Still, because the medicine won’t be able to target specific types of memories, there will always be a side effect of all memories being enhanced for a while.
Myth: You can plan your learning while you are sleeping.
Truth: While it is a possibility that selected memories that are generated during sleep can be stored, it is practically impossible to control this process and create productive learning. Not only that, but it could affect your sleep, and as we know, sleep is vital for our body and head function.
Myth: The best brain waves for learning are alpha-waves.
Truth: Being in a state of relaxation is essential for learning, but this type of relaxation relates to being free of distractions, tiredness, and stress. Alpha-waves are active just before you go to sleep, so it is a different kind of relaxation altogether.
As you can see from above, there are numerous myths out there about reading and learning faster, and the majority are because people just don’t understand how the brain works. The mind is hugely complex, but once you know how the memory side of it works, you will see how
silly some of these myths are.
CHAPTER TWO
Read Faster And Never Forget It
History of Speed Reading
Humans are natural gatherers of information, and as the need for more knowledge increases, people want to gather that information much faster. Even the United States Air Force employed the methodology of reading more quickly by inventing the tachistoscope.
The tachistoscope displays a picture for a brief amount of time and then takes it away. The device was utilized in pilot training so they could identify the enemy faster.
After a bit of adjustment and experimenting, they determined that when they flashed four words at 1/500th of a second, the readers understood what they were seeing. By developing the tachistoscope, they changed how reading was seen. It was now known that people could read more than one word at a time.
During the late 1950s, learning this skill became very popular in the United States, primarily due to one woman. Evelyn Wood was the first to call it ‘speed reading,’ and she studied readers who were naturally fast to help her devise a methodology that was later taught. Her classes were taught in college throughout the country up until the late 1990s.
The Evelyn Wood Reading Dynamics Institute was founded in Washington in 1959. It was alleged that some of the students could read up to 6,000 words per minute. The reading speed of Wood herself was estimated between 2,700 and 15,000 words per minute, depending on what material she was reading.
You may not be aware, but each year there is a World Championship Speed Reading Competition. Generally, those at the top of the leader board read between 1,000 to 2,000 words per minute. Their comprehension is measured at 50% or more. Anne Jones was the world champion six times, and she recorded a speed of 4,200 words per minute and 67% comprehension after she had previously been exposed to the material.
We all think we know what memory is, but how much do we understand about it? Do we know how memories are formed and stored in the brain? And why does our memory sometimes fail us?
Memory has been studied for ages by philosophers and scientists in the quest to discover how memories form and how they are organized and stored in the brain and have come up with the following conclusions.
The process of memory is rather complex, with the acquisition of information, storage of that information, and then the recall of the data. But, there are differences in types of memory.
Although the mind is excellent at storing memories, it’s not always perfect, and sometimes there are problems. These can range from minor nuisances, like walking into a room and forgetting why you went there, to the effect of serious diseases that can reduce the ability
of the cerebrum to function. Everyone is forgetful, and you just have to identify whether it is happening more often than previously.
The Formation Process of Memory
At the beginning of the memory process, called ‘encoding,’ the information received is changed into a usable form. The data is then stored in the memory so it can be used later. Although we are no longer aware of the memory being there, it can be recalled later when the information is needed.
Brief, Short and Long-Term Memory
Some of the memories stored may only be very brief, lasting just a few seconds when they are recalled. These memories enable you to absorb sensory information from the world around you. Short-term memories generally last around twenty to thirty seconds, and these are recalled when we are focusing and thinking about something specific.
Long-term memories can last a very long time, from days to years.
These are the ones where you may think back to something from your childhood, perhaps, or something that has happened in the distant past. Interestingly, many Alzheimer’s patients can recall long-term memories and not short-term memories.
Retrieving Memories
It is one thing to be able to store memories, but you also need to be able to recover memory when required. The retrieval of memories can be influenced by several factors, including the type of information you are trying to recall.
An interesting fact about memory retrieval is that when you think you know something but can’t quite recall it, this is called lethologica.
Another term for it is ‘tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon. The answer is on the tip of your tongue, but you can’t grasp what it is.
Memory Stage Model
You are probably wondering what on earth a memory model is, but don’t panic; it’s not that complicated. The memory model is used to explain the function and basic structure of memory often, and it is composed of three different stages of memory. These are short-term memory, sensory memory, and long-term memory.
The first stage of forming a memory is the sensory memory category.
This is when the information is stored for just a brief second, and then this is sometimes moved into the short-term memory stage.
Another term for short-term memory is ‘active memory.’ These memories are the ones we are thinking about at the current moment in time. Often this is referred to in psychology as the conscious mind. By placing your attention on the sensory memories, information is then generated into short-term memory. This information is retained for just seconds, and many of these types of memories are forgotten quickly. But, if you pay attention to the memory, it can move forward into the next phase, the long-term memory.
You most likely know what a long-term memory is, as we all have them: that ability to recall something that has occurred in the past.
These memories are referred to in psychology as the unconscious and preconscious state. We are not necessarily aware of these memories,
they are stored until we need them, and they are then recalled.
Memory Organization
By being able to recall the information in long-term memories, we can use the information to solve issues, interact socially, and make decisions. It is not entirely understood how the data is stored and organized, but it is believed they are stored in groups, called clustering. To explain this more manageable, here is an example: When reading the following words, then attempting to recall them, you will naturally group them into categories:
Banana, blue, chair, purple, bed, orange, nectarine,
bookcase, fig, mauve, stool, grape
You most likely grouped these into the following groups - furniture, color, and fruit.
There is also a model of memory organization called semantic network. This theory is related to triggers that activate associated memories, such as the memory of an event that would bring up other memories related to it, like how you got there, who was there, and what happened.
Why Do We Forget Things?
Being forgetful could be due to several reasons, and it is entirely reasonable to forget things sometimes. The brain may not be able to recall the long-term memory information, often because the memory hasn’t been evoked and reviewed regularly. In other words, if you haven’t thought about that memory for twenty years, it may not come
to you. But if you have thought about it often, it will be easier to recall.
The four leading causes of forgetfulness are failure to store information, retrieval failure, motivated forgetting, and interference.
Data is sometimes not held correctly at the start, while other times, memories may be competing against each other, which makes it harder to recall specifics. Of course, there are memories that a person simply may not want to remember, which is motivated forgetting.
