Memory Techniques
for Interpreters
Mayo Clinic Workshop II
1
Objectives of Workshop II
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The participant should be able to:
Review/identify the three stages involved in memory
Describe the four phases of memory tasks
Discuss general properties of memory
Explain the Stroop Effect
Apply techniques and mnemonic devices for memory
enhancement in interpreting:
– Association
– Visualization
– Chaining
– Method of Loci
– Acronyms and Acrostics
2
Message Relay Situation & Roles
 You are all part of a
large corporation. One
of your divisions
manufactures parts for
aircraft. Your group
consists of the following
chain of command.
Divide into groups of 5-6
and assign your own
roles. Do not take notes
nor ask for clarification
or repetition!
Chief Executive Officer
(CEO)
Vice-President
Division Manager
Production Manager
Supervisor
Factory Worker
3
Discussion Questions:
1.How did listening skills and memory skills
affect the accuracy of the message?
2.What types of information were retained?
3.What was omitted?
4.What types of errors were encountered:
omissions or deletions, additions,
substitutions and message inaccuracy.
4
Power of the human mind:
The paomnnehil pweor of the hmuan mnid. Aoccdrnig
to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't
mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the
olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer
be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a total mses
and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is
bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter
by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.
Amzanig eh?
5
Memory Flow Chart
The flowchart for the theory of memory discussed
in the first session indicates that all incoming
information first passes through Sensory Memory
(SM) before it enters ShortTerm Memory (STM).
There it can be maintained by rehearsal and either
successfully encoded for storage in LongTerm
Memory (LTM) or forgotten. In retrieval, the
information passes from LTM back to STM, where
it enters our consciousness. A summary of the
characteristics of each stage of memory follows.
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Three Stages of Memory
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Characteristics of the Three
Memory Stages
SM
STM
LTM
Very large
7 +/- 2 chunks
Unlimited
Maximum Duration ¼ - 2 sec.
30 sec.
Permanent
Maintain
Information
Not possible
Maintenance
rehearsal
Elaborative
rehearsal/org.
Retrieve
Information
Perception
Serial, exhaustive
search
Search with
retrieval cues
Chief Cause of
Forgetting
Decay
Decay and
interference
Interference
Major Information
Code
Sensory
Acoustic
Semantic
Capacity
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Types of Memory
 Short Term Memory
- Where sensory data is first
transmitted to for processing and
evaluation
- Aging impacts the depth of
processing that occurs in STM,
sending less to LTM
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Types of Memory
 Long Term Memory
- Where STM is encoded for long-term storage
and future retrieval
 How quickly and reliably we recall it depends on:
 Activation: How long since we last used the
information.
 Strength: How well we have practiced it
 Archival Memory (a type of LTM)
- Used in the ultra-long term storage of
memories
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Long Term Memory
Varieties of Long Term Memory
Retrospective
[pertains to the past]
Declarative
Episodic
Semantic
Prospective
[future events]
Procedural
Cognitive
Motor
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Working Memory
 Here we address why we can rehearse
only limited information at a time.
 Articulatory Loop
 Rehearsal limitations are due to limits
in how long it takes verbal material to
decay, not how many items we can
store. Hence, the faster we can
rehearse, the more we can store
(Baddeley, 1986).
12
Memory terms
 Complex mental function having four
distinct phases: (1) encoding or learning,
(2) retention, (3) recall/retrieval, and (4)
recognition. Clinically, it is usually
subdivided into immediate, recent, and
remote memory.
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Retention
 The persistence to perform a learned
behavior (facts or experiences) after
an interval has elapsed in which there
has been no performance or practice
of the behavior.
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Memory Theory
 Recognition vs. Recall Issues
- Recognition - seeing something and knowing
what it is
- Recall - very construction oriented; requires
making connections
– The process whereby a representation of
past experience is elicited.
- As we age, our recognition abilities get
stronger while recall weakens
- Recognition scenarios (like multiple choice
exams) are better for older learners
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Mnemonic
 'Mnemonic'
is another word for
memory tool. Mnemonics are methods
for remembering information that is
otherwise quite difficult to recall.
The basic principle of mnemonics is to
use as many of the best functions of
your brain as possible to store
information.
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Use Your Whole Mind To
Remember
 By coding language and numbers in
striking images, you can reliably code
both information and the structure
of information. You can then easily
recall these later.
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You can do the following things to make
your mnemonics more memorable:
 Use positive, pleasant images. The brain
often blocks out unpleasant ones
 Use vivid, colorful, sense-laden images these are easier to remember than drab
ones
 Use all your senses to code information or
dress up an image. Remember that your
mnemonic can contain sounds, smells,
tastes, touch, movements and feelings as
well as pictures.
