10 things that can influence our memory

1. 10 Things That Can Influence
(and sometimes improve)
Your Memory

2. Scientists have found
that memories
associated with sound
can be reinforced by
playing those sounds
softly to people while
they sleep. In one
study, participants
played a Guitar Hero-
like game. They
learned two
tunes, then had a nap.
While they were in
deep sleep, one of the
tunes played softly in
their ears. And when
the participants
awoke, the tune that
they’d heard while
sleeping was the one
they were better at
playing from memory.
Sounds During Sleep
Reinforce Memories

3. Provides Balance: Checking Social media
sites like Facebook throughout the day
provide young people with work-life
balance.
Improves Memory Retention: When
you’re distracted, your brain works
harder to remember the original
information.
Provides Comfort: Laughter can induce a
“cognitive distraction” from
negativity, which effectively enhances
moods.
Rejuvenates the Body: Small
distractions, like a short walk or a cup of
tea, can help relax the body throughout
the day.
Inspires Creativity: When we’re not
focusing on something, we may consider
a broader range of information and
alternatives that can lead to innovation.

4. • As we get older, we tend to become more forgetful. Scientists have found
that a distraction related to what you want to remember can be extremely
helpful for older people. They conducted an experiment in which they
asked two groups of people—one of them aged seventeen to
twenty-seven, and the other aged sixty to seventy-eight—to study and
recall a list of words. They sprung a surprise second test on each group
after an unrelated picture exercise.
• During the dummy picture exercise, some people in each group were
exposed to background reminders of some of the words from the first test.
There was a thirty percent memory improvement in those who had been
prey to these —but remarkably, only among the older group. There was no
difference at all in the younger group. This suggests that keeping ourselves
surrounded by reminders—even if we don’t take them in consciously—can
help with recall in old age.
• While older adults are watching television or playing a game on a
tablet, boosting memory for goals (such as remembering to make a phone
call or send a holiday card) could be accomplished by something as simple
as running a stream of target information across the bottom of their tablet
or TV.
The Science of Distraction

5. Research by psychologist Gerd Thomas Waldhauser has shown that humans can train
themselves to deliberately forget information. Using EEG scans, he has shown that the
same part of the brain we would use to restrain a motor impulse—such as to stop ourselves
from catching an object—is also activated when people suppress a memory. His studies
show that we can learn how to control this natural suppression—allowing
us, theoretically, to forget whatever we want to forget.
Waldhauser is keen to point out, however, that only neutral memories have so far been
forgotten in this way. But he speculates that—were the technique to be developed
further—it may be possible to forget even our worst memories. This would be immensely
helpful to trauma victims, and those with chronic mental health issues such as depression.
Practice Forgetting

7. Learn a Second Language
• Learning a second language, especially as a
child, has been shown to have benefits which
last a lifetime. Speaking two or more languages
can delay the onset of dementia by an average
of four years.
• Scientists have also discovered that “working
memory”—the kind of memory that acts like
RAM in a computer—functions more
successfully in children who have learned a
second language. Studies have shown that
bilingual children performed better in working
memory tasks than their monolingual
counterparts—and the more complex these
tasks were, the better the bilingual students
would perform in relation to their peers.
Being bilingual does more than just enhance
and protect our memory; it also helps us with
focusing, and shutting out unhelpful
distractions.

8. Science has shown that the act of washing can actually have a deep impact on how we
catalogue our memories. For a start, general cleanliness can impact how we feel about
other people—and not necessarily because they’re dirty themselves. We’re more likely
to harshly judge someone else’s moral misdeeds if we’re in a smelly room, for example.
And in relation to our own memories, washing ourselves really can help us feel less
guilty about whatever evil deeds we’ve committed. It’s been found that gamblers who
wash after a bad streak are likely to start making higher bets, as if they’ve washed away
their bad luck.
If you make a difficult decision, wiping your hands afterwards can make you feel less
doubt about it, since you’ve effectively wiped away your worries. But it goes both ways:
if we wash after thinking about a positive experience, our happy memories can seem
less satisfying.
Washing Our Hands
Changes How We
Remember!

9. Writing something down is an intuitive way to help you remember it. Scientists from Ohio
State University, however, found that the way you treat the piece of paper afterwards can
have an enormous impact on memory retention. They found that if people wrote down
their thoughts, and then scrunched up the paper and threw it away, they were less likely to
use those thoughts when making a decision. If, on the other hand, they folded the paper
neatly and put it into a pocket to protect it, the thoughts would stay with them and
influence them later on. Keeping thoughts on a desk instead of throwing them away had a
similar impact.
As with washing, it seems our brains are influenced by metaphors in the physical world
when it comes to controlling our memories.
Write it Down, But
Think About What
You Do With It!

10. When you study, you’re
more likely to
remember information
when it is presented in
an unusual or difficult-
to-read font. Scientists
from Princeton
University and Indiana
University have
conducted two different
experiments to test the
effect of fonts on
learning. In one
experiment, they gave
participants some
information to read for
ninety seconds, either in
Arial or Comic Sans.
It was found that those
who absorbed the
information via the more
difficult font had better
recall fifteen minutes
later.
To see if this result could
have a real-world
impact, the researchers
designed another
experiment. This
time, they tampered with
the fonts of learning
materials used by high
school students. Students
who were given a difficult-
to-read font performed
better in tests than those
who were given a simple
font.
Unusual Font = Better Retention

11. More Pain, Less Guilt
Scientists have found that inflicting pain on ourselves can lessen the guilt we feel
about a bad deed we remember having committed. In one experiment, researchers
asked people to write about a time they had rejected or excluded someone. They
divided them into two groups; the members of group one were asked to plunge their
arms elbow-deep into ice-cold water, while the members of group two submerged
their arms in luke-warm water. And when the participants rated the morality of their
past actions, those who had experienced the pain of the cold water
gave themselves a more forgiving score.
A third group of people were asked to write about an
everyday interaction, with no guilt involved, and then to
plunge their hand into the cold water. Interestingly, the
people who had written about doing something bad actually
kept their hands in the water longer, and reported more pain,
than the control group. The scientists speculate that they
subjected themselves to extra pain, as they felt the need
for penance.

12. People suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder are often debilitated by horrific
memories. Scientists have been working on a number of drugs that could be used to
lessen, or even erase, memories. These drugs work because when we recall
memories, we’re not just playing a tape—we’re actually recreating the memory in a
different part of our brain. Some drugs can block the biochemistry involved in this
process, and thereby cause the awful memories to fade, or even disappear.
Many people take issue with use of such drugs, however, arguing that artificially erasing
our memories can have a fundamental impact on who we are. Proponents counter this
argument by saying that millions of people debilitated by memories of terrible experiences
could regain their lives—and their true selves—with the help these drugs can provide.
Drugs to Forget?