提高记忆有高招
记住所学知识最好的方法是什么? 关于记忆力的最新研究给出了答案:
为考试临阵磨枪挑灯夜战这种方式, 我们只能希望快速记忆而不指望长久记忆.但是我们在毕业以后仍需要记忆新的信息----还需要发表讲话,进行职业认证,通过各种审查审核等.对于这些挑战你都要去熬夜吗? 一直熬到精疲力竭?
这里有四个办法,让你能记住更多知识.
1、拉长战线
南佛罗里达州大学心理学副教授道罗拉在记忆力方面作了几个实验后提出以下建议. 如果可能的话, 与其进行长时间的马拉松式学习.不如将整段时间分成一个个时间段来学习,
“比如说你两周内每天花八个小时学习法语----这种语言浸透式课程在当时收效显著. 不过,如果想在以后长时间内记得所学知识, 你最好将学习时间平均分配到一个学期或者一年内.”
如果你样拉长战线学习的话,他说:” 你可以多记住一倍的知识.”
2、睡一觉,记住它
在啃了一通书本后 睡一觉 ，这样大脑会锁定你所学的东西. 即使是小睡一下也是有效果的. 一项哈佛大学的研究表明, 在一项学习任务后睡1个半小时觉的实验者， 会比那些没有睡觉的实验者记忆力多持续24小时.
麻省工学院学习与记忆力彼考尔学院的教授, 生物与神经学诺贝尔奖获得者休休穆·道尼加瓦博士说,”在学习之后睡一觉可以巩固记忆.”
根据对动物所做的研究,你在执行一项任务时, 大脑细胞会顺次激活. 如果睡一觉,同类细胞会以同样的次序自动激活，不会被视觉刺激分散意力或者打断. 道尼加瓦说:”这样可以巩固神经键, 帮助强化记忆.”
3、不要超量学习
一旦记住了一些西班牙单词或者正确地解决一个数学问题, 继续作练习对于长期记忆是收效甚微的. 罗拉教授说. “将大量知识在一段时间内一点一点地学完, 要比花大量时间学一点知识效果好.”
4、保持大脑活力
长期以来认为人类大脑每十年会失去百分之十的神经元, 这种说法是错误的.
约翰霍普金斯大学的心理与大脑学教授迈克尔加勒佛说 “一位健康的八十岁老人大脑中的神经元数量与成人一样多.”
“在五十或六十岁时会忘记一些事情,你就会想, 哦上帝啊,我的脑筋不中用了. 但如果你仍有全部神经元, 保持记忆力的可能性要远远大于大脑极度退化的情况.”
记忆仙丹还没有被研制出来,但是科学上认为有规律地记忆一些知识, 参加一些社交、教育方面的活动都可以让你在老年仍拥有敏锐的大脑---“不只是对记忆有好处, 还可以降低得老年痴呆症的风险.”
Best ways to remember more
What's the best way to hang on to what you learn? New memory research has answers.
Cramming for exams in a haze of No-Doz is the kind of activity one can only hope to outgrow. But demands for retaining new information hardly ended with graduation -- there are speeches to be delivered, professional certifications, boards, and bars to pass. Should you pull all-nighters? Study till you drop?
Now, four ways to remember more.
Space out
If possible, always try to break up learning into separate sessions, rather than studying in a nose-to-the-grindstone marathon, according to Doug Rohrer, Ph.D, associate professor of psychology at the University of South Florida, who has conducted several experiments in this area.
"Say you take French eight hours a day for two weeks -- language immersion courses yield excellent performance right after the class. However, if you want to know French in the long run, you're much better off spending that same amount of time distributed across a semester or a year."
When you space out learning like this, he says, "you can have up to 100 percent more retention."
Sleep on it
Hit the books; then hit the pillow. That will help the brain lock in what you learned. Even naps are beneficial, according to a Harvard study in which subjects who took a 90-minute snooze after learning a task performed 50 percent better over a 24-hour period than the napless group.
"Sleep after learning helps solidify memory," says Susumu Tonegawa, Ph.D, a Nobel Prize-winning professor of biology and neuroscience at the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at MIT.
According to animal studies, when you perform a task, the brain cells fire in a certain sequence. If you then fall asleep, the same cells automatically fire in an identical sequence without being distracted or disrupted by incoming visual stimuli. That, Tonegawa says, "solidifies the synapses, which in turn helps to strengthen the information as a memory."
Don't overlearn
Once you've remembered the Spanish word for house or done a math problem correctly, continuing to practice does very little for long-term retention, says Rohrer.
"Study a lot of material for a little bit of time in one session, rather than a little bit of material for a lot of time."
Keep your brain fit
The long-held assumption that we lose about 10 percent of our neurons per decade is not true.
"Remarkably, there are as many neurons in a healthy 80-year-old brain as there are in a young adult's," says Michela Gallagher, Ph.D, professor of psychological and brain sciences at Johns Hopkins University.
"When you're 50 or 60 and forget something, you think, 'Oh my God, my brain's falling apart.' But if you've still got all your neurons, the likelihood that you can prevent memory loss is much greater than if your brain had substantially deteriorated."
The magic memory pill has yet to be found, but science does know that regular exercise, social engagement, and education all help keep the brain sharp as you age --"not just in terms of current memory," says Gallagher, "but also in reducing the risk of Alzheimer's disease."