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Mnemonics continued . . .
 Give your image three dimensions, movement and space
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to make it more vivid. You can use movement either to
maintain the flow of association, or to help you to
remember actions.
Exaggerate the size of important parts of the image
Use humor! Funny or peculiar things are easier to
remember than normal ones.
Similarly rude rhymes are very difficult to forget!
Symbols (red traffic lights, pointing fingers, road
signs, etc.) can code quite complex messages quickly
and effectively.
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How does our memory work?
 We remember things by association. Every piece of
information in our memory is connected to other
pieces in some way or another. For example, if you are
given the word "apple", what do you think of? Perhaps
something like this:
 APPLE: red, round, sweet, teacher, tree, fruit
 But it's unlikely that we might see "apple" and think of
"dog". And what if you were asked what the 7th letter
of the alphabet was? Chances are, you wouldn't know
that "G = 7," but you could easily think to yourself, "A
B C D E F G," and then say "G". You used association to
get to the letter G, because you knew A was the first
letter, then you kept choosing the next letter in the
sequence until you got to the right one.
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Association
 If memory works by association, we
actively work to create an association
between two bits of information. For
example, for the plane that we need to
catch at 2 P.M., we can imagine the plane in
our mind, and notice that it has 2 wings.
Two wings, 2 P.M. There's an association by
means of a visualization. We are now ten
times more likely to remember the takeoff time long after it has faded from our
short-term memory.
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Association
 When pieces of information are not obviously related
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in any way, however, we have to be a bit more creative
in linking things together. But it isn't as hard as it
seems. Most of us learned rhymes and acronyms in
school that helped us remember things. Do any of the
following look familiar to you?
i before e except after c, or when sounded like a as in
neighbor and weigh (rule for remembering ei or ie)
ROY G. BIV (colors of the rainbow)
All Cows Eat Grass; Every Good Boy Does Fine (notes
of musical scale)
Never Eat Sour Watermelons (directions on a
compass)
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Association exercise
 To demonstrate how effectively this
works, look at the following list of words,
and try to come up with an association
between the left word and the right word
of each row. Some will be easy; others may
be harder. As an example, for the first
pair, you might want to imagine a mouse
that has a long, wavy tail that is in the
shape of the letter S.
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Association exercise
 mouse
 fur
 train
 moat
 popcorn
 elephant
 toothbrush
 umbrella
S
R
bridge
boat
chair
pancake
canal
triangle
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Association exercise
 After you have formed the
associations, cover up the right side
of the list and then try to name the
word associated with each word on
the left. If you formed vivid, clear
associations, you may be surprised at
how quickly and easily you were able
to remember everything!
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Association exercise
 mouse
 fur
 train
 moat
 popcorn
 elephant
 toothbrush
 umbrella
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Other properties of memory:
 Law of Recency:
 We are more likely to remember
things that happened recently than
those that happened a long time
ago. You can probably remember
what you had for dinner yesterday,
but not what you ate for dinner two
weeks ago today.
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Law of Recency
 A list of 20 words will be read.
Your job is to remember as many of
the words as possible. Write down
the words that you can remember
immediately after reading the list.
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List of words
cat apple ball tree
square
head house door box car king
hammer milk fish book tape
arrow flower key shoe
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Law of Recency . . . and
Primacy
 This type of experiment provides evidence
that there are 2 types of memory
processes. It is thought that memory is
good for the words read last because they
are still in short term memory - this is the
recency effect. Memory is good for the
words read first because they made it into
long term memory - this is the primacy
effect.
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Memory properties
 Law of Vividness:
 We tend to remember the most
spectacular or striking impressions
rather than those that are more
ordinary. You can probably remember
what you did on your last birthday, or
perhaps the Space Shuttle Challenger
explosion, but not what happened on the
previous day of those occasions (unless,
that too, was a "special" occasion).
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Law of Vividness:
 We are much better at remembering
pictures than we are at remembering
words and names. There are probably
biological and evolutionary reasons
for that. When subjects are asked to
recognize a small set of photos that
they saw the previous day from a
larger set, they typically recognize
around 97%.
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The Method of Loci
 Devised during the Roman Empire,
the method of loci uses the chaining
method with a twist. Now all the
items to-be-remembered are linked
to specific places in the order you
would visit them. For example, you
might think of the route you take
to work:
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Remembering by location
Your room (you wake up)
Your kitchen (you have breakfast)
Front door of your house
Bus stop
Bus seat
Friend's house that you see from the
bus
7. Gas Station that you see from the bus
8. Market that you see from the bus
9. Workplace
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
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Method of loci
 Now you must link the items that you
want remembered to each of these
places. You have to remember the places
first, of course, but this should be easy.
