Your five senses of sight, hearing, taste, touch, and smell have a significant role to play in the retention of information in your mind. The impressions received from these five senses are called Memory of Sense Impressions and they go a long way in helping you retain information. However, a systematic analysis of sense impressions retained in the memory shows that the majority of such impressions are acquired through the two senses of sight and hearing.
Sight Impressions
You exercise your sense of sight all the time without any conscious attempt on your part to do so. You are constantly receiving thousands of different sight impressions every hour. Most of these impressions are insignificantly recorded upon the memory, because we pay little or no attention to them.
The eye has to be made attentive and it has to be directed to pay attention before it can really store what it sees as memory. When you see something, you do not really 'see' it, you may just see a few aspects of the total picture. You see it as a whole and not in detail. For it to make a clear impression on the subconscious mind and get retained in the brain as memory, you have to consciously direct your eye to store the impression.
You will understand what it means to say that the brain has to consciously see by the following example. Consider a case where a man is attacked by a robber and he sees the thief's face from really close up. You would think that he would be capable of describing the thief's face well to the police when he goes to report the robbery. Yet he is unable to do this. Here, the victim was 'looking but it was without seeing'. He was unable to perceive well because he was in a state of nervousness and shock at the time of the robbery.
The mind can be trained to see the object in detail and then retain the detailed impression of the object in the memory. This requires training the mind to receive clear sight-impressions to retain them well. You have to concentrate your will and attention upon objects of sight. You have to see them plainly and distinctly, and then practice recalling the details of the object after a while.
Remember that you have to combine interest with will and attention for retention to be effective. You must have the desire or passion to really accomplish the task at hand. Seeing and observing is not enough, you have to be driven to retain the sight impression and record it to memory. Shift your mental focus so that you begin to see with your mind, instead of just looking with your eyes. Once the impressions get beyond your retina and into your mind, you will retain the memory.
Hearing Impressions
Every day you are bombarded with sounds but you pay little attention to them. This is also necessary so that you pay attention to what you are doing without listening to all the sounds that go around in the environment around you, whether on the streets or in the home or office. Also, if some sound attracts your attention because it is new, you will ignore it once the novelty wears out.
The mental faculty of hearing must be exercised, trained and developed in order that the brain record and retain the correct memory of things that are heard. This requires interest and attention to be centered on that which is to be retained as memory. It is a known fact that the mind will hear the faintest sounds from things to which it lends interest and attention. At the same time it will ignore things in which it has no interest and pays little attention. A sleeping mother will wake up at the slightest cry from her baby, while the firing of a gun in the vicinity may not be noticed by her. A skilled physician will detect the faint sounds indicating a respiratory or cardiovascular condition in patients. However, these same people who are able to detect the faint differences in sound as mentioned in the examples above, are often called "poor hearers." The reason is because they hear only that in which they are interested, and to which their attention has been diverted. They hear nothing else.
That is the secret behind training the ear and increasing its level of perception. "Poor hearing," and poor memory of things heard can be improved by training the mind to pay attention and have interest in sounds. It requires an increase in awareness of the sounds you hear, and to try and build your degree of concentration on them.
Many people pay little attention to what they hear, they are not good listeners. So they cannot remember or recall properly what they had heard a while ago. It would not be advisable to listen to everything, since a certain degree of filtering is required. However, those who are poor listeners would do well to increase their attention to sound impressions. This can be achieved by listening more attentively to what they hear.
The following techniques may be useful:
Try and imprint the words or phrases spoken by someone to you into your memory consciously. In your attempt to do this, you will find that you begin to pay attention to what the person is saying. You remember better since now you are consciously 'listening'.
Do the same thing when you are listening to a teacher, singer, actor, or lecturer. Pick some words for memorising, and have confidence in your ability to remember that which you are concentrating on.
You can also try and listen to stray bits of dialogue of those you pass on the street and try to remember the dialogue, telling yourself that you need to give this information to a friend. This will help you sharpen your listening and your retention skills. Study the expressions and inflections in the voices of persons who speak to you. The kind of impressions you will form through the honing of your auditory skills will amaze you.
Listen to the tones of various people and strive to distinguish the differences in sound between them. Have your friend read a line or two of poetry, and then try to memorize the lines. Through such attempts you will significantly develop your power of paying attention to sounds that you hear.
