Tma01
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- Date Submitted: 10/03/2010 11:57 PM
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TMA01
How can the way in which we organise our thinking by using mental images, concepts and schemas help us improve our memory?
Mental images, concepts and schemas are very useful ways of helping us improve our memory. In the following essay i am going to explain how they can help us.
First of all there are mental images. This is when a picture or idea is formed in the mind to help us remember verbal or written information better. For this to work successfully it tends to be better to remember distinctive items that are large, colourful and bizarre because we tend to remember these better than everyday items. An example of this can be the French word ‘poubelle’ (pronounced pooh-bell) which translates as bin in English. By forming an image of a smelly bin it will be easier to remember that bin in French is poubelle.
Michael Raugh and Richard Atkinson (1975) developed this key word technique and carried out an experiment on two groups of participants. The participants were asked to learn 60 spanish words but only half of them were told to use the key word technique. When they were tested later the participants who used the key word technique scored on average 88% compared to only 28% for the participants who did not use the key words. As you can see from the results it shows just how useful mental images can be in helping us improve our memory.
Another way in which we can organise our thinking by using mental images is by using a technique called mnemonics. This is a technique for improving the memory. Once such mnemonic was created by the poet simonidies in ancient Greece 500bc called the ‘method of loci’. This involved remembering mental images with a familiar place to you. It is a technique that works best if the images are outstanding and silly rather than sensible. An example of this would be when remembering a shopping list we can imagine the television to be a box of cereal and the couch to be a loaf of bread. Using this method to remember the...
How can the way in which we organise our thinking by using mental images, concepts and schemas help us improve our memory?
Mental images, concepts and schemas are very useful ways of helping us improve our memory. In the following essay i am going to explain how they can help us.
First of all there are mental images. This is when a picture or idea is formed in the mind to help us remember verbal or written information better. For this to work successfully it tends to be better to remember distinctive items that are large, colourful and bizarre because we tend to remember these better than everyday items. An example of this can be the French word ‘poubelle’ (pronounced pooh-bell) which translates as bin in English. By forming an image of a smelly bin it will be easier to remember that bin in French is poubelle.
Michael Raugh and Richard Atkinson (1975) developed this key word technique and carried out an experiment on two groups of participants. The participants were asked to learn 60 spanish words but only half of them were told to use the key word technique. When they were tested later the participants who used the key word technique scored on average 88% compared to only 28% for the participants who did not use the key words. As you can see from the results it shows just how useful mental images can be in helping us improve our memory.
Another way in which we can organise our thinking by using mental images is by using a technique called mnemonics. This is a technique for improving the memory. Once such mnemonic was created by the poet simonidies in ancient Greece 500bc called the ‘method of loci’. This involved remembering mental images with a familiar place to you. It is a technique that works best if the images are outstanding and silly rather than sensible. An example of this would be when remembering a shopping list we can imagine the television to be a box of cereal and the couch to be a loaf of bread. Using this method to remember the...