Then chain each item to the
places...remember, the more wild your
idea the better. Using a grocery store
example: milk pouring on you in your
room, bread that you can't get out of
the toaster (kitchen), eggs splattered on
your front door, etc.
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Concrete Words, Abstract Words
and Nonsense
 The ability to recall a word depends on
how meaningful the word is to a person.
Along with the meaningfulness of a word,
the "concreteness" of a word is
important for memory. Concreteness
refers the ability of a word to form a
mental image. A word with high
concreteness is easy to "see"; a word
with low concreteness (an "abstract"
word) is difficult to visualize.
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Concrete words
 Here are three lists of words:
concrete words, abstract words and
nonsense words. See which list is
easier to memorize. You could also
read these lists to other people to
see how many words from each list
they remember.
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Concrete words
alligator
apple
arrow
baby
bird
book
butterfly
car
corn
flower
hammer
house
lemon
microscope
ocean
pencil
rock
shoes
table
window
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Abstract words
 anger
belief
boredom
chance
concept
effort
fate
freedom
glory
happiness
 honor
hope
idea
interest
knowledge
mercy
mood
moral
theory
truth
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Nonsense words
ator
botam
crov
difim
firap
glimoc
gricul
hilnim
jolib
kepwin
lumal
mib
natpem
peyrim
rispaw
stiwin
tubiv
vopec
yapib
40
Memory properties
 Law of Frequency:
 We tend to remember things we
experience the most often, rather
than those we experience only once
in a while. You are much more likely
to remember your name or your
phone number than the square root
of 3 (unless you are a
mathematician).
41
Memory properties
 With a strong emotional context, it is likely
that events will be better remembered.
The part of the brain responsible for
autobiographical memories is called the
medial temporal lobe. Researchers have
hypothesized that a structure deep in this
temporal lobe, called the amygdala acts
together with other structures of the
medial temporal lobe to enhance the ability
of the brain to process, encode and
retrieve emotional events.
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Short Term Memory Test
 Directions
 You are about do a small short term memory
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test. A few letters will flash on your computer
monitor for 3 seconds. Your job is to write
down as many letters as you can remember
after they disappear.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
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U M
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T Z L D
45
KXCEJO
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AVCYISEH
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LBFQRPMAUX
48
ZQECTBUMONRV
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STM exercise
 How did you do? Compare your results
with the table on this page. How many
letters from each trial did you
remember? Is there a "pattern" to
the letters that you remembered?
For example, did you remember the
first few letters better than the
middle letters? Did you remember
the last letters?
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STM exercise
 Graph your results for each set of
numbers. One way to do this is to
graph the number of letters you
remembered as a percentage. For
example, if you remembered 2 of the
4 letters presented in the second
trial, then you have remembered 50%
of the letters.
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STM exercise
Trial #letters Total letters
1
2
UM
2
3
4
5
6
4
6
8
10
12
TZLD
KXCEJO
AVCYISEH
LBFQRPMAUX
ZQECTBUMONRV
# your % your
letters letters
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Short Term Memory Test Pictures
 Draw a 4x4 grid of boxes.
 Look at the objects that you should
remember. The objects will stay on
your screen for 30 seconds. Then
write down the names of all the items
you remember inside the appropriate
boxes.
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Here are the pictures . . .
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Picture test
 How many objects did you remember?
 Were the objects that you
remembered also placed correctly on
the grid?
 What categories of objects did you
remember: animals, food, building,
animated objects, piano
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Note-taking exercise
 Participant A will be given a sheet with a series
of sentences with facts and figures.
 The presenter will read orally one sentence at
a time.
 Participant B will take notes and then repeat
each sentence aloud to Participant A.
 Participant A will mark any errors made by
Participant B.
 Discuss omissions or distortions made.
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Interference: The Stroop Effect
Don't read the words
on the right--just
say the colors
they're printed in,
and do this aloud as
fast as you can.
 You're in for a
surprise!
red
yellow
green
blue
red
blue
yellow
green
blue
red
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The famous "Stroop Effect" is named
after J. Ridley Stroop who discovered
this strange phenomenon in the 1930’s.
 If you're like most people, your first inclination was to
read the words, 'red, yellow, green...,' rather than the
colors they're printed in, 'blue, green, red...'
 You've just experienced interference.
