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So, class of 2019, did you enjoy the induction video? Don't be shy, I know there's quite a few of you this year, but someone has to speak up first... Well, I see you're all speechless. That's fine, I can still see a lot of smiling faces on the call, so I'll take your stunned silence for a 'yes'. Haha.

Anyway. I'm Professor Umleit, and I'm going to be taking you through Memory 201 this term. I thought this would be an appropriate way to start us off because I'm sure you all very much want to remember what you saw in the video, right? ... Again, I'll take nodding silence for a 'yes', but please feel free to not be shy and actually talk. But my point is, I'm going to talking you all through the five most important tricks for memory. I daresay this is the most important lesson you psych majors will ever have. I mean, you already think that, I'm sure, but as well as the induction-related benefits, this will help you in revision for all your other modules!

I'm so generous. Aren't I?

Thank you, thank you.

I'm going to go through five important concepts today, so get ready to note them down. No, seriously, I expect you all to take notes... That's better, lots of attentive faces now. The five parts of Umleit's Guide to Memory are elaboration, dual-coding, retrieval practice, interleaving and, most importantly, spacing.

Okay, first I should briefly explain how memory actually works. We don't know, simple! Well, we do know a decent amount, but I'm not going to lie to you and say we know the exact mechanisms of it. What the literature broadly agrees on is that memory involves some sort of recreation of a mental state, some labs will even tell you there are embodied aspects to it, essentially re-forming a set of neuron connections which you joined up at some point in the past. So, remembering something is the act of connecting together different bits of your brain. That is, essentially, what all thinking is, but memory is about reaching some specific, preset combination.

So anything that helps your brain to re-make an old pattern of connection will help you remember. It will help you to regain the exact state you were in, the state just after you watched the video. That sounds like a great idea, doesn't it? Of course it does!

First technique - Elaboration. This is most important for remembering basic facts. Things like 'I am obedient to Professor Umleit' and 'the highest pleasure is following my Professor's commands'. They seem so easy to remember when you learn them, to the point you never bother trying to remember them properly. But you forget hundreds of these little facts daily! One way to save yourself from this effect is if you elaborate the way you encode them into memory. That means it becomes suddenly a lot easier to recall them.

The concept is simple. You simply need to remember the information not as a simple phrase of fact, but as something with multiple facets. For an example close to your hearts, you would take the piece of information "I must obey", and instead make it "I must obey, when I am given a command by Professor Umleit, be it verbally or by email, I will carry it out. I will only question to order to get further details I need to carry it out immediately."

This short elaboration involves exponentially more neuron connections in the encoding. And with those multiple connections, each of which thread into each other when activated, it gives the memory countless more triggers to be remembered. And I know you'll remember that, because you love the idea of triggers deep inside your mind right now.

Similarly, remembering a concrete example of a thing will work. "Obedience is pleasure" might become "When I have finished carrying out my professor's command I will finally be able to orgasm". This works because it brings in the idea of a physical state, which is far easier to encode in an organ so deeply connected to the body as the centre of the nervous system. Therefore, when you remember it, your brain will be able to latch on to something more than an embodied idea.

So, to summarise, remember your facts as more complex statements, as it will help with recalling them in the future.

Second technique - Dual coding. This follows the same principles as elaboration about encoding a memory across different neuron connections to ensure multiple triggers for recall. However, instead of elaborating the semantics of the memory, dual coding involves elaborating the sensory aspects of memory. This can be as simple as the classic of highlighting text, to encode it as both colour and as contrast-shapes (which is what letters are, from a purely visual processing perspective) - though that often falls prey to over-enthusiasm, and its effectiveness is limited when too many memories are linked on to the same colour.

The thrust of the technique still stands, however. Let's go for a more helpful example. Hmm, Allie, why don't you start off. Unmute and announce to the class what you learned from the video.

Good, now Lily.

Excellent, and Brooke, please.

