Meanings for Memory – Familiarity
This week we look more into what helps us remember somethings better than others starting with something called familiarity.
Have a think about times you have had to learn something? Do you remember things that are different or unfamiliar better? Or do you remember things that are familiar or related to something that is familiar?
If you answered the latter, you wouldn’t be alone.
Generally, the more you know about something the easier it is to learn more about it. Learning grows more learning.
You can envision it like a filing system. When you have a folder for bills and you get a new bill, you have somewhere to put it…in the bills folder. Same again for the folder for receipts.
However, what happens when you get something different? Say, a letter from your old high school. Where do you put it? It is not a bill so it doesn’t belong there. It isn’t a receipt. It doesn’t go with the bank statements. It doesn’t go with the uni admin. Where does it go? If you are like me, it usually goes in a misc folder or worse still, left on the table or put at the bottom on the drawer.
And what happens then we you decide you need to find that letter from you high school? It is really hard to find, right?
Well, that’s how familiarity works. When you know about something and you encounter new information about that, you have somewhere to store it. You have something to relate it to. And when you need to recall that information, that makes it much easier to find.
Experiments have shown that chess players remember chess positions better than non-chess players. Being familiar with the chess patterns pieces is largely responsible for this and giving the patterns meaning. Older people remembered words better than young people when they were familiar with the words.
When things are more familiar to us, we are more likely to remember them.
