[Music]
When we learn, we are acquiring new skills and knowledge.
Memory is the expression of what has been learnt.
As such, learning and memory are closely linked.
So, in the world of training, it can be helpful to understand how people learn and retain new information.
This video tries to do that
by providing a simple model to explain how memory works.
If you are a student of Psychology, then this video isn’t for you.
We won’t be getting too technical here and we might even borrow from more than one theory,
so not very helpful from an academic perspective.
For the rest of us, you can think of memory as having three basic parts.
Sensory memory is a very short-term register of what you perceive in your environment,
using the six senses of: sight,
smell,
hearing,
touch,
taste
and dead people.
Although, thinking about it – one of those was a film.
So, it is a register of the five senses.
As you would quickly become overloaded by the sheer volume of perceptual information that you encounter,
it is held in the sensory memory buffer for only a brief moment whilst you quickly process it.
In most cases, what you see is forgotten in less than a second
and what you hear only lasts for around 4 seconds.
However, if you are paying particular attention to something
or you perceive something that is of interest to you,
it is transferred to the short-term memory.
You're essentially taking all of those inputs and quickly sorting them into categories.
That's called encoding. It's the first step in forming a memory.
Taking all of that sensory input from the environment
and transforming it into something memorable so that it can be stored.
Mnemonics and acronyms can be very helpful,
as they help you to sort otherwise abstract information into something relatable.
For example, SMART tasks
Specific
Measurable
Achievable
Releavnt
and Time-bound.
or the mnemonic to help you remember the colours of the rainbow
‘Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain’
Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo and Violet.
Of course, the environment can also get in the way of forming memories.
For new information to be encoded effectively, you need to be paying attention.
Distractions, such as phones in the training room, can disrupt that process.
If the room is uncomfortable, or the temperature is too hot or too cold, attention can be disrupted.
Your interest in the information, motivation, tiredness and the amount of information
are all likely to affect the encoding process.
It is why it is important to set the room up so that it is comfortable and uncluttered – free of distraction.
It is helpful to start training with a short activity,
to get people out of a work mindset and into a learning mindset.
Your short-term memory, or working memory,
is where the deliberate stuff happens.
It is used to store information temporarily
so that it can be accessed and manipulated to make decisions,
guide behaviour, and think.
When you are performing new activities, they require mental effort
and make use of your working memory.
You can only handle a limited number of things in your working memory.
I once heard someone describe the working memory
as being like an iPad
I can’t remember who it was (ironically) but the concept stuck with me.
Your working memory is like a tablet
in that there are different models available, offering different capacities and speeds,
but they each have a limit to what can be stored.
When the memory is full, the only way to make room for new content
is to delete something.
One theory suggests that working memory | can last for around 20 seconds
and has the capacity to hold seven bits of information, give or take two, at any one time.
There are ways to extend your short-term memory capacity,
one of which is to chunk bits together so that more can be retained,
and another is to keep repeating the information to yourself
so that it can be retained for longer.
Rehearsing information to maintain it, or repetition,
also increases the likelihood of that information being transferred to your long-term memory.
Once it is there it can be held, in theory, forever.
Although the details can be lost over time,
long-term memory is thought to have unlimited capacity and an indefinite storage duration.
Once something has transferred to the long-term memory,
it frees up space and capacity in our shorter-term working memory.
In terms of training, this is where we want information to end up,
in the long-term memory,
so that it can be retained and used at a later date when needed.
Because you have so much more room in your long-term memory,
it's easy for stuff to get lost. So, to make it easier to retrieve the information when it is needed,
we need to move it into working memory on a regular basis.
This loop is important because you're using your working memory all of the time.
Quite often, when you’re using your short-term memory,
it works because you are retrieving some other piece of information from your long-term memory
to help make sense of it.
The process of transferring something to your long-term memory
is easier when you can connect that information to something that you already knew.
By making those connections,
you encode memories so that they are stored in an organised way,
which also makes them easier to retrieve in the future.
Prior knowledge and experience are really important to learning,
which is why we design our sessions to include lots of discussions and sharing within the group.
The more you rehearse the information, the easier it is to retrieve when needed.
Eventually, you are able to perform some activities without even thinking about them.
The patterns are so established that you can perform certain tasks sub-consciously.
It's sometimes described as Unconscious Competence.
Here you are using a part of the long-term memory that we call Procedural Memory.
Procedural memories are automatically retrieved and used when needed to perform basic motor skills and tasks.
For example, when reading, tying your shoes or driving a car.
These all require conscious effort when you are learning
but become largely automatic with practice and experience.
So, memory is the process of how you encode new information,
so that it can be stored and retrieved when needed.
The memory consists of three basic parts:
Sensory Memory (or register)
Working (or short-term) memory
and Long-term memory
Focus and attention are needed for encoding to work effectively.
Connecting new information to something that is relatable to you
as it moves through working memory improves the chances
of it being stored in the long-term memory.
Repetition also helps.
Keeping notes during a training session and reviewing them shortly after the session is a form of maintenance
that helps both retention and recall.
The loop that is created between short-term and long-term memory
builds connections in the brain that make it easier to retrieve memories when they are needed.
So how do you know what to pay attention to?
We will look at that in Part Two.