 When you look at one of the words, you see both its
color and its meaning. If those two pieces of evidence
are in conflict, you have to make a choice. Because
experience has taught you that word meaning is more
important than ink color, interference occurs when you
try to pay attention only to the ink color.
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Forgetting: Gone, or Inaccessible?
 Do we forget because the information
is gone, or do we forget because we
can't access information that is still
there?
 It is difficult to distinguish the two.
However, there is evidence that we
retain more than we can retrieve.
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Forgetting: Decay or Interference?
 Is forgetting due to decay of unused
information, or to interference of new
information with old information?
 Power Law of Forgetting
– A survey of forgetting research concluded
that the rate at which we forget information
usually conforms to a power law: we forget a
lot at first, but over time the rate of
forgetting diminishes.
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How to Improve Your Memory
 There are many things you can do
to improve your memory, among
them the use of certain mental
techniques, as well as special care
with nutrition and medicines.
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To stimulate memory
 Use your memory to the utmost.
Challenge a novelty. Learn new skills. If
you work in an office, learn to dance. If
you are a dancer, learn to deal with a
computer; if you work with sales, learn
to play chess; if you are a programmer,
learn to paint. This could stimulate your
brain's neural circuits to grow.
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Pay attention
 Don't try to memorize all the facts that
happen, but focus your attention and
concentrate in what you consider more
important, avoiding all other thoughts.
Exercise: take any object, such as a
pen, and concentrate on it. Think on its
various characteristics: its material, its
function, its color, its anatomy, etc.
Don't allow any other thought to occupy
your mind while you are concentrating on
that pen.
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Relax
 It is impossible to pay attention if
you are tense or nervous. Exercise:
hold your breath for ten seconds,
then release it slowly.
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Associate facts to images
 Learn mnemonic techniques. They
are a very efficient way to
memorize large quantities of
information.
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Visualize images
 See figures with the "eyes of your
mind".
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Foods
 Some vitamins are essential for the
proper working of memory: thiamin,
folic acid, and B12 vitamin. They
are found in bread and cereal,
vegetables and fruits.
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Water
 Water helps maintain the memory
systems working, specially in older
persons. According to Dr. Turkington,
lack of water in the body has an
immediate and deep effect on
memory; dehydration can generate
confusion and other thought
difficulties.
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Sleep
 To be able to have a good memory, it is
essential that we allow the brain to have
enough sleep and rest. While sleeping,
the brain disconnects from the senses,
and proceeds to revising and storing
memory. Insomnia would produce a
chronic fatigue and would impair the
ability of concentration and the storing
of information.
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Medication
 Some medicines can cause loss of
memory: tranquilizers, muscular
relaxants, sleeping pills, and antianxiety drugs, such as valium. Some
medicine for the control of high
blood pressure (hypertension) may
cause memory problems and
depression.
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Alcohol
 Alcohol interferes specially with
short-term memory, which impairs
the ability of retaining new
information. Studies have shown
that even the ingestion of low
quantities of alcoholic beverage
during one whole week will interfere
with the ability of remembering.
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Smoking
 Studies have shown that, when
compared with non-smokers,
individual smokers of one or more
packs of cigarettes a day had
difficulties remembering people's
faces and names in a test of visual
and verbal memory (Turkington,
1996).
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Caffeine
 Coffee and tea have a very positive
effect to maintain attention and to
end sleepiness, but the excitation
promoted by these drinks may
interfere with the memory function.
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Your tips?
 Other tips (such as take notes, get
organized, use a diary, keep fit,
regular health checks, memory aids,
etc).
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Practice
 Practice helps a lot at first, then provides decreasing
gains as you reach the limits of your performance
ability.
 Practice improves memory, but how you practice also affects it.
The same amounts of practice, but distributed in the one case
and massed in the other, lead to different outcomes.
– Distributed practice is when practice is spread out over time.
For example, you may study a total of 12 hours for a test but
you did so over 6 days.
– Massed practice is when practice is done all at once. For
example, you study 12 hours the night before the test.
– Many studies have confirmed that the first strategy is the
better one. Subjects remember more and for longer periods
of time when they distribute their practice.
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Overlearning
 Overlearning is when practice is continued
beyond the criterion of one error-free
trial. Actors overlearn their lines. They will
rehearse far beyond the time necessary
for the criterion above. In the military,
drills constitute overlearning. In all of the
cases above, overlearning helps to negate
the negative effects of stress on memory.
Overlearned items can be recalled under
higher levels of stress than can items that
were not overlearned.
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In conclusion . . .
For the most part, memory does a
magnificent job for us. Every time you
spell a word, drive a car or pick up a
telephone and recognize your mother's
voice, it's a wonder.
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