CFS lecturer shares memory techniques

Catherine See (top row, most left) with the participants

UTAR Centre for Corporate and Community Development (CCCD) in collaboration with Malaysia Mental Literacy Movement (MMLM) organised a webinar titled “Secret Recipe to Memorise Easily” on 21 May 2021. Invited to deliver the webinar was Centre for Foundation Studies (CFS) of Sungai Long Campus lecturer Catherine See.

 

Catherine See during the webinar

During the webinar, Catherine See shared some memory improvement techniques and strategies that could help one to improve their memory. She shared the 10 best foods that could help boost human brains. She also advised the participants to eat a healthy, balanced diet that includes these 10 brain-boosting foods to keep memory and focus as sharp as it can be.

 

Catherine See sharing 10 best brain and memory boosting foods

According to her, there are three basic memory processes that characterise how memory works. It includes encoding, storage and retrieval. “The first stage is to register the information; next is to retain the information and retrieve it. If you memorise the information using a certain technique, you will be able to recall it in a very simple way,” she said. 

Catherine See presenting the Ebbinghaus Forgetting curve 

She then introduced the Ebbinghaus Forgetting curve, explaining that people will lose their memory of information over time unless the information is consciously reviewed again and again. “We have five types of sensory—vision, audio, touch, smell and taste. When you have a sense of memory, you tend to forget if you do not repeat it. To prevent the loss of memory, you need to boost it and make it into short-term memory. If you do not repeat it, you will forget it one more time. If you repeat and repeat, it will be stored in the long-term memory. Encoding is the most important step among the memory processes,” she said. 

 

Catherine See explaining how visualisation and association technique could boost one’s memory

Catherine See explained how visualisation and association work as a memory technique. With the visualisation and association technique, abstract information will be easier to remember. She also mentioned that the brain has two hemispheres, where the right hemisphere is the creative side and the left is the analysis side. According to her, by linking information together with a memorable story featuring them, it will be easier for one to retrieve the information; the left hemisphere will recall the information from the right hemisphere. She also tested the participants to see how well they could remember words and items using the memory technique.

The webinar was adjourned by a Q&A session and a group photography session.