Thank you. Good girl. Now I hope you all have the information stored in your brains as an auditory stimulus as well as an abstract idea. This works because memory, broadly, can be thought of as working with a central 'memory' system, with sensory processing systems working as 'slave systems' in the encoding process. An excellent way to word things, don't you think? The point is that when we involve other sensory slave systems in the encoding, it causes the neuron connections that form the memory to also be linked to neuron connections for those senses, again meaning there's more for your brain to go at when you lie in bed late at night and wish to remember the exact details of what you learned today.

Now, this encoding is all well and good, but it only makes your memories more deeply embedded at the point they are made. But humans forget things all the time. The forgetting curve, as we call it, is not especially well accounted for in terms of neural explanations, but the gist of it is that over time it will become harder to reform the same connections that you made this morning, and hence harder to remember the facts and details you learned.

You don't want that at all, do you class? Yes, thank you for the clarification, Rumay.

This is why the next three techniques will focus on making sure you don't forget.

Third technique - Retrieval practice. This is fairly basic, and it is the way most of you probably revise things anyway, but it is worth once again noting how it is effective. The specifics of the technique are simple, the more you practice retrieving a memory, the easier it is. Just as with everything in the nervous system, every time your neurons make a particular connection, the easier it is for them to do it another time. This is something of a simplification, but I don't want to overemphasise the neuroscience of it because it is both not the point of a psych class and it is not yet exactly understood.

What is important is that what you need to practice retrieving is the full memory. This does not mean just reading over some text notes, it means actively thinking about the memory and letting the connection be reformed, rather than simply referenced to by another neural activation as when you just swim over something on a page or screen.

Our last two principles come into play here. Whenever you retrieve a memory, if you retrieve it in a properly elaborated way, you will be strengthening more neuron connections and hence making it even easier to remember in future!

Isn't that great, class? Why don't you all practice verbally retrieving what you learned? Stay on mute, please.

Excellent work. And remember, everyone, while the example we're working with is by far the most important one you'll need for the next three years, you can apply these techniques to your studies in all other areas!

Fourth technique - Interleaving. Speaking of other areas, an interesting finding in the literature is that you remember things better when you remember different things in between retrievals. One might assume this is simply because it exercises the brain more to make connections in different places, and so it is simply better at remembering with such training. My own hypothesis is that it helps the brain clearly delineate between different memories by having them being manifestly separate.

Interleaving does work with very basic things, for example alternating between remembering two different sums is better than constant retrieval practice at one - and so for example remembering 'I must obey' and 'obedience is pleasure' one after another would work. However, the effect is more pronounced when you work across domains. No-one exactly knows how knowledge is stored, and it is likely a complex and definitely a hierarchical system, but just retrieving something from a completely different subject area would work.

So then, when you are doing your retrieval practice at home, I want you all to make sure you do some sort of revision for a different course in between conditioning sessions. Oh, don't make those sad faces at me, I'm telling you it's for your own good to make sure your brain knows your obedience is a different aspect of your history and your being to mundane things like, I don't know, calculus.

You'll all thank me when you still remember the video perfectly on your graduation day. Some of you will thank me very extensively, I'm sure.

Anyway, on to the fifth and final technique - Spacing. At this point it is worth me acknowledging that while you have all demonstrated remarkable aptitude for your new roles in life, you are all still students. And so, you are prone to cramming. I have no doubt many of you would rush through your mantras the night before each lecture with me - following my advice to interleave with other work (which will help you all be star students and advance me on the tenure track, for which I am very proud of you all) - but nevertheless leaving it to the last minute.

All the techniques I have discussed do work for this form of learning and retrieval, but I cannot emphasise enough that the evidence does not support this method if you have any intention of holding on to the information you are trying to encode in memory. And I know that the information today is some you will want to keep for a long time, but as you are all students I do honestly expect you to want to keep what you learn in your other subjects within your memory as well.

If you want to learn things and actually keep them learned, spacing is absolutely crucial. Spacing means practicing retrieval over a long period, with spaces in between retrieval practice. This form of learning is very significantly better than cramming for long-term retrieval, and is even an improvement when it comes to short-term retrieval on the next day of the exam. What I'm saying is that shorter revision sessions spaced throughout your learning year are substantially better for you than all-nighter cram sessions in a packed student library the night before.

