Question

For a variety of reasons, many individuals have a hard time with their memory. Discuss at least three ways that an individual can improve his/her memory and also at least three conditions that could prevent an individual from accurately retrieving items from his/her memory. Be sure to provide real-life examples to help demonstrate your understanding of these concepts.

Answer 1

Condition that could prevent memory retrieval accurately.

Lack of nutrition - for example lack of vitamin B1 and B12 cause serious impairment to retrieval function.

State dependent theory - If information learned in good mood and sitting position and is being recalled in sad mood or standing position , retrieval will be little difficult because state dependent theory suggest if state of storage and retrieval will be same , recall will be easy and quick.

Depression and anxiety also leads to poor retrieval function because mind is overstimulated and over think.

Ways to improve

1) Use of mnemonics to store information.

If you have to remember countrys capital

France Paris, Italy Rome can be coded as friends party In Room. Where first letter of each word act as a signal for original country or capital.

2) Taking snapshots of every act.

eg As you reached office and kept your keys in right top drawer , take a second look it and things around take a snap in mind. This will help you easily recall when you require keys.

3) The more you train your brain better it becomes at memorising and retrieval. Train brain to encode with extra cues to make it easy to retrieve.