Memory Effectiveness
Psychologists have identified a number of factors that can influence how effectively memory of an event functions:
- Degree of vigilance, alertness, attentiveness, and concentration. More attentiveness can engrave more info into memory. Repeated reading leads to better integration of information.
- Interest, strength of motivation, and necessity. It is easier to learn when the subject fascinates you.
- The mood and intensity of emotion during an event. The processing of emotionally-charged events in memory, events like “9/11/89 and 9/11/01 and 9/11/02”, involve nor-epinephrine, a neurotransmitter that is released in larger amounts while excited or tense.
- The details of the environment during the event, such as location, light, sounds, smells, etc. Our memory systems are contextual. When we have trouble remembering a particular fact, we may retrieve it by recollecting where, or from what book we learned it. Was there a picture or was the information near the top of the page, or the bottom? Since the context is always memorized with the content we try to absorb, recalling this context by associations leads to recalling the content itself.
Forgetting is another aspect of the process of memorization. It allows the removal of chunks of information that some entity in your brain decided it does not need it now.