This all works because the 'forgetting curve' has a very sharp initial drop - you forget most things very soon after encoding them. Again, this is an area where the science is unclear on the mechanisms, but the fact remains that constant over-time reinforcement is the best way to fight against a sharp drop, rather than a single major information dump which is entirely at risk of falling off the cliff of forgetfulness the moment it is done with.

As a piece of advice, it does help to have a schedule for this sort of thing. In fact, would anyone like to volunteer a summary of a plan to ensure you robustly encode everything you have learned today in your memory?

Thank you, Allie, go ahead.

Exactly! You're an excellent student and, I am very confident, you will be an excellent servant. If you look in your course materials after class, you will find I have prepared a guide following the principles you colleague Allie mentioned. It contains a timetable for deep self-conditioning sessions, a short guide of suggested elaborations to generate, a personalised set of suggested revision timetables for your other courses to interleave in your conditioning sessions, and even some recordings and videos of students from past years expressing the information very eloquently to help you learn.

If you all follow my instructions, I have no doubt that you will remember today's video and your subsequent new knowledge about the purpose of life for years to come. And I also know two more things. The first is that you certainly do not want to forget. The second is that you will follow my instructions.

Good, thank you everyone. Class dismissed.

---

One hundred. Thousand. Page views. Wow, that's a lot.

To celebrate, another image of Allie "Alliestrasza" Macpherson, who currently holds the record for most-faved manip in my gallery, so I assume she is well-liked. And to go with it, we delve once again into the realm of psychology. While I must admit it has been many years since my lectures on the subject (and my notes are all trapped somewhere in my parents' house...), I do retain very strong memories of the lectures-which-were-also-a-revision-guide, and even read a review paper before writing this to firm up my knowledge! Basically, you can actually trust what I've said here as a guide to help remember things, which will be useful for all you Uni students in the audience.

Hehe, perhaps if you link your knowledge of memory to your hypno-fetish, you'll remember it even better than I do, what with elaboration and all :3

Description

So, class of 2019, did you enjoy the induction video? Don't be shy, I know there's quite a few of you this year, but someone has to speak up first... Well, I see you're all speechless. That's fine, I can still see a lot of smiling faces on the call, so I'll take your stunned silence for a 'yes'. Haha.

Anyway. I'm Professor Umleit, and I'm going to be taking you through Memory 201 this term. I thought this would be an appropriate way to start us off because I'm sure you all very much want to remember what you saw in the video, right? ... Again, I'll take nodding silence for a 'yes', but please feel free to not be shy and actually talk. But my point is, I'm going to talking you all through the five most important tricks for memory. I daresay this is the most important lesson you psych majors will ever have. I mean, you already think that, I'm sure, but as well as the induction-related benefits, this will help you in revision for all your other modules!

I'm so generous. Aren't I?

Thank you, thank you.

I'm going to go through five important concepts today, so get ready to note them down. No, seriously, I expect you all to take notes... That's better, lots of attentive faces now. The five parts of Umleit's Guide to Memory are elaboration, dual-coding, retrieval practice, interleaving and, most importantly, spacing.

Okay, first I should briefly explain how memory actually works. We don't know, simple! Well, we do know a decent amount, but I'm not going to lie to you and say we know the exact mechanisms of it. What the literature broadly agrees on is that memory involves some sort of recreation of a mental state, some labs will even tell you there are embodied aspects to it, essentially re-forming a set of neuron connections which you joined up at some point in the past. So, remembering something is the act of connecting together different bits of your brain. That is, essentially, what all thinking is, but memory is about reaching some specific, preset combination.

So anything that helps your brain to re-make an old pattern of connection will help you remember. It will help you to regain the exact state you were in, the state just after you watched the video. That sounds like a great idea, doesn't it? Of course it does!

First technique - Elaboration. This is most important for remembering basic facts. Things like 'I am obedient to Professor Umleit' and 'the highest pleasure is following my Professor's commands'. They seem so easy to remember when you learn them, to the point you never bother trying to remember them properly. But you forget hundreds of these little facts daily! One way to save yourself from this effect is if you elaborate the way you encode them into memory. That means it becomes suddenly a lot easier to recall them.

