Chapter 14 Chapter Summary

Chapter Overview:

Chapter 14 focuses on exceptional memory and expertise, as well as how to improve your memory using techniques like mnemonics and other strategies.

Memory athletes are people who participate in memory competitions. These memory athletes, including world champions like Alex Mullen and Joshua Foer, utilize mnemonic strategies to compete, but their memories tend to be average without the mnemonics. These techniques were originally devised in ancient times when the written word was rare or non-existent. The most popular, and probably the most successful, strategy is the method of loci where you first need to choose a well-known location (called a memory palace) and then imagine moving through the memory palace placing to-be-remembered items in various locations in the palace. To remember long lists of digits, memory athletes use either the major system or the person-action-object (PAO) system. The major system (also known as the peg word system) converts digits into words by assigning a unique set of phonemes to each digit from 0 to 9. The words can then be imagined in the memory palace. In the PAO system, every number from 0 to 99 is assigned a unique image consisting of a person, action, and object. When memory athletes are trying to remember 6-digit numbers (e.g., 578423), they can imagine the person-image that represents the first two digits, the action from the second two digits, and the object from the last two. While effective, the major system is rarely used by present day memory athletes because the image-word-phoneme translation step can be difficult and time-consuming.

After working with two graduate students with normal memory (S.F. & D.D.), Chase and Ericsson (1981) developed their skilled memory theory. This model suggested that exceptional memory can develop in any person (it is not innate) as long as they follow three basic principles. First, the individual must associate the new information with material already in long-term memory (the encoding principle). The second is the retrieval-structure principle which states that memory will be better when retrieval cues are used to aid in the recall from long-term memory. And finally, their speed-up principle asserts that as people gain experience encoding information, they can learn more in less time. These principles have been supported by subsequent research and fit well with what is observed among memory athletes. Detailed studies have found that memory athletes do not differ in memory span, intelligence, or brain structures compared to the average person. However, while performing memory tasks, memory athletes have more activity in the areas of the brain associated with navigation and spatial abilities. This finding was not surprising as all of the athletes were using the method of loci compared to none of the controls. Mnemonics work well because they utilize spatial information – the type of memory that people are notoriously good at. They also allow people to create their own images which may be humorous, disgusting, or lewd, and therefore memorable. This technique can obviously be useful to students.

Fairly recent research has shown that a more effective way to learn new information is to test your knowledge repeatedly after an initial exposure. This is called the testing effect. When a researcher compared learning by repeated retrieval to re-reading, the retention rates were over double for the retrieval practice group over the no-retrieval group. Interestingly, there was no effect of having more time to study the material. Subsequent research on the testing effect has revealed that testing soon after learning helps to ensure that retrieval is accurate. After an initial practice, retesting with increasing delays between tests seems to produce the best retention. Of course, the testing effect relies on feedback on the accuracy of the retrieval attempts. Research suggests that delayed feedback results in the best retention of material and some have suggested that the delayed feedback creates a spacing effect. The spacing effect is the phenomenon where more material is recalled when there are intervening items between two presentations of the material than if it was presented back to back. Retrieval benefits retention even when the texting contexts are very different. 

Anders Ericsson has studied expertise for many years and has concluded that all have developed their expertise in the same way: through deliberate practice. Deliberate practice means honing a skill by being deliberately aware of related actions even when already proficient at the skill. People go through three stages when developing a skill. Firstly, people go through the cognitive stage where they use conscious effort to complete a task. Secondly, they go through the associative stage where some aspects of the skill become automatic. Lastly, they go through the autonomous stage where a task can be done without conscious thought. Ericsson has proposed that the difference between an expert and a non-expert is that the expert engages in deliberate practice and consciously avoids the autonomous stage where skills are performed unconsciously and are therefore resistant to improvement. In fact, Ericsson suggested that it takes 10,000 hours of deliberate practice to become an expert. There are three components to deliberate practice: observe experts, review past mistakes and consciously avoid repeating those mistakes, and set goals to overcome weaknesses. Feedback, preferably immediate feedback, is clearly important in skill development. A key feature in Ericsson’s theory is that anyone can be an expert at anything. Subsequent research has shown that other factors such as age at starting a new skill, intelligence, genetics, and grit also impact expertise.

Research examining brain activity has shown reduced attentional control activation with maintained motor activity during the development of expertise in a motor task. While sometimes actual changes in cortical tissue can occur as the result of becoming an expert, other times the expertise results in changes of what part of the brain is used to complete the tasks. The default mode network (DMN) is active when a person is at rest and inactive when a person is engaged in goal-directed behaviour. Experts also show greater decreases in DMN activity than non-experts when engaging in the same task, suggesting that they are utilizing more cognitive processes than novices.

Learning Objectives:

Having read this chapter, you will be able to do the following:

1. Describe the method of loci.
2. Identify ways in which memory athletes are similar to sports athletes.
3. Identify similarities and differences between memory athletes and the rest of the population.
4. Describe the master system and the person-action-object system and explain how these systems can be used to memorize digits.
5. Describe skilled memory theory and its three component principles.
6. Describe the testing effect and identify the conditions under which a testing effect is most likely to be observed.
7. Compare and contrast the efficacy of studying for a test by re-reading material, highlighting key points, and engaging in retrieval practice.
8. Explain why delayed feedback is more effective than immediate feedback for multiple-choice tests.
9. Describe deliberate practice and explain how it leads to expertise.
10. Explain how experts differ from novices in the way they approach their skill.