But above everything else, practice repeating the words and sounds that you have memorised, as many times as possible. This will train your mind to be continuously interested in hearing and remembering sound impressions.
2-in-1 Combo
In some cases the impressions of sight and sound are joined together. For instance, in the case of words, not only the sound but the shape of the letters composing the word, or rather the word-shape itself, are stored together. Such impressions are far more readily recalled or remembered than things of which only one sense impression is recorded.
Teachers of memory make good use of this knowledge that the combination of two senses helps in creating more memorable impressions. They help their students to remember words by speaking them aloud, and then writing them down. Many people memorize names in this way. The impression of the written word is added to the impression of the sound, thus making it easier to remember.
It follows therefore that the more impressions you can make of any one thing through the use of your senses, the greater the chances of easily remembering it.
In the same way, it is very important to attach an impression of a weaker sense, to that of a stronger one, in order that the former may be memorised. For instance, if you have good visual memory, but a poor auditory memory, it will be useful for you to connect your sound impressions to the sight impressions. And if you have a poor visual memory but a good auditory memory, it is beneficial to link your sight impressions to your sound impressions. In this way, you take advantage of the law of association and help your memory to develop.
Using All Your Senses
Different parts of your brain remember different sense impressions. For example, images are stored in one area, sounds in another, touch sensations in another. What you want to do is add new information into your brain using as many as senses together.
The way to do this is to build multiple memory pathways to the information. For example, if you fail to remember the material through sight, then your audio pathway may allow you to access it. This works on the concept that the more sensory pathways you use to connect to a piece of information, the easier and faster will you be able to retain or recall the information.
Use as many of the following steps to work with the new material that you want to remember:
See it! When you are reading, you are seeing the information in any case. However, for non-written material or physical items, use your powers of concentration to really look at the item and study it in detail. Pay attention to the shape, color, size, depth and texture of the object. Look at the material it is made of.
Say it! In other words, read aloud what you are trying to learn or remember. In this way, you are not only seeing the object or word, but also hearing your voice as it speaks the words or defines the object. This helps built both visual and aural pathways to your brain and you will retain the information better. You now have two ways to recall the information.
Write it! Write down critical concepts. This is also known as note-taking. The act of
writing is a physical action that stimulates specific pathways in the brain. It helps you to retain the information even more.
Do it! If it's a procedure you need to remember, do it. Do it several times. The act of
"doing" is a separate mental pathway that you create. Just reading about
something, or just hearing someone explaining the method, is not good enough. Once you practice the method or do the procedure yourself, you will remember it well.
Draw it! Draw the information and associate it with other images if possible, for this will be of great help in making you remember. Even if you are not an artist, just the act of sketching on paper, even silly images, will engage your visual and creative memory - opening up another path for remembering the material.
Imagine it! Visualize the material you want to remember. Studying chemistry or atomic theory? Try to see in your mind's eye the electrons spinning around the atomic nuclei. By trying to visualize the molecules you are studying about you will find that your mind's eye will retain them better. Learning history? Try to imagine what the battle must have been like. Think about the location, the soldiers, what they were wearing and what their weapons are. Make it real enough for yourself so that you are living the history. You will find that you will recall everything with greater ease once you add so much life to what you are learning.
Research it! Pull even more brain pathways into the situation. Find out more details about what you are learning on the internet. By doing this, you are getting more information than your book gives or your instructor explained. You are making more interconnections in your brain by linking information together. So, you will remember everything better.
Emotionalize it! Find some way to become "connected" with the material. Look for
ways to relate emotionally. When the information evokes an emotional response in you, it will be remembered faster and well. Even if you find that you cannot really relate to the information, make yourself find some kind of connection. This will make you 'care' for the material and you will see the difference it makes in your retention powers.
Convert it! When you are trying to memorize dry facts like dates, numbers, or formulae, find patterns in the information and convert these into something meaningful. For example, try to create rhymes or try to match up the details with facts you already know. Patterns can even be found in the shapes of numbers and formulas if you study them closely.
Question it! Don't be passive and take everything that is stated as given. Question the validity of new material. Try to find out whether what you are reading makes sense and whether it is authentic. Is what you are learning based on facts and is it believable? By questioning material you make it your own and you make it more interesting for yourself. When you read a chapter in a book, scan the headings and make each heading into a question. Then, when you read the chapter, look for the answers.