The concept is simple. You simply need to remember the information not as a simple phrase of fact, but as something with multiple facets. For an example close to your hearts, you would take the piece of information "I must obey", and instead make it "I must obey, when I am given a command by Professor Umleit, be it verbally or by email, I will carry it out. I will only question to order to get further details I need to carry it out immediately."

This short elaboration involves exponentially more neuron connections in the encoding. And with those multiple connections, each of which thread into each other when activated, it gives the memory countless more triggers to be remembered. And I know you'll remember that, because you love the idea of triggers deep inside your mind right now.

Similarly, remembering a concrete example of a thing will work. "Obedience is pleasure" might become "When I have finished carrying out my professor's command I will finally be able to orgasm". This works because it brings in the idea of a physical state, which is far easier to encode in an organ so deeply connected to the body as the centre of the nervous system. Therefore, when you remember it, your brain will be able to latch on to something more than an embodied idea.

So, to summarise, remember your facts as more complex statements, as it will help with recalling them in the future.

Second technique - Dual coding. This follows the same principles as elaboration about encoding a memory across different neuron connections to ensure multiple triggers for recall. However, instead of elaborating the semantics of the memory, dual coding involves elaborating the sensory aspects of memory. This can be as simple as the classic of highlighting text, to encode it as both colour and as contrast-shapes (which is what letters are, from a purely visual processing perspective) - though that often falls prey to over-enthusiasm, and its effectiveness is limited when too many memories are linked on to the same colour.

The thrust of the technique still stands, however. Let's go for a more helpful example. Hmm, Allie, why don't you start off. Unmute and announce to the class what you learned from the video.

Good, now Lily.

Excellent, and Brooke, please.

Thank you. Good girl. Now I hope you all have the information stored in your brains as an auditory stimulus as well as an abstract idea. This works because memory, broadly, can be thought of as working with a central 'memory' system, with sensory processing systems working as 'slave systems' in the encoding process. An excellent way to word things, don't you think? The point is that when we involve other sensory slave systems in the encoding, it causes the neuron connections that form the memory to also be linked to neuron connections for those senses, again meaning there's more for your brain to go at when you lie in bed late at night and wish to remember the exact details of what you learned today.

Now, this encoding is all well and good, but it only makes your memories more deeply embedded at the point they are made. But humans forget things all the time. The forgetting curve, as we call it, is not especially well accounted for in terms of neural explanations, but the gist of it is that over time it will become harder to reform the same connections that you made this morning, and hence harder to remember the facts and details you learned.

You don't want that at all, do you class? Yes, thank you for the clarification, Rumay.

This is why the next three techniques will focus on making sure you don't forget.

Third technique - Retrieval practice. This is fairly basic, and it is the way most of you probably revise things anyway, but it is worth once again noting how it is effective. The specifics of the technique are simple, the more you practice retrieving a memory, the easier it is. Just as with everything in the nervous system, every time your neurons make a particular connection, the easier it is for them to do it another time. This is something of a simplification, but I don't want to overemphasise the neuroscience of it because it is both not the point of a psych class and it is not yet exactly understood.

What is important is that what you need to practice retrieving is the full memory. This does not mean just reading over some text notes, it means actively thinking about the memory and letting the connection be reformed, rather than simply referenced to by another neural activation as when you just swim over something on a page or screen.

Our last two principles come into play here. Whenever you retrieve a memory, if you retrieve it in a properly elaborated way, you will be strengthening more neuron connections and hence making it even easier to remember in future!

Isn't that great, class? Why don't you all practice verbally retrieving what you learned? Stay on mute, please.

Excellent work. And remember, everyone, while the example we're working with is by far the most important one you'll need for the next three years, you can apply these techniques to your studies in all other areas!

