You Need a Hook for More Then Fishing*

You Need a Hook for More Then Fishing* (I hope this helps you. Come visit me anytime for more help, Jim.) If It Works Use It Each of you has probably devised personal ways to memorize information that seem to work. If that is the case, keep using those devises no matter how crazy or silly they may seem. If your techniques work for you, that’s what really counts. If you are that person, chances are you have either purposefully or accidently discovered techniques that are based on the underlying principles of memorization. If that is not you then read on and hopefully you can gain insight into how to memorize new material.

I Can’t Remember All This Because I Have a Bad Memory Memory is not like your sense of sight or a physical condition. You are not born with a bad memory the way you are born with scoliosis or the need for glasses. Memory is a skill that one must develop and constantly use to improve it and keep it sharp. The big question is: how does one improve one’s memory skills; and what are the techniques that help with memory? The first answer is repetition. To memorize something, you need to see, hear, touch and experience it often. If you repeat something often enough you will remember it! Unfortunately, passive repetition without context or meaning is not that effective and it’s really boring. If I tell you to memorize the following number, 17639874430, you could probably do so if you repeat it to yourself enough times. If I tell you the radio station is giving away $100 bills if you know this secret number and you only have 30 seconds to memorize it, I bet you would memorize that number pretty quickly. The reason you could remember the number easier if money was involved is memory works best if you have a purpose, context or connection to what you are learning. We call this a hook: your brain likes to use hooks to hang memory on. The Hooks Your Brain Prefers or Utilizes Best I don’t know how to break this to you, but your brain is fairly primitive when it comes to memory. It appears memory is designed to help you survive in your physical environment, which rarely means memorizing a bunch of facts. If you can recognize that a particular plant makes you sick you really don’t need to know the plant’s species name or the type of foliation it has. You just need to recognize the plant and not eat it! Unfortunately, that does not help you survive in the academic world or in your chosen career field. To be successful in these areas we need to know a lot of specific information. Fortunately for us, our brains have a huge capacity for processing and storing information. The key to tapping into this storage capacity is to provide our brain with the types of information it can effectively and efficiently deal with. Your brain remembers things best when you present it with information that is hooked on something it can store and recall easily. Abstract ideas or isolated facts are difficult for your brain, and while your brain will memorize anything you throw at it (with enough repetition) we want to make memorization easier, more efficient and faster. To help us with that task there are five hooks that your brain seems to store reasonably well: pictures, patterns, rhymes, stories and emotions. The idea of using a hook is to try and relate things that are hard to remember, like abstract ideas or isolated facts, and link or relate them to things that are easy for your brain remember: pictures, patterns, rhymes, stories and emotions. Relating information that is hard-to-remember to information that is easier to remember allows one to memorize information a little more effectively. Here is as an example of a very silly story I used to remember the names of the tarsal bones when I was an A&P student. It probably would not work for anyone else (and it may seem pretty strange) but it worked for me. Remember whatever works for each of is OK! One day I left my home on calcaneous street and climbed up mount talus to its peak the trochlea. I slid down front of mount talus to the navicular valley. I crossed the navicular valley to visit my friends the cuneiform triplets: medial, intermediate and lateral. They were not home so I went next door to see my cousin cuboid. He gave me a square meal before I went back home to calcaneous street. Yes, I know this is really strange but it gave me the names of the bones, directional terms, the shape of one bone and the articulating surface of another bone. It was just a silly story, but to this day I still easily remember the names of the tarsals. Since that time I have used several different mnemonic devices for the tarsals, but I still remember my original story. While my foot story ends here, the principles for memorization do not. There are ten key ideas used in memorization that you should know to make memorization easier.

Ten Keys to Memorizing 1. Understand First, Memorize Second Isolated facts, confusing concepts, disconnected idea and disorganized information are hard to remember. If you have some idea of the meaning of what you are memorizing and its importance or use, it is easier to remember. Your brain is nature’s computer. If you can organize information to be learned, your brain can store the information like the files you create on the hard drive of your computer. Organized information is easier for your brain to store and easier to retrieve. If you can organize information, you may be able reconstruct it when you can’t remember it. Here is an example. I have four children and I try my best to remember their birthdays but sometimes I forget. It just so happens that my second son Tyler was born one day, one month and one year later than my first son, Rory. If I can’t remember Tyler’s birthday but I can remember Rory’s birthday, all I have to do is add one to each of Rory’s birthday numbers; or vice versa, if I remember Tyler’s birthday but not Rory’s.

2. Create a Hook for Your Learning Hooks seem to work well when they engage your right brain. That is the side of the brain that deals with pictures, patterns, rhythms, big connections, and emotions. You can remember more when you engage your right brain by relating what you want to learn or remember to pictures, patterns, rhymes, stories and emotions. When using hooks keep this in mind: Hooks, especially stories and mnemonics, work best if you make them up yourself. Racy stories and mnemonics seem to stick in our brains the easiest. Any hook that helps you remember is good; but ones that are logical seem to work best. If a hook makes you feel emotions or brings up good memories it helps you remember. Sometimes the thinking involved to create the hook actually succeeds in helping you remember.

