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T h e M e m o r y K e y
<http://www.memory-key.com>

Your resource for information about memory and memory improvement

January 2006

http://www.memory-key.com/newsletters/issue_73.htm

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THIS MONTH ON MEMORY-KEY.COM:

METAMEMORY

THINKING ABOUT MEMORY

BLOG

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Find out more about my e-book on "Remembering intentions" at:
http://www.memory-key.com/shop/intention_ebook.htm

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Find out about my new YA novel involving ancestral memory at:
http://www.fmmcpherson.com/

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METAMEMORY

“An integrated intervention approach that simultaneously targets beliefs, affect, and the strategic repertoire of the individual may hold the most promise for improving memory in everyday life”. [1]

In other words, the best way to improve someone’s memory involves not only teaching them new, effective memory strategies, but also helps change their beliefs and attitudes and emotional response to memory. You won’t use your new, effective memory strategies, if you’re not convinced of their worth.
You won’t be convinced of their worth if you don’t understand how and why they work, and if you really believe in your heart that the fault lies in yourself – you have a ‘bad’ memory.

This is what my books and my website are all about, of course.

This month, I decided to talk a little about metamemory – an encompassing term that refers not only to knowledge about memory processes and your own memory system, but also your attitudes and beliefs about memory. I ended up with three new articles, which I have uploaded to the site. The first, brief article, is a general introduction to metamemory and why it matters. It’s at:
http://www.memory-key.com/NatureofMemory/metamemory.htm

The other two are in the more specific context of studying. The first discusses self-monitoring and its relationship to your ability to effectively allocate your time and energy. It’s at:
http://www.memory-key.com/StudySkills/self_monitoring.htm

The second discusses the even more specific situation of using a metacognitive strategy for studying mathematics. You can find that here:
http://www.memory-key.com/StudySkills/IMPROVE.htm

I hope you find them helpful, or at least interesting!

1. Hertzog, C. 1992. Improving memory: The possible roles of metamemory. In D. Herrmann, H. Weingartner, A. Searleman & C. McEvoy (eds.) Memory Improvement: Implications for Memory Theory. New York: Springer-Verlag. pp 61-78.

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THINKING ABOUT MEMORY

Well, the emphasis in my books and on my website and in this newsletter is on the practical, but I haven’t spent all these years studying memory simply because it is of great practical value – a tool of critical worth. Although it is, of course, that. But the reason why everything I do, even the fiction I write, comes back to memory, is because memory fascinates me. And it fascinates me for, you might say, philosophical reasons. Memory is who we are, and memory is malleable. Think on that: we are not simply what our past has made us; we are what our perception and memory of the past has made us.

I collect quotes about memory, and, though it is not, perhaps, of any particular practical benefit, I thought I might share some of them with you from time to time. I won’t discuss them; I think they say it all themselves.
They’re just something to think about.

“our sense of self ... depends crucially on these fragmentary and often elusive remnants of experience. What we believe about ourselves is determined by what we remember about our pasts.”
[My favourite memory researcher: Daniel Schacter, in Searching for Memory, p40]

“Memory defines who we are and shapes the way we act more closely than any other single aspect of our personhood. ...We know who we are, and who other people are, in terms of memory. Lose your memory and you, as you, cease to exist ...”
[Steven Rose, The Making of Memory, p1]

“A man is always a teller of tales, he lives surrounded by his stories and the stories of others, he sees everything that happens to him through them; and he tries to live his life as if he were recounting it.”
[Jean-Paul Sartre]

and perhaps my favorite, because it says it all, so pithily:

“We are products of editing, not authorship.”
[George Wald – winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1967]

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BLOG
www.memory-key.com/blogger.html

Latest posts:

* scientists more likely to produce children with autism?
* choral abilities of wrens
* an optical illusion.
* change blindness
* motherhood an enriching experience for the brain
* stroke therapy
* light therapy for SAD
* it's not how bright you are, it's whether you stick to the task
* animal personality
* benefits of laughter

* Religion an accidental byproduct of cognitive systems
* early morning foggy brain
* yawning and empathy

Note that the blog is indexed chronologically at
http://www.memory-key.com/indices/blog_index.htm

And by subject, at http://www.memory-key.com/indices/blog_index2.htm

You can also access my blog with an RSS feed. The URL is
http://memory-key.com/ftp.memory-key.com/atom.xml, or just click the
Bloglines button on the sidebar of my blog.

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If you have missed any issue of the newsletter (those people who use hotmail
in particular sometimes have their mail bounced back "overquota"), you can
read back issues at: http://www.memory-key.com/newsletters/newsletters.htm

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The Memory Key website is named after my book "The Memory Key", a
practical user-friendly handbook designed to help people achieve
genuine, long-lasting memory improvement.

http://www.memory-key.com/AboutTheSite/about_book.htm

www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1564144704/thememorykey-20

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Copyright © 2006 Capital Research Limited.

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