Researchers Reveal One Easy Trick to Remembering Anything

Lisa Franchi February 13, 2017

Do you easily forget anything? From your car keys to the topic you just learned at school? Many students struggle at retaining information. Well, your brain’s not to blame. With the tons of information it absorbs every day, remembering every detail can indeed be a challenge.

But here’s a super easy trick: share that knowledge to someone else. US researchers found that students who repeated new information to someone else immediately after learning it could recall those details better and longer than students who did not.

In a series of experiments, researchers from the University of Texas examined what’s the best way to retain newly acquired information.

In the first experiment, participants were shown short clips of several different obscure films. Students were asked to recall information about the movies starting from several minutes to seven days after watching. Not surprisingly, the participants forgot details as more time went on.

In the second experiment, they were given a cue, such as a screen shot of the movie or the film’s title, before watching the clips. These participants remembered the general plot just as well as the first group, but performed significantly better when recalling the little details, such as colour, sound and gestures, according to the study.

Finally, another group of students were shown movie clips and also asked them to tell another person about the film shortly after watching it. It was this group that remembered both the central theme and little details for longer than any other group.

According to Melanie Sekeres, a psychologist at Baylor University, the lead author of the study, actively retrieving the information just learned by telling it to someone else provides opportunity for the brain to ‘re-encode’ and ‘restore’ the information.

Further studies are needed to determine whether this technique is really effective and beneficial, especially for people with cognitive disorders. Nonetheless, it’s a trick worth trying. After all, there’s nothing wrong with sharing knowledge with other people too.

Source of this article:

This Quick Trick Will Help You Remember Anything

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