3. Connect the Dots Information that you can connect or link with prior knowledge or a good hook is more easily memorized. Remember logical connections seem to work best. If that is not possible, then it appears the crazier or sillier the connection is the better we remember. For example: there are 7 cervical vertebrae, 12 thoracic vertebrae and 5 lumbar vertebrae in our spinal column. To remember these you just need to know that you eat breakfast at 7, lunch at 12 and dinner at 5. I don’t know if this hook seems logical or silly to you, but I know it usually works.

4. You Can’t Stuff 50 lbs of Fertilizer Into a 25 lb Bag. You have two kinds of memory: short term and long term. At best, short term memory will usually last no more than 2 weeks, and some information may last no more than a minute. That is why we can cram for (and even pass) an exam but weeks later when we need that information in class it is not there. We may have passed the test, but we haven’t really learned a thing (boy, will that catch up with us as this term and your A&P sequence progresses). As you study, make sure you stop after a few minutes of reading or study and make a concentrated effort to transfer the new information from short term to long term memory (meaningful repetition, hooks, organize, talk out loud, quizzing yourself, have a friend quiz you, etc).

5. Passion Has Its Place Your brain will remember material better if it elicits some type of emotional response from you. If you can relate new information to things that matter to you or you are passionate about you remember it better. Emotional hooks can be sad, funny, angry, risqué, bizarre, etc. It really does not matter what emotional connection you make because any type of emotional hook will make memorization easier than a hook with no interest at all. A romantic mnemonic for the tarsals of the foot is: cuddling, touching, necking may interest loving coeds. Who knew those tarsals were so romantic! 6. See, Say and Feel You have many senses and they can help you learn; try and engage your senses when learning new material. Three senses are especially helpful in memorization: vision, hearing and kinesthetic. If you have one dominate sense, don’t ignore the others—using all your senses will help you memorize better. If you were to watch me study in college, you would have seen me pace around the room while reading my notes out loud as I ran my finger over the reading. I drew pictures from lecture in the margins of my notes to relate structures to what I was learning (in the Dark Age’s textbooks did not have great visuals like they do now). Be sure and use the wonderful pictures in your text books. If a certain type of information seems to fit really well with a particular sense use it - even if it’s not your preferred sense!

7. Take a Break and Relax, But Don’t Waste time When we study we remember more of what we studied at the start and the end of the study session. What we study in the middle is most often forgotten. Break up your study time into small session with breaks between. Look up and see your surroundings when you study. What you learn will get connected to where you are. If you forget something, then often just remembering your study environment will cause you to recall that lost piece of information. Music with specific rhythms and frequencies can actually stimulate brain activity if played very softly in the background when you study. Many Baroque classics like Pachelbel’s Canon in D or Handel’s Largo are good study tunes. Sorry but Green Day, the Black Eyed Peas and AD/DC will not work as study music. You don’t always need structured time to study. You can study flash cards while waiting in line at Wal-Mart (that could be a good 30 minutes of study time depending on the time of day and the check out person you get) or while waiting for your kids to get done with soccer practice. Since short periods of time are good for study, these are ideal times to review or quiz yourself.

8. Get Some Sleep It appears for some yet unidentified reason your brain actually processes and stores information while you sleep. If you review material before you sleep you may actually remember it better. If you decide to try this technique when you wake in the morning be sure to try and remember what you studied for a few minutes before you get out of bed. This may help solidify the information in your brain.

9. Use It or Lose It Once you have placed learned material in long term memory that does not mean it can’t be lost. You have to review constantly, think about what you have learned, try to apply your learning to new situations and make connections between new learning and what you already know. Without continual exercise, the muscles in your body will shrink and you will become weak. Without constant stimulation your brain will lose connections (called synapses) and learned material may fade away.

10. Live to Quiz Just because you studied and read the material does not mean you will remember it. Just because you see the material does not mean you have learned the material. Recognizing material is not the same as being able to recall it! You must quiz yourself as you read and study. You must also quiz yourself over material from previous study sessions. The question at the end of the chapters or the quizzes on the publisher’s web site can help you with this. You can also give your text or notes to a family member or friend and ask them to quiz you. Asking yourself to summarize or explain things forces your brain to recall information and allows you to recognize weak areas in your learning.

AGH! I Can’t Remember All These Steps OK, here are the Cliff notes of what I just said: 1. Decide what is important to learn, organize it as much as you can and think about a way to make it personal. 2. Think about the information and see if there is something that will help you find a hook for your learning. Once the hook is created and you are emotionally connected, the repetition part of learning will have meaning and become easier. 3. Use as many senses as you can and use your time wisely. 4. Use the new information you are learning as often as possible, reviewing constantly. Try and recall information as the days and weeks go by to consolidate information in long term memory.

*This document is modified from What Smart Students Know, other sources and my experience.