memory without learning

Where were you when you heard that Princess Diana had died? Take a few minutes to think about the question. The chances are that you can remember ‘as if it were yesterday’.

You can probably remember very clearly not just where you were, but perhaps sights and sounds of the moment, who you were with, what you said, how you heard the news, who you told it to; in effect a rich and detailed memory.

A memory without learning. (By learning I mean the effort of trying to remember something).

But this is not just memory without learning, or memory without effort; it is a rich and detailed memory of a situation you only experienced once.

This is a ‘one-hit’ memory.

You only needed to experience it once and yet you remember it in so much detail, and with such clarity, that it could have been yesterday.

You no doubt have a number of equally rich and detailed memories of important events in your life. And all of these have associations. Perhaps a smell or a colour brings back one such memory, perhaps a place, or a series of words.

These memories are special because they are not associated with plain facts, but contain other information related to sights, sounds, smells, etc.. It’s almost as if you took a snapshot of your whole senses at that one point.

These memories are richer and more detailed than could ever be achieved by conscious effort.

I believe that the least effective way to remember is by a conscious effort, i.e. ‘learning’.

(Do you remember ‘cramming’ the night before your exams? How much of what you ‘learnt’ then can you remember now?) Is it possible that we can ‘acquire’ a language in the same way as we acquire our memories, without the conscious effort of learning? I believe that it is. After all every child acquires their first language(s) without any formal learning. And with a 100% success rate.

Music and memory

Music has a remarkable effect on the human mind. Think how effortlessly you can remember the lyrics to popular songs. This is a good example of ‘memory without learning’. But certain music used in certain ways has an even more remarkable effect. Here in Wales, schoolteachers have started to discover that simply playing Mozart in the classroom can improve pupils’ concentration and results.

Pioneering work was done in Bulgaria in the 1960s, where a method of using classical music as an aid to language learning was devised. It seems that classical music, by affecting both the ‘logical’ and ‘creative’ parts of the brain can produce massive gains in language learning speeds.

I’ve used this method both in the home and in the classroom and it works.

Dramatically.

It’s All in the Mind

Scientists now believe that we may only use as little as 5% of our brains.

We store all our memories, all our processing power, all our maths, languages, geography, etc. in 5% of our mind.

And we probably store more than we ever imagined.

Under hypnosis people can be induced to remember practically any event in their life. It seems that the mind is almost like a tape recorder which can be rewound and replayed at practically any point.

We can probably remember everything we’ve ever done.

Also under hypnosis people can recall sights smells colours etc, just like our recall of where we were when Princess Diana died (or John Lennon, or President Kennedy).

Everything we’ve ever done is probably stored in a mere 5% of our brains.

Without any effort.

What does this mean?

I believe that there is probably enough spare capacity in our brains to store all of the languages in the whole world.

There’s certainly room for one more.

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