Stop Cramming: What Neuroscience Says About Memory
For most of us, studying means rereading notes, completing practice problems and hoping that the information stays in our brains just long enough for us to do well on the assessment. The problem is, feeling like you remember the information and being able to recall it during an assessment are two different realities. Neuroscience and cognitive psychology suggest that studying is more about encoding, retrieving and consolidating information rather than exposing ourselves to it.
Memory begins with encoding, when information is processed by the brain. Information that receives little attention is unlikely to be encoded effectively, making attention a very important part of this process. Our working memory allows us to temporarily hold onto information and manipulate it. On the other hand, structures in the brain like the hippocampus form and consolidate long-term memories. At the cellular level, learning involves changes in the strength of connections between neurons, which is also known as synaptic plasticity. In other words, simply looking at the information doesn’t guarantee that you will remember it; the brain has to actively process and work with it to ensure that it is committed to long-term memory.
Understanding these processes teaches us an important lesson. Our study habits should support our brain in completing the work necessary to actually remember the content. One of the most strongly supported techniques is retrieval practice. Instead of just reading and rereading your notes, you should try closing the notebook and explaining to yourself, or to a partner, what you just learned. You can also use flashcards to practice recalling the answer with limited clues. This works because remembering is itself part of learning. McDermott's review of retrieval-based learning found that practicing retrieval after learning can slow down the rate of forgetting.
However, this technique is most beneficial when spread out over a prolonged period of time. Cramming five hours of reading the night before an assessment may create a feeling of familiarity, but that feeling will likely lessen by the time the assessment begins. If you were to learn a topic on Monday, review and practice retrieving the information on Wednesday, then again on Sunday, you are more likely to retain the information over time.
Another often overlooked technique that improves memory, and probably the easiest one of them all, is sleep. Memory doesn’t stop forming once you close the textbook; the time following your study session may be just as important as the session itself. During sleep, newly acquired information undergoes consolidation, a process which helps stabilize memories and reorganize them in ways that allow new connections and insights to surface. Diekelmann and Born’s review of sleep and memory describes sleep as an important state for consolidating newly acquired information, including declarative memories such as facts and events.
The practical implication of this is straightforward: Sleep should not be treated as something done only after mastering the material. Pulling an all-nighter takes away valuable time for your brain to consolidate the information. When possible, studying early and getting a good night's sleep can be more useful than cramming for those extra few hours.
Finally, studying isn't a process that occurs independent of the rest of the brain. Physical activity is associated with changes in the brain's function and neuroplasticity (the brain’s ability to change and reorganize its structures to allow for learning). Exercise has been linked to changes in levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), a protein involved in the growth and strengthening of neural connections. Studies also show that increased physical activity can increase blood flow to the brain and impact the hippocampus, one of the regions responsible for memory. However, these effects are not universal; a randomized trial in healthy adults found that six months of aerobic exercise significantly improved executive function but did not result in significant changes in episodic memory (the part of memory regarding personal experiences). Rather than viewing exercise as a direct memory booster, exercise should be viewed as a tool to support the cognitive systems that make learning possible.
As we have seen through the studies mentioned above, studying effectively isn’t about how many hours you spend with the textbook, but about how the brain is being challenged during those hours. Retrieval practice strengthens access to new information, spacing gives memories multiple opportunities to be reinforced, sleep helps the brain consolidate information and exercise may support the brain systems involved in learning. The goal of studying should not be to make the information look familiar, but to make it retrievable when you need it.
Photo Caption: Image of the brain
Photo Credit: Unsplash
