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This seems to be about memorization as opposed to understanding (or skills). I've always seen myself as having a poor memory, but found that if I focused on un

by 6ren 15y ago

This seems to be about memorization as opposed to understanding (or skills). I've always seen myself as having a poor memory, but found that if I focused on understanding, I could remember easily. I thought this was because understanding itself is simpler (so there's less to remember), and one can reconstruct the facts from this understanding (also, verify them). This is treating understanding as a theory, in terms of which the facts can be stated more briefly than without. An abstraction, if you like, that factors out commonalities/redundancies. If A always implies B, then you can just need to rememeber "A". But later, I've realized that in fact, I do remember a great deal of detail that isn't derived from understanding. Perhaps understanding actually requires a lot of domain knowledge - facts - that the understanding is about. You can't "understand" in a vacuum. So, now I think that's it's just that somehow, causal connections and explanatory relationships stick in my memory more easily - they are certainly more interesting to me (because meaningful), so that helps with concentration and therefore memory. I actually once tested my opinion that I couldn't memorize, for a university exam, and found - to my amazement - that I could. It really was surprising. But I didn't score nearly as well as I usually did, since I wasn't focused on understanding - which is what it is all about, IMHO.

calibraxis 15y ago
Yes, I've had similar thoughts. I think when successfully "understanding", people see something in multiple different ways, ask Why? a lot, then finally relax once they're sufficiently convinced. This may use different kinds of cognition, like visual, kinesthetic, etc. And it may feel like diverse parts of their mind are at various states of being convinced/unsatisfied. Whereas, when trying to "memorize" something, many people just kinda... hope the thing stays in memory through some unknown process. But you can "cheat" by consciously leveraging various cognitive abilities. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Method_of_loci#Contemporary_usage http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Method_of_loci#Contemporary_usa...) (Along with various little tips, like use lurid imagery, it's probably better to visualize large spaces you can walk through rather than tiny ones, etc.)
- 6ren 15y ago
  That's my experience too. It's something of an ordeal. Perhaps each time we look from a different angle, while done for the purpose of convincing oneself, also forms a new connection (which is known to aid memory)?
wisty 15y ago
Memorization gives you the building blocks of skills. It has a really bad name amongst certain education commentators. It's certainly true that you shouldn't try to memorize in a vacuum, or that you shouldn't test "higher order" skills (like complex questions, which require a real understanding of the basic blocks), but memorization of connected facts or processess is essential.
- bermanoid 15y ago
  It might be essential, but it's also overrated as a primary measure of mastery. The more difficult the subject matter, the less useful rote memorization is in the end; there were plenty of people with near-photographic memories that I saw failing upper level math courses at university. And I knew plenty of people that excelled at that level but had to look up specific formulas all the time (as best as I could figure, they tended to remember quite well what transformations the formulas allowed, just not the exact form that they allowed them in). That said, it's certainly not going to hurt anyone to increase their rote memorization abilities, in fact it's probably extremely useful in general, no matter what field you're in.
- jacobolus 15y ago
  The point is, for many of us, the best way to “memorize” things is to explicitly avoid trying to memorize them, and focus instead on understanding context and connections between things – after you’ve had to call up the same idea 5 or 10 times because it was related to something else you were learning about, recall just comes along. Examples I’ve often seen used by proponents of rote learning include multiplication tables and spelling lists. I’m better at mental arithmetic than almost everyone I know, and I almost never misspell words, not because I spent any effort memorizing lists of them (indeed, I completely refused to do this as a 9-year-old, because it bored the crap out of me), but because I’ve spent more time in exploratory play with the relationships between numbers than they have, and have spent lots of time reading, doing close textual analyses for my own edification, trying to write tight fluid prose, and playing with various kinds of poetry, etc. I’m convinced that rote memorization is promoted as a pedagogical tool because it is cheap and easy and requires little effort from teachers and schools, more than because it’s particularly effective. Then again, everyone learns differently, and I know some people who are incredible at chewing through lists of facts once quickly and dredging them back up effortlessly months later. YMMV.
usaar333 15y ago
This is part of the reason I've always found harder sciences/engineering classes way easier than say languages. Physics, math, etc. classes have very little "laws" that need to be memorized; everything else is linked. Languages though have thousands of words that need to be individually memorized.
- dantheman0207 15y ago
  One of the most effective ways to learn a new language(I've found) is to actively tie new vocabulary & grammatical structures to existing knowledge and etymological backgrounds. This makes it much easier to recall and use in familiar ways. The corollary is my personal hypothesis that learning Latin actively helps you learn other European languages. In fact, learning French probably makes it easier to learn German, and knowing both gives you more background on which to build the English language. Eventually the limiting factor is memory and ability to differentiate language in context.
  - benohear 15y ago
    I'm not sure if this is the point you were making, but I'm really skeptical of the value of learning Latin as a route to learning modern Latin languages. It seems to me that if you want to learn, for example, Spanish, then you are considerably better off learning Spanish straight away and not Latin then Spanish. And if you're getting carried away and want to learn a second or a third one, then Spanish will give you most of the value of Latin in terms of transferable knowledge.
- jerfelix 15y ago
  I was the same way. Foreign language was extremely difficult. Then I realized that memorization itself is a process that can be learned, improved, and mastered. Once I began studying and learning the process of effective memorization, then foreign language became fun. It was a way to prove to myself that memorization techniques worked. Granted, learning a language is more than just memorization of vocabulary. But elimination of that huge hurdle makes the rest more interesting and tractable. I was tipped off to this by the best seller "The Memory Book" (which I highly recommend), but now there are plenty of web resources that may be as effective. Here are some relevant links: http://www.amazon.com/Memory-Book-Classic-Improving-School/dp/0345410025 http://www.amazon.com/Memory-Book-Classic-Improving-School/d... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memorization http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memorization (and click on all the links on this page)
gwern 15y ago
Spacing of facts or study does help understanding and generalization, though, in those studies which specifically looked at that: http://www.gwern.net/Spaced%20repetition#abstraction http://www.gwern.net/Spaced%20repetition#abstraction

