Improving Your Memory (6 page)

—J. M. Barrie

It Is Increasingly Difficult to Access Familiar Names and Vocabulary Words on Demand.

Everyone knows the experience of being halted in midsentence when a word or name you need eludes you. The feeling of the word being on the tip of your tongue occurs more frequently as we age. The frustration of this experience can make us feel anxious, and this anxiety further blocks the recall process. Have you experienced anything similar to the following examples?

EXAMPLES

You began to tell a friend about the movie you saw last night, and you were flustered to discover that the title had escaped you. The more bothered you became, the further away the title seemed. Instead of giving yourself time and cues to retrieve the name of the movie from long-term memory, you found your attention focused on the frustration of forgetting.

You are discussing your college-age grandchildren with your brother. He asks what your grandson Robert is studying. You know what the subject matter is, and you know it starts with P. You are embarrassed that you can’t come up with “philosophy” and can only think of the word “psychology.” It is a fairly common phenomenon when a similar word interferes with your ability to find the word you want.

The next time you find yourself searching for a needed name or word try to relax, take a deep breath and see whether you can access the information by thinking of related items. If you are still unable to retrieve that word, don’t fret. Often something in your conversation or environment will serve as a cue to call up the desired information.

It Takes Longer to Recall Information from Long-Term Memory.

Studies have shown that older adults take more time than younger people to recall needed information from long-term memory. When older adults are given increased time to complete a test, their performances greatly improve. Keep this in mind when you are impatient with yourself because you don’t recall something immediately. As in the following example, give yourself a little more time, and see if you can come up with the information you want.

EXAMPLE

Carol was talking to her daughter-in-law, Mollie, on the telephone. Mollie asked, “What did you do over the weekend?” Carol hesitated and then responded, “Well, I guess ... nothing.” Several seconds later, she exclaimed, “Oh, I remember! We went out to dinner on Saturday night. I just couldn’t think of it for a minute.” This information was clearly not forgotten; it just took Carol a little time to retrieve it from long-term memory.

Expertise and familiarity in a specific area often more than compensate for the slowing down of recall. For example, a seventy-year-old crossword-puzzle buff, who spends some time every day doing crossword puzzles, may be able to recall words for commonly used clues as quickly as or more quickly than most younger people would.

EXERCISE: HOW MEMORY CHANGES

True/False. Circle the answer.

Part III Factors That Affect Memory

9
You and Your Memory
A Self-inventory

EXAMPLE

Pauline recently moved from Collinsville, Illinois, her lifelong hometown, to an apartment building near her son’s home in Chicago. She had mixed feelings about moving. In Collinsville she had many friends and volunteered every week at the high school. She regularly attended an exercise class and often went out for lunch after church with the same group of people. After her husband died, however, she decided it would be best to move nearer to her son and his family. The move was stressful, because she had to reduce the belongings of a family home to fit the space of a two-bedroom apartment. She spent many weeks making decisions about what to take and how to get rid of unwanted items. By the time she arrived in her new apartment, she was too exhausted to organize things well. She missed her friends at home and found it hard to meet new people and get involved in activities. She felt sad and somewhat hopeless about creating a satisfying new life in Chicago.

For the first time, Pauline began to question her memory. She couldn’t find her address book in her new apartment. She got lost driving home from the library. She fell asleep after putting some potatoes on to boil and woke up to the smell of a burned pan. She said to herself, “What is happening to me? Maybe I’m getting Alzheimer’s disease.”

Pauline made an appointment with a geriatrician and told him her fears about her memory. Dr. Sloan reviewed her recent history and did some tests to rule out physical causes for her forgetting. He reported that the test results were normal and that he believed the many changes brought about by her move had temporarily affected her memory.

