Search

The article focuses on the effect of testing in education. According to researchers at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, teachers should quiz students during every class in order to maximize students' long-term learning. Researchers, citing a process called effortful retrieval, which improves long-term retention of unfamiliar knowledge, claim that students preserve knowledge if they are tested on it. The article discusses various experiments and studies of the testing effect in schools, and raises the issue of whether daily quizzes are too narrow in their questions.

The article offers ways to improve memory including repetition tasks for transforming short term into long term, avoiding cramming practice and rearranging office setup to improve focus.

The article provides information also available on its career website regarding ways to improve college student recall of information. Topics discussed include research into the benefits of taking notes by hand rather than by using a computer, the term desirable difficulties coined by psychologists Robert and Elizabeth Ligon Bjork, and the practice of giving frequent test and quizzes to improve long-term retention of information.

The article discusses a study conducted by the journal "Nature Neuroscience" which indicates that structural brain changes occurring naturally over time intervene with sleep quality, which successively blunts the ability to store memories for the long term.

The article reports that according to Medical College of Georgia at Georgia Regents University, brains in the adulthood stage shows a decrease ability in absorbing new things because of the long-terms memories stock in one's brain.

THE REALITY Many capable, hard-working students perform poorly on exams because they've overtaxed their ''working memory'' -- the mental scratchpad on which we combine information from our long-term memory with the specifics of the problem in front of us, in the service of finding a solution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on a study which found that adults with heart failure (HF) experienced worse immediate and long-term memory and psychomotor speed compared with adults without ischemic heart disease.

The article asserts that older people have excellent memories as opposed to the belief that forgetfulness comes naturally with old age.

The theory of relativity showed us that time and space are intertwined. To which our smarty-pants body might well reply: Tell me something I didn't already know, Einstein. Researchers at the University of Aberdeen found that when people were asked to engage in a bit of mental time travel, and to recall past events or imagine future ones, participants' bodies subliminally acted out the metaphors embedded in how we commonly conceptualized the flow of time. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

By all accounts, my grandfather Nathan had the comic ambitions of a Jack Benny but the comic gifts of a John Kerry. Undeterred, he always kept a few blank index cards in his pocket, so that if he happened to hear a good joke, he'd have someplace to write it down. How I wish I knew where Nathan stashed that deck. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article reports that when people study with flashcards, the most common method of self-quizzing, they are often bad at assessing when they have mastered the material. According to research, people feel they have memorized the material when studying flashcards after getting an answer correct because the knowledge is in their short-term memory. The article also discusses an experiment that examined the differences in test scores of people who studied word pairs on flashcards in large and small card stacks.

Reports on the identification of possible explanation for the way the human brain stores long-term memories. Possession of lowly creatures of unusual protein; Formation of new synapses; Presence of a specific region of protein responsible for its ability to adopt two shapes of yeast prions.

Reports on the comments by David Hovda, director of the University of California Brain Injury Research Center in Los Angeles, on the depiction of amnesia in movies. Lack of truth in movies' depiction of amnesia; Possible causes of short-term memory loss; Rarity of long-term memory loss.

Provides information on a study conducted by scientists regarding the role of sleep in consolidating memories. Role of individual cells in forming memory networks that could last a lifetime; Remarks from Terrence J. Sejnowski, a neuroscientist, about the importance of eight hours of sleep each night; Stages of sleep; Problem in studying sleep in whole brains; Technique used for studying millions of cells at a time under slowed conditions.

Examines the theory that the essential mechanism of memory lies in a cellular process which is common to all species, and is being researched on fruit flies at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in Long Island, New York. Work done by biologist Timothy Tully; Long-term memory as the focus of the study; How the study could lead to memory-enhancing drugs; Why the drosophilia melanogaster, or fruit fly, is perfect for the study; Other points.

Relates the author's superiority in retaining memories of numbers and facts. Experiences in school; Advantages of remembering numbers.

Presents information on the research carried out on mice and fruit flies at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island, New York. Attempts to discover the genes and molecules associated with long-term memory; Comments from Dr. Alcino Silva, a neuroscientist at the laboratory; Information on CREB. INSET: How nerve cells change to lay down... by Dr. Alcino Silva..