Eidetic Memory

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If I had an eidetic memory, I could rule the world. The reason I say this is because I would not only save time by not having to relearn information trapped inside of my brain, I could also escape the seven deadly sins of memory known as; absentmindedness, transience, blocking, misinformation, suggestibility, bias, and persistence. Unfortunately eidetic memories are the magical weight loss pill of memory… they are unattainable. In all memories, according to the information processing model by Atkinson and Shiffrin , the brain first stage of memory is encoding. Encoding is the process of recording all of information to be stored, starting in the sensory memory and then getting moved to the working memory(also known as Short term memory). In …show more content…

Even for only a little bit, I will go through all of the notes, practice vocab, and review the concepts. The reason to study every night is to increase your retention as shown on the retention curve created by Hermann Ebbinghaus. In Ebbinghaus’s research he shows “the amount remembered depends on the amount of time put into it”(Ebbinghaus). Ebbinghaus also shows in a graph the more time people spent learning and rehearsing, the less time relearning, and the more time spent overlearning the subject even less time is needed later on when attempting to relearn the subject. In order to improve my over learning skills I am going to make flashcards for all the significant concepts( and vocabulary, people, etc) and quiz myself on all of the concepts every night in order to ingrain them into my brain. Everyday with the flashcards, before I use them, I will shuffle them, this way when I use the flashcards I can learn all of the cards and not be affected by the serial position effect. The serial position effect is where a person remembers the first and last pieces information in a list better than the information in the middle. By shuffling the cards I will remember all of the information because after a while I will have all of them memorised and not just the beginning and the end of the list. I will study these flash cards every night because according to the spacing effect, studying information dispersed over a period of time will result in better long term retention. By using the spacing effect I will be ready for my tests and have a better retention and avoid cramming. Cramming the night before a test does not yield as much memory retention as utilizing the spacing effect. The use of cramming before a test also has shown negative side effects by raising stress levels and cramming can also become a habit. Prolonged stress on the brain can be toxic on long term

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