes, this relates to memory as the more you learn new things by developing your memory the easier it is for the memory to process, encode and recall information. As you want to continuously want to expand and develop the brain.

Mnemonic devices are techniques that are used to help us remember information easier. Help us remember objects, places, locations, sentences, facts or words through the association.(Source 6) Acronyms are the formation of words that are made from each letter of the phrase or word. For example: remembering notes on piano ACEG, translates to All Cows Eat Grass. Rhymes are when the saying or phrase has the same terminal sounds at the end of each line being store by acoustic encoding in the brain. For example n fourteen hundred and ninety-two Columbus sailed the Ocean Blue. Chunking, this process is simply the ability to ‘break down’ big pieces of information into smaller sections ‘chunks’. For example, ten digit phone number is broken down into ‘chunks’ 0456382987 broken down to 045 – 638 – 2987 Organisation, is the process of associating and categorizing the thing you want to remember with other relating things. For example, Trees and grass are plants, cricket is an insect. Imagery is the process of associating an image with a particular piece of information, as by remember a specific image may trigger the information you were trying to remember. For example An image of a grizzly bear to remember the name ‘Harry’.

By using these techniques in your daily life it will help you to remember things that are difficult to recall. Mnemonic devices to help you remember through the association of other objects and items. Brain challenges persistently keep the brain developing and expanding. Lastly by maintaining a healthy diet and regular exercise stimulate healthy brain cell production and healthy chemicals that protect them from diminishing.