HOW OFTEN HAVE we envied the guy with the perfect memory? The one who quotes sections and case laws and recalls Accounting Standards at the drop of a hat? You don`t have to be a Shakuntala Devi to do that. Managing memory is something that you can learn.
Dr.Johnson, the man who compiled the first English dictionary, could commit a page to memory at a glance. That kind of memory is phenomenal and out of the ordinary. Most of us do not have such a memory. Some do not remember numbers. Some have a terrible time remembering routes.
Some forget names easily and get into an awkward spot. Occasionally, almost all of us forget birthdays or where we put our car keys. Human beings, by and large, are said to have identical memory capacities. This however can be managed well or managed badly.
Five types of memory
If you want to manage your memory well, you must first try to understand the five types of memory as propounded by Dr. Murray Grossman.
- Working memory:
- You are talking to mom. Simultaneously, you are watching the television and making faces at your kid brother. How is it possible? Enter working memory. Working memory is a very short-term one. It helps you keep many scraps of information in your mind and do many things simultaneously like the computer RAM!
- Implicit memory:
- If you last rode a bicycle 10 years ago and are now fighting shy of riding it, don`t bother. Just jump on to the bike, and presto, your skills are back! You don`t have to re-learn. Dittio for swimming. Once learnt, they are learnt for life; courtesy, implicit memory.
Implicit memory helps you do things without being aware of it. It is this which helps you ruminate over auditing problems while driving home. You are so absorbed in it, that you hardly notice the way home and suddenly you find you have reached your destination! That`s why it is good to constantly let your mind mull. Loss of this memory is a sign of mental deterioration.
- Remote memory:
- Quizzers have this memory. Out of the blue, they surprise themselves by coming with an answer. It must have been some scrap of information that they had picked years ago. Unfortunately, remote memory diminishes with age because it may become difficult to retrieve this information from the maze of accumulated information.
- Episodic memory:
- How do you remember where you parked your bike? Or what food you took last Sunday? Or the result of the 1996 World cup semi-final between India and Sri Lanka? Enter episodic memory. If you can chug in information in an emotionally charged form, it is often well remembered. Who can ever forget the result of that World Cup semifinal, tinged as it was with pathos?
- Semantic memory:
- The memory of words and symbols and what they mean is the kind of memory that is unlikely to be lost. They represent our general knowledge of the world. Your are unlikely to mistake a cow for a cat or a pig for dog!
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