Certain factors can affect memory for people of all ages. The effect of these factors is likely to be greater as we age, because older people often experience more of these negative influences at the same time. The following factors commonly affect memory:

Effort and attitude
Problems with attention
Negative expectations
Inactivity
Lack of organization in daily life

Problems with mood
Depression
Loss and grief
Anxiety
Stress

Health issues
Some physical illnesses
Some medications
Vision and hearing problems
Fatigue
Alcohol
Poor nutrition

As you read through the next three chapters, think about which of these factors might be affecting your memory. If you are aware of possible causes of memory problems, you are more likely to find solutions.

10
Check Your Effort and Attitude

I have the most ill-regulated memory. It does those things which it ought not to do and leaves undone the things it ought to have done. But it has not yet gone on strike altogether.

—Dorothy L. Sayers

The four factors discussed in this chapter are problems with attention, negative expectations, inactivity, and lack of organization. Are any of these factors creating problems for you? Do you recognize yourself in any of the examples in this chapter?

Problems with Attention

Inadequate Attention

In the discussion of encoding in
chapter 3
, we emphasized the importance of focusing attention on what you want to remember. If you really want to remember something, paying adequate attention is the first step. In the following examples, not paying adequate attention affected how well new information was encoded.

EXAMPLES

A new resident of Brad’s apartment building, Lia Blair, meets him at the mailboxes and introduces herself. He greets her by name and begins a friendly conversation. When they are joined by another resident a few minutes later, Brad discovers that he cannot recall Lia’s name.

Ramona bought some expensive concert tickets and made a mental note to take them out of her purse when she got home and put them in a special place so she could easily find them later. The next morning, as Ramona got in her car to leave for work, she realized she hadn’t put the tickets safely away, nor could she find the tickets in her purse. She went back to her apartment and found them on the nightstand. She was relieved to know that the tickets weren’t lost, but she couldn’t understand why she had no recollection of having put them on the nightstand.

Juan’s neighbor asks him to feed her cat while she is gone over the weekend. She tells him where the cat food is kept, how much and how often to feed her, and where she hides the spare key. When Juan goes to feed the cat, he is horrified to discover that he does not recall where the key is hidden. Because he is unfamiliar with cats, he paid close attention to the instructions regarding feeding, but he assumed that he would remember where the key was hidden and did not pay attention to that detail.

All of these examples illustrate problems in encoding. Brad heard and spoke Lia Blair’s name but didn’t encode the information into long-term memory for recollection. Ramona absentmindedly took the tickets from her purse and placed them on the nightstand. She had not paid adequate attention
to what she was doing. Juan was so concerned about providing good care for the cat that he paid attention only to the information about food.

Paying adequate attention to details can eliminate some instances of forgetting. Ask yourself, “When is it really important for me to pay attention?” At these times, put some effort into focusing your awareness on the task or information at hand.

Distractions

Being distracted poses another potential problem with attention. Because the amount of information that can be held in your working memory is limited, any sound, sight, or thought may distract you and displace what is currently in your working memory. You are certain to have had one or more of the following experiences.

EXAMPLES

You go into the kitchen to get the scissors and forget what you went for. Perhaps, on your way, you wondered whether the mail had come. This new thought replaced the thought of the scissors you needed from the kitchen.

You may leave your umbrella in the doctor’s office because you are thinking about getting your prescription filled before the pharmacy closes. (Have you noticed that if you get outside and it’s raining, you remember you forgot your umbrella and go back inside to retrieve it?)

You’re driving to a movie with a friend. Her conversation draws your attention away from noticing exactly where you are, and you forget to get into the left-turn lane until it’s too late.

These experiences are familiar to people of all ages, but as we grow older, we do find it more difficult to pay attention to more than one thing at a time. Rather than thinking that you can do nothing about these frustrating experiences, try to recognize the limitations of working memory and cut out distractions when possible. It is especially important to give your undivided attention to situations that could be potentially dangerous, such as driving, cooking, and taking medications. For example, when you are driving in an unfamiliar place or you need to change driving lanes in traffic, you may want to ask your passenger to stop talking temporarily.

EXERCISE: DISTRACTIONS