When getting ready to take exams, it can sometimes feel as though there's no way all the information you need to remember is going to fit in your brain. But there are ways to create the right conditions to make your studying as efficient as possible.
Author
- Judith Schomaker
Assistant Professor, Department of Health, Medical and Neuropsychology, Leiden University
My research into the science of memory shows that both novelty - new experiences - and familiarity can affect memory. You can use novelty to prime yourself for learning, and familiarity to organise your memory and retain knowledge.
To start with, this might mean going for a walk in an unfamiliar part of your neighbourhood or looking at some art for the first time - in person or online - before you even start studying.
In the lab , colleagues and I have observed that chances are higher that you will remember new information if you just visited an unfamiliar place.
In a typical experimental set-up, participants came to the lab to familiarise themselves with a virtual environment on a PC or with a virtual reality headset. This consisted of a fantasy island with unexpected elements, such as streetlight-sized candy canes. We invited our research participants to come back on two other occasions. During these sessions, they explored the same - now familiar - virtual environment, and one they hadn't seen before.
After each round of virtual exploration, the experiment participants were presented with a series of words to try to commit to memory, which we then tested them on after a completely different "distractor" task that consisted of solving simple maths problems. Interestingly, the participants who had explored a new environment typically remembered more words than those who had explored a familiar one. This suggests that novelty may prepare the brain for learning.
After you've prepared your brain with a foray into the unknown, it's time to harness familiarity.
Why the familiar is important
Learning entirely new information is often very challenging. Students sometimes report reading several pages, but having no recollection of what they read.
There may be several reasons for this, but a common one is that it is difficult to memorise something if it is very different from anything you have learned before.
The brain likes to categorise and label information, and our memory is organised in semantic categories. For example, if I mention "swivel chair", "computer", and "filing cabinet", the overarching term "office" may pop to mind.
Memory associations like these are crucial during memory retrieval, as linked information can work as a memory cue. In memory research we sometimes refer to these interlinked concepts as "memory schema" .
When you have to learn something new, your brain will try to categorise that novel information. If a link can be made with something you already know, this information can more easily be integrated into an existing memory schema.
Based on research , we would predict that studying for a test is more effective if you already know something about the topic, as it allows you to put novel information in your existing memory schema, and allows you to retrieve that information more easily at a later point in time.
For example, imagine eating a yellow kiwi for the first time. Your previous experience with green kiwis will allow you to recognise the fruit. The novel experience of eating this slightly sweeter kiwi is easy to integrate in your existing knowledge of kiwis, including what they look, feel and taste like.
Making connections
But studying for exams often means learning abstract concepts. The related memory schemas are underdeveloped for less concrete information, which makes new information hard to remember.
In a biological psychology course I teach, students have to learn about the transfer of information between brain cells. One of the crucial aspects of this topic is the change in chemistry of the neuron, from when it is at rest to when it is firing, and the potassium and sodium chloride ions involved.
Exam results showed that students found these processes hard to remember. One year, I decided to introduce a simple visual memory aid: an image of a banana with a container of table salt on top.
Most students know that bananas are rich in potassium, while table salt is sodium chloride. This simple picture shows the situation of a neuron at rest: A lot of potassium on the inside, and a lot of sodium chloride on the outside of the cell. But when the neuron is firing, ion channels open, and due to laws of diffusion, potassium will flow out, and sodium chloride into the cell.
After I introduced this memory aid, the performance of students on the exam question about this topic increased significantly. In fact, last year it was labelled as "too easy" by our exam monitoring tool, because so many students got it right. The image made integration of novel knowledge into an existing schema easier because it linked new, abstract information to well-known elements - the banana and the table salt.
When preparing for an exam, then, it can be helpful to think about how the new information you are trying to memorise relates to things you already know, even if this information is not directly relevant for the exam. Knowing that bananas are high in potassium, for instance, is not a learning objective of a biological psychology course.
And if you go for a walk somewhere new first, even better. Hopefully these tips will help you turn difficult exam material into lasting memories.
Judith Schomaker receives funding from NWO, LUF and LLinC.