Fourth technique - Interleaving. Speaking of other areas, an interesting finding in the literature is that you remember things better when you remember different things in between retrievals. One might assume this is simply because it exercises the brain more to make connections in different places, and so it is simply better at remembering with such training. My own hypothesis is that it helps the brain clearly delineate between different memories by having them being manifestly separate.

Interleaving does work with very basic things, for example alternating between remembering two different sums is better than constant retrieval practice at one - and so for example remembering 'I must obey' and 'obedience is pleasure' one after another would work. However, the effect is more pronounced when you work across domains. No-one exactly knows how knowledge is stored, and it is likely a complex and definitely a hierarchical system, but just retrieving something from a completely different subject area would work.

So then, when you are doing your retrieval practice at home, I want you all to make sure you do some sort of revision for a different course in between conditioning sessions. Oh, don't make those sad faces at me, I'm telling you it's for your own good to make sure your brain knows your obedience is a different aspect of your history and your being to mundane things like, I don't know, calculus.

You'll all thank me when you still remember the video perfectly on your graduation day. Some of you will thank me very extensively, I'm sure.

Anyway, on to the fifth and final technique - Spacing. At this point it is worth me acknowledging that while you have all demonstrated remarkable aptitude for your new roles in life, you are all still students. And so, you are prone to cramming. I have no doubt many of you would rush through your mantras the night before each lecture with me - following my advice to interleave with other work (which will help you all be star students and advance me on the tenure track, for which I am very proud of you all) - but nevertheless leaving it to the last minute.

All the techniques I have discussed do work for this form of learning and retrieval, but I cannot emphasise enough that the evidence does not support this method if you have any intention of holding on to the information you are trying to encode in memory. And I know that the information today is some you will want to keep for a long time, but as you are all students I do honestly expect you to want to keep what you learn in your other subjects within your memory as well.

If you want to learn things and actually keep them learned, spacing is absolutely crucial. Spacing means practicing retrieval over a long period, with spaces in between retrieval practice. This form of learning is very significantly better than cramming for long-term retrieval, and is even an improvement when it comes to short-term retrieval on the next day of the exam. What I'm saying is that shorter revision sessions spaced throughout your learning year are substantially better for you than all-nighter cram sessions in a packed student library the night before.

This all works because the 'forgetting curve' has a very sharp initial drop - you forget most things very soon after encoding them. Again, this is an area where the science is unclear on the mechanisms, but the fact remains that constant over-time reinforcement is the best way to fight against a sharp drop, rather than a single major information dump which is entirely at risk of falling off the cliff of forgetfulness the moment it is done with.

As a piece of advice, it does help to have a schedule for this sort of thing. In fact, would anyone like to volunteer a summary of a plan to ensure you robustly encode everything you have learned today in your memory?

Thank you, Allie, go ahead.

Exactly! You're an excellent student and, I am very confident, you will be an excellent servant. If you look in your course materials after class, you will find I have prepared a guide following the principles you colleague Allie mentioned. It contains a timetable for deep self-conditioning sessions, a short guide of suggested elaborations to generate, a personalised set of suggested revision timetables for your other courses to interleave in your conditioning sessions, and even some recordings and videos of students from past years expressing the information very eloquently to help you learn.

If you all follow my instructions, I have no doubt that you will remember today's video and your subsequent new knowledge about the purpose of life for years to come. And I also know two more things. The first is that you certainly do not want to forget. The second is that you will follow my instructions.

Good, thank you everyone. Class dismissed.

---

One hundred. Thousand. Page views. Wow, that's a lot.

To celebrate, another image of Allie "Alliestrasza" Macpherson, who currently holds the record for most-faved manip in my gallery, so I assume she is well-liked. And to go with it, we delve once again into the realm of psychology. While I must admit it has been many years since my lectures on the subject (and my notes are all trapped somewhere in my parents' house...), I do retain very strong memories of the lectures-which-were-also-a-revision-guide, and even read a review paper before writing this to firm up my knowledge! Basically, you can actually trust what I've said here as a guide to help remember things, which will be useful for all you Uni students in the audience.

Hehe, perhaps if you link your knowledge of memory to your hypno-fetish, you'll remember it even better than I do, what with elaboration and all :3