You Can Learn to Remember: Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life pdfdrive com

finding your digit span
EXERCISE TWO
This exercise will reveal how much data you are able to hold in your short-term
memory (STM) before it is replaced. Choose the required sequences of random
single-digit numbers from a telephone directory.
1. On a large sheet of paper write down a sequence of four numbers on the top
line, such as 5, 8, 3, 7. Write two more sequences of four digits below. On the
fourth, fifth and sixth lines write sequences of five digits. On the next three lines
write sequences of six digits, and continue until you have sequences of 10 digits
on the bottom three lines.
2. Now read the number sequence on the first line to yourself at a steady pace.
Then conceal that sequence by covering it with another piece of paper and try to

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recall the numbers in the same order. Move the cover sheet away and note
whether or not you remembered the numbers completely correctly. If so, move on
to the first sequence of the next length. If not, try the next sequence of the same
length.
3. Continue testing yourself until you reach a sequence length at which you
cannot correctly repeat the numbers on any of the three attempts. Your digit span
is the number of digits contained in the longest sequence of numbers that you are
able to recall.
the reliability of memory
O
ur memories are a unique, highly personal faculty – just as our minds are
generally. All experience is subjective, and different people will recall the same
experience differently (sometimes significantly so). However, this does not
necessarily mean that one person’s memory is better than another’s. More likely,
we colour our experiences with our own set of personal preoccupations – our
likes and dislikes, our mood at the time, and so on. Does this mean, then, that we
cannot trust our memories reliably to present the facts about a situation or
experience? If we feel convinced that we have the answer to a searching
question, can we really trust the depth of our conviction?
These questions suggest themselves most challengingly within the deeper
realms of psychology, where various mechanisms of the mind may distort our
recollection of events. For example, we may transfer our own sense of guilt onto
other people and, in the light of our negative feelings about these people, our
memories may exaggerate incidents that show them in a bad light. Or we may
suppress what is painful about the past. A commonplace example of our mind’s
anesthetizing process centres on childbirth. At the time of labour, women live
through the experience as painful and distressing. But if mothers are asked later
to recount their memory of childbirth, most will say that they “know”
instinctively that it was painful at the time, but that they cannot recapture in any
detail the intensity or difficulty of the event. (This is the product of a simple
survival instinct, which ensures that, on the whole, women are not deterred from
having more children.)
At a more obvious level, stress in the form of tiredness, fear or ill-health
can have a significant effect on what we take in and how accurately we can
recall it. When we are under pressure of any kind, our ability to concentrate
lessens, and we become less capable of faithfully observing details. This is a

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