Memory: How does it work?
By Ilana Johnson
EDI 600 Psychological Foundation of Education
School of Education
Long Island University, C. W. Post
June 2, 2009
I do have a good memory in general. In fact, it's better than what most people have as I wrote about in my last submitted journal. Although I do pride myself on being good at remembering names, I actually had a difficult time last night in class remembering some of the names of my classmates. My memory is not fool-proof, and I guess it could betray me at any given moment.
I tend to remember ridiculous details, ones that have virtually no importance, the most. I think that some people would call this "useless information." Tasks that I wish I didn't have to do, people I don't want to call back, and things that I must buy or bills that I must pay but can't afford to are what I tend to forget about.
This is what I call "my selective memory." I don't actually forget; I simply delay the recall. I put them back into the recesses of mind, and I retrieve only when absolutely necessary.
I was never skilled at remembering numbers. Phone numbers are hard, especially when the area code is not familiar. Yesterday in class, however, I was able to remember my classmate's phone number twenty seconds after studying it, which greatly surprised me. It ususally takes me weeks, months to remember someone's phone number. In fact, I recently lost a cell phone, and I had phone numbers listed in my cell "phonebook." I'm afraid to say that I had to wait some time until a few people finally called to inquire about me because I couldn't remember their phone numbers and hadn't bothered to write them down, satisfied with only keeping them in my phone. Technology and memory were a losing combination in this case.
Songs and smells trigger my memory. If I hear a song that was popular during junior high school and I actually liked it, for example, I'm reminded my favorite bubblegum Bonne Bell lipgloss, my best friend Kira whom I've lost touch with, and my acid-washed jeans with the holes in the knee. If a long-lost scent tickles my nasal passages, I'm reminded of the Lux brand soap my grandmother used for years, the boy that I had a crush on who lived down the block and wore Blue Nile oil, or my mother's Estee Lauder's White Linen perfume.
I studied court reporting/stenography for almost five years; and during that time, I enhanced my memory skills. Mandatory for advancing in stenography testing, teachers would dictate timed material at the skill level attained and we would "write" it on our steno machines. Writing 180 words a minute is undoubtedly fast; and when hearing the material at that speed, it was crucial that we got every single word down. In order to do this, we practiced being able to retain; meaning that once the dictation was over and we were still writing, there would still be a maxiumum of twelve words in our memory bank that we could still recall and write. This practice was so helpful to my memory, especially when I'm taking lecture notes in class, and my hand is flying across the pages of my notebook.
Long Island University, C. W. Post
June 2, 2009
I do have a good memory in general. In fact, it's better than what most people have as I wrote about in my last submitted journal. Although I do pride myself on being good at remembering names, I actually had a difficult time last night in class remembering some of the names of my classmates. My memory is not fool-proof, and I guess it could betray me at any given moment.
I tend to remember ridiculous details, ones that have virtually no importance, the most. I think that some people would call this "useless information." Tasks that I wish I didn't have to do, people I don't want to call back, and things that I must buy or bills that I must pay but can't afford to are what I tend to forget about.
This is what I call "my selective memory." I don't actually forget; I simply delay the recall. I put them back into the recesses of mind, and I retrieve only when absolutely necessary.
I was never skilled at remembering numbers. Phone numbers are hard, especially when the area code is not familiar. Yesterday in class, however, I was able to remember my classmate's phone number twenty seconds after studying it, which greatly surprised me. It ususally takes me weeks, months to remember someone's phone number. In fact, I recently lost a cell phone, and I had phone numbers listed in my cell "phonebook." I'm afraid to say that I had to wait some time until a few people finally called to inquire about me because I couldn't remember their phone numbers and hadn't bothered to write them down, satisfied with only keeping them in my phone. Technology and memory were a losing combination in this case.
Songs and smells trigger my memory. If I hear a song that was popular during junior high school and I actually liked it, for example, I'm reminded my favorite bubblegum Bonne Bell lipgloss, my best friend Kira whom I've lost touch with, and my acid-washed jeans with the holes in the knee. If a long-lost scent tickles my nasal passages, I'm reminded of the Lux brand soap my grandmother used for years, the boy that I had a crush on who lived down the block and wore Blue Nile oil, or my mother's Estee Lauder's White Linen perfume.
I studied court reporting/stenography for almost five years; and during that time, I enhanced my memory skills. Mandatory for advancing in stenography testing, teachers would dictate timed material at the skill level attained and we would "write" it on our steno machines. Writing 180 words a minute is undoubtedly fast; and when hearing the material at that speed, it was crucial that we got every single word down. In order to do this, we practiced being able to retain; meaning that once the dictation was over and we were still writing, there would still be a maxiumum of twelve words in our memory bank that we could still recall and write. This practice was so helpful to my memory, especially when I'm taking lecture notes in class, and my hand is flying across the pages of my notebook.
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