20.5: Key Takeways

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Information is better remembered when it is meaningfully elaborated.
Hermann Ebbinghaus made important contributions to the study of learning, including modeling the forgetting curve, and studying the spacing effect and the benefits of overlearning.
Context- and state-dependent learning, as well as primacy and recency effects, influence long-term memory.
Memories are stored in connected synapses through the process of long-term potentiation (LTP). In addition to the cortex, other parts of the brain, including the hippocampus, the cerebellum, and the amygdala, are also important in memory.
Damage to the brain may result in retrograde amnesia or anterograde amnesia. Case studies of patients with amnesia can provide information about the brain structures involved in different types of memory.
Memory is influenced by chemicals including glutamate, serotonin, epinephrine, and estrogen.
Studies comparing memory enhancers with placebo drugs find very little evidence for their effectiveness.

EXERCISES AND CRITICAL THINKING

Plan a course of action to help you study for your next exam, incorporating as many of the techniques mentioned in this section as possible. Try to implement the plan.
Make a list of some the schemas that you have stored in your memory. What are the contents of each schema, and how might you use the schema to help you remember new information?
In the film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, the characters undergo a medical procedure designed to erase their memories of a painful romantic relationship. Would you engage in such a procedure if it was safely offered to you?