by 6ren 15y ago

calibraxis 15y ago

Yes, I've had similar thoughts. I think when successfully "understanding", people see something in multiple different ways, ask Why? a lot, then finally relax once they're sufficiently convinced. This may use different kinds of cognition, like visual, kinesthetic, etc. And it may feel like diverse parts of their mind are at various states of being convinced/unsatisfied. Whereas, when trying to "memorize" something, many people just kinda... hope the thing stays in memory through some unknown process. But you can "cheat" by consciously leveraging various cognitive abilities. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Method_of_loci#Contemporary_usage http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Method_of_loci#Contemporary_usa...) (Along with various little tips, like use lurid imagery, it's probably better to visualize large spaces you can walk through rather than tiny ones, etc.)

6ren 15y ago
That's my experience too. It's something of an ordeal. Perhaps each time we look from a different angle, while done for the purpose of convincing oneself, also forms a new connection (which is known to aid memory)?

wisty 15y ago

Memorization gives you the building blocks of skills. It has a really bad name amongst certain education commentators. It's certainly true that you shouldn't try to memorize in a vacuum, or that you shouldn't test "higher order" skills (like complex questions, which require a real understanding of the basic blocks), but memorization of connected facts or processess is essential.

bermanoid 15y ago
It might be essential, but it's also overrated as a primary measure of mastery. The more difficult the subject matter, the less useful rote memorization is in the end; there were plenty of people with near-photographic memories that I saw failing upper level math courses at university. And I knew plenty of people that excelled at that level but had to look up specific formulas all the time (as best as I could figure, they tended to remember quite well what transformations the formulas allowed, just not the exact form that they allowed them in). That said, it's certainly not going to hurt anyone to increase their rote memorization abilities, in fact it's probably extremely useful in general, no matter what field you're in.
jacobolus 15y ago
The point is, for many of us, the best way to “memorize” things is to explicitly avoid trying to memorize them, and focus instead on understanding context and connections between things – after you’ve had to call up the same idea 5 or 10 times because it was related to something else you were learning about, recall just comes along. Examples I’ve often seen used by proponents of rote learning include multiplication tables and spelling lists. I’m better at mental arithmetic than almost everyone I know, and I almost never misspell words, not because I spent any effort memorizing lists of them (indeed, I completely refused to do this as a 9-year-old, because it bored the crap out of me), but because I’ve spent more time in exploratory play with the relationships between numbers than they have, and have spent lots of time reading, doing close textual analyses for my own edification, trying to write tight fluid prose, and playing with various kinds of poetry, etc. I’m convinced that rote memorization is promoted as a pedagogical tool because it is cheap and easy and requires little effort from teachers and schools, more than because it’s particularly effective. Then again, everyone learns differently, and I know some people who are incredible at chewing through lists of facts once quickly and dredging them back up effortlessly months later. YMMV.

usaar333 15y ago

This is part of the reason I've always found harder sciences/engineering classes way easier than say languages. Physics, math, etc. classes have very little "laws" that need to be memorized; everything else is linked. Languages though have thousands of words that need to be individually memorized.

dantheman0207 15y ago
One of the most effective ways to learn a new language(I've found) is to actively tie new vocabulary & grammatical structures to existing knowledge and etymological backgrounds. This makes it much easier to recall and use in familiar ways. The corollary is my personal hypothesis that learning Latin actively helps you learn other European languages. In fact, learning French probably makes it easier to learn German, and knowing both gives you more background on which to build the English language. Eventually the limiting factor is memory and ability to differentiate language in context.
- benohear 15y ago
  I'm not sure if this is the point you were making, but I'm really skeptical of the value of learning Latin as a route to learning modern Latin languages. It seems to me that if you want to learn, for example, Spanish, then you are considerably better off learning Spanish straight away and not Latin then Spanish. And if you're getting carried away and want to learn a second or a third one, then Spanish will give you most of the value of Latin in terms of transferable knowledge.
jerfelix 15y ago
I was the same way. Foreign language was extremely difficult. Then I realized that memorization itself is a process that can be learned, improved, and mastered. Once I began studying and learning the process of effective memorization, then foreign language became fun. It was a way to prove to myself that memorization techniques worked. Granted, learning a language is more than just memorization of vocabulary. But elimination of that huge hurdle makes the rest more interesting and tractable. I was tipped off to this by the best seller "The Memory Book" (which I highly recommend), but now there are plenty of web resources that may be as effective. Here are some relevant links: http://www.amazon.com/Memory-Book-Classic-Improving-School/dp/0345410025 http://www.amazon.com/Memory-Book-Classic-Improving-School/d... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memorization http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memorization (and click on all the links on this page)

gwern 15y ago

Spacing of facts or study does help understanding and generalization, though, in those studies which specifically looked at that: http://www.gwern.net/Spaced%20repetition#abstraction http://www.gwern.net/Spaced%20repetition#abstraction