Ways of helping memory during exams | Integrated Learning Therapy

It’s exam time again. Here are some ways of helping to remember all the details needed to do well, and some habits that might not be helpful. This information comes from Matthew Mundy, writing for The Conversation.

The bad habits

Several common habits during exam season can sabotage memory. So try to avoid:

Cramming: While it may feel productive, cramming relies on short-term memoryand undermines long-term retention.
Sleep deprivation: Sleep is essentialfor memory consolidation. Without it, the brain struggles to transfer new learning into long-term storage.
Multitasking and distraction: The brain’s working memory can only hold a small amount of informationat any given time. Trying to juggle too many tasks—especially with phones or social media—is a recipe for forgetting. So keep your phone away from you when you’re studying.
High anxiety: Emotional stress consumes brain resources, reducing working memory capacity. This can lead to poor recall and decision-making during exams.

The good habits that boost memory

Neuroscience-backed strategies can help students protect and enhance their memory during exam season. Try to include:

Spaced repetition: This involves reviewing the same material repeatedly over time. This strengthens memory networksand is far more effective than last-minute cramming. If you can, aim for learning sessions at least one day apart, across at least a week. But more time is always better.
Retrieval: Test yourself—can you remember what you’ve been learning? This boosts recalland builds durable memory.
Mindfulness and physical activity: Both of these can reduce stress hormones and improve your brain function. Researchers have shown mindfulness exercisescan reduce stress and mental well-being in university students. Research also suggests you should aim for 30 minutes of exercise about four hours after you do your learning. Exercise is thought to release brain chemicals that promote “plasticity,” the process by which neurons change and strengthen their connections to create memories.
Sleep: aim for 7–9 hoursof sleep per night to help your brain consolidate your learning.
Eat well: Your diet can also support brain healthand overall mental and physical well-being. Omega-3s, antioxidants and hydration all play a role in memory performance. So drink lots of water and ensure a healthy balanced diet.

Image supplied by Freepik

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Martin Doherty, writing for The Conversation, says that at the age of about four, children reach important milestones in brain development.

One of these is a huge improvement in understanding others’ thoughts and feelings. This is the start of empathy. Another is in spatial thinking—understanding how objects are positioned and related. This is the beginning of the ability to read maps.

Martin and his colleague, Catherine Sayer, conducted a study with 175 two to five-year-olds to explore how children are able to use scale models to figure out where something is in the real world. At about four, children are able to use a scale model of a room to work out where something is. We thought that this might result from children’s understanding of how one thing can represent something else. But we actually found that four-year-olds’ ability to use scale models came from their spatial abilities.

At the same age, children start to understand that someone’s behaviour is due to what that person believes, not necessarily what is really the case. This has interesting consequences.

If you’ve played hide-and-seek with young children, you may have noticed that they aren’t always very good at it. They love the ritual of looking in all the wrong places first, but beforehand they may tell you where they are going to hide, hide in the same place every time, or not be especially hidden.

After their fourth birthday, they get much better at hide and seek. They understand that the seeker looks in the wrong places because they don’t know where the hider is.

At about three to four children also start to tell lies. They realize they can make someone believe something that isn’t true.

Understanding symbols

Martin’s earlier research with fellow psychologist Josef Perner suggests that four-year-olds don’t just start to understand how others’ minds work. Figuring this out is part of the development of an understanding of “representation”—that symbols, like thoughts, words, or pictures, can be used to stand for something else.

Children start to think about how words relate to objects. This means, for instance, knowing that “animal” can refer to something you already have a name for, such as “rabbit”. This might help children learn the new word.

Their ability to use a understand the components of pictures also improves around this age. Very young children use a lot of trial and error to complete a jigsaw, picking up random pieces to see if they fit. By the time they are about four years old, they start to use the picture as a guide, trying to connect lines and match bits of colour, while checking the guide picture on the box lid.

Developmental experiments

Another ability children develop at around four is using scale models. A classic set of developmental experiments involved a model of a regular household room. The real room had typical furniture—sofa, table, cupboard and so on—and the model had miniature versions laid out in the same way.

Children were shown where something was hidden in the model and told to find an object hidden in “the same place” in the room. Children of around four can find the object using the identical layouts. If shown a sticker under a particular chair in the model room, for example, they can go straight to the “same” chair in the other room. This is the fundamental understanding required to read maps.

Adults see scale models and maps as representations. Maps represent a town or a country. A scale model of, say, the Eiffel Tower represents the real thing. At first, Martin suspected children’s ability to use scale models is more evidence of understanding representation at this age.

He was wrong. Instead, the researchers found that this ability is based on a development in children’s spatial abilities that also occurs at about four. This is the ability to think about spaces and where objects are within them. Spatial abilities help with maths skills, and good spatial ability is linked to an interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

Their experiment was simple. They compared the model room task with a test of understanding how representation works. The two abilities develop around the same age, but they found they were not related. Children who could do one task couldn’t necessarily do the other.

They also had a test of purely spatial ability. Children who passed the model room task also passed the spatial task. So it looks like the model room task relied on children‘s spatial thinking.

They don’t yet know why two important but apparently unrelated abilities arise at the same time. Perhaps it’s related to changes in the growing brain at this interesting age.

Provided by The Conversation.

Image supplied by Freepik.