Question: How can memory be improved by using of mental images, concepts and schemas?
According to Cognitive Psychologists there are important points about our memories and some benefits in improving it, we need to look first at what part of the brain is involved and it’s brief functions.
Our brain constantly recalls and forms new memories, and the part of the brain that deals with memories is the hippocampus, which is located near the centre of the brain. There are three different types of memory used to store different types of information. Semantic is factual knowledge such as remembering capital cities. Episodic is personal past experiences, what a person’s kind of game she used to play during childhood, and Procedural memory is how to do something such as frying an egg, for example. Organizing thinking using various methods can improve memory recall. According to a range of research studies including the work of Raugh and Atkinson (1975), Bousfield (1953) and Bransford and Johnson (1972), Spoors et al, (2011), we can apply the use of mental images, concepts and schemas to improve our memory in different ways.
Firstly, is that mental images can help us not only to organize our thinking but also make us remember what we need when need it. In the Y163 course book (2011) Spoors gives an example in a picture of a bell that has an unpleasant smell which can remind us of the word ‘poobelle’ a word which means ‘bin’ in English and translating from French sounds like a bell full of pooh. And indicates a good way to learn another language too. Another Example in mental image is the experience carried out by Michael Raugh and Richard Atkinson (Spoors et al, 2011). Where two groups of participants were asked to remember a list of 60 Spanish words. In the first group they were manipulated and taught to use key words and the second did not. When tested later the group that used key words to make a mental image scored considerably higher than the