I Forget . . .

All of us in some measure wish we had better memories. We hear something that could be transformational; but then we move on to the next thing and soon, we can’t remember our epiphany. We read a stimulating book, and a year later we can’t recall reading it. These are mnemonic problems.

Mnemonic systems are built into our brains, but we don’t use them properly.

Instead, we rely on crude hacks to get recall without respecting the amazing design of these systems and how they were meant to function.

A mnemonic device is the quintessential brain hack. I remember several from my college days 50+ years ago—but I don’t remember what I used them to remember! Here’s one:

 On Old Olympus’ Towering Tops, A Finn And German Viewed Some Hops

 I had to google the mnemonic to remember that it is a way to put the 12 cranial nerves in order. (I don’t remember the actual cranial nerve names). A mnemonic device is “a pattern of letters, ideas, or associations which assists in remembering something.” (OED)

It is telling that we impose a pattern because what we are trying to retrieve doesn’t have a pattern. As I’ve said many times this season, brains are for pattern recognition and pattern creation; they are not fact databases. A mnemonic device is a forced pattern that we create. This is probably acceptable for something arbitrary like the cranial nerve names, but many students employ mnemonic devices as a regular study strategy. In doing so they fail to uncover the real patterns that intellectual wrestling could reveal to them. As a result, they stay at the information level and never move to the conceptual level. Brains work with concepts (ideas) and not very well with facts, so such pragmatism doesn’t result in lasting learning.

Mnemonic devices short-circuit the discovery of real patterns that intellectual wrestling could reveal.

The primary way to improve your memory is to discipline yourself to deal exclusively with ideas. Are you presented only with facts in your learning environment? Ask questions to get at the ideas behind the facts. Let your “ravenous brain” do the pattern making it was designed to excel at.

The path into the brain’s memory systems is through sensory input. We can’t possibly pay attention to all the sensory information we receive, so we have mechanisms that look for significance in sensory information to alert the brain only when necessary.

Let’s take the auditory channel as an example. In a crowded, noisy environment you are zoning out almost all the sounds, when suddenly you hear in the din, the name of a friend. Very quickly you can increase your auditory sensitivity to hear more of this specific conversation. Robert Knight, a UC Berkeley professor of psychology, has done experiments on this phenomenon. He observes, “It is unbelievable how fast and plastic the brain is. In seconds or less, the electrical activity in the brain changes its response properties to pull out linguistic information.”

We ignore the overwhelming majority of the sensory information we receive which means that information conveyed to instruct must create curiosity sufficient to gain privileged access to the brain. Only favored sensory input will be sent to short-term memory for further consideration. Short-term memory is a series of sticky notes that are generally quickly discarded because they don’t contain anything of lasting importance. Think of how many alerts your cell phone has given you today that you’ve ignored, and you’ve got the picture.

If learning is to happen, information from short-term memory must make it working memory. It is here that an attempt at pattern recognition/creation/enlargement begins. This involves the transformation of information into a concept (idea) or the enlargement/modification of an existing known idea.

As shown in the diagram above (which shows one popular model), there is an interaction in the working memory between ideas denoted by words and their meanings (articulatory loop) and visual representations of ideas (visuospatial sketchpad). These sensory information inputs are held in the conscious mind for consideration along with retrieved stored ideas that may be relevant. Depending on the novelty of the inputs, the individual will be engaged in trying out association between the items or negotiation of the meaning of the ideas, including logical linkage to other ideas. Both involve patterns, although the latter is more mature and is dependent on the former. Negotiation is aimed at achieving understanding, while association is centered on concept formation/clarification. Facts must be transformed into concepts if they are to have a future!

It is unlikely that all of what is attributed to working memory happens in the same area of the brain. However, a crucial area and the traditional center of memory making is the hippocampus, which is shown in this illustration.

Individuals with serious damage to the hippocampus cannot form most kinds of long-term memories. (Click here for a fascinating clinical case). The memories themselves are stored in multiple locations especially in areas of the cerebral cortex. Remember that memories are encoded as a group of related concepts and not as a recording.

Blake A. Richards and Paul W. Frankland published an intriguing study in “The Persistence and Transience of Memory” (Neuron 94, June 21, 2017, pp. 1071-1084). They start with conventional wisdom:

“Most people, including many scientists, view the ideal mnemonic system as one of perfect persistence. That is, a system that transmits the greatest amount of information, with highest possible fidelity, across the longest stretches of time.” (emphasis original)

This addresses our laments about our faulty memory systems. In our view, they just don’t work well enough. My reasoning above points to a fundamental reason for the lack of persistence. Most information is never integrated into patterns. In the DIKUW progression, for most learners information is never transformed into knowledge through conceptualization, let alone integrating concepts into logical frameworks that demonstrate understanding.

Richards and Frankland, however, argue that transience (forgetting) is an intentional design feature and not a bug.

“It is only through the interaction of persistence and transience …that memory actually serves its true purpose: using the past to intelligently guide decision-making.”

 If that sounds misguided, here’s their reasoning:

 “Forgetting is adaptive because it prevents overfitting to peculiar occurrences . . .Persistence of memory for aspects of the world that are either transient or uncommon would be detrimental since it might lead to inflexible behavior and/or incorrect predictions. Rather, persistence is only useful when it maintains those aspects of experience that are either relatively stable and/or predictive of new experiences.”

The purpose of memory: “using the past to intelligently guide decision-making.”

I’ve long maintained that learning is conceptual change. Because of our encounters with reality, throughout life we revise our concepts and their place within our conceptual frameworks. We purposefully overwrite misconceptions, and we create new concepts. The ability to learn presupposes cognitive flexibility, which, in turn, requires purposeful targeted forgetting.

Memory should be the fruit of cognitive wrestling that has achieved understanding. The common pragmatism that centers on direct brute force memorization produces counterfeit papier-mâché fruit that doesn’t last and can’t produce future cognitive fruit. Conceptualize your thinking and memory comes as a built-in bonus. Deep learning is intrinsically durable!

UC Berkley Brain Studies: https://news.berkeley.edu/2016/12/20/pop-outs-how-the-brain-extracts-meaning-from-noise/

Try It!

Hippocampus Damage Clinical Case

Blake A. Richards and Paul W. Frankland: “The Persistence and Transience of Memory” (Neuron 94, June 21, 2017, pp. 1071-1084). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2017.04.037

Noteworthy: Richard and Frankland point out (on p. 1075) studies showing exercise promotes hippocampal neurogenesis which increases transience leading to more cognitive flexibility, while stress does the opposite.