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增强记忆力的方法 Psychological research has focused on a number of basic principles that help memory: meaningfulness, organization, association, and visualization. It is useful to know how these principles work. 心理学家的研究工作已把焦点对准了增强记忆的基本方法上了，这些基本方法就是：赋予意义、信息编组、建立联想、直观形象。知道支用这些方法是很有用的。 Meaningfulness affects memory at all levels. Information that does not make any sense to you is difficult to remember. There are several ways in which we can make material more meaningful. Many people, for instance, learn a rhyme to help them remember. Do you know the rhyme "Thirty days has September, April, June, and November"? It helps many people remember which months of the year have 30 days." 赋予意义"能影响瞬时记忆也能影响到长期记忆。没有任何意义的信息要记住就比较困难。有些方法可以使要记忆的材料赋予意义。例如，有很多人利用合辙押韵的办法来帮助记忆。你知道"一三五七八十腊，三十一天准不差，其余月份三十天，只有二月二十八"这首顺口溜帮助很多人记住了哪些月份有三十天。 Organization also makes a difference in our ability to remember. How useful would a library be if the books were kept in random order? Material that is organized is better remembered than jumbled information. One example of organization is chunking. Chunking consists of grouping separate bits of information. Fox example, the number 4671363 is more easily remembered if it is chunked as 467,13,63. Categorizing is another means of organization. Suppose you are asked to remember the following list of words: man, bench, dog, desk, woman, horse, child, cat, chair. Many people will group the words into similar categories and remember them as follows: man, woman, child; cat, dog, horse; bench, chair, desk. Needless to say, the second list can be remembered more easily than the first one." 信息编组"对我们的记忆力也起很大作用。假如一座图书馆里的藏书乱七八糟，没有顺序，那这座图书馆还能有处吗？按着一定编目的材料要比杂乱无章的混乱信息好记得多。信息编组的典型例子就是分块记忆。每块记忆材料是由一些零散孤立的信息所组成的。例如，要记住4671363这个数字，如果把它再分成三块467，13，63，就更容易记住了。分类编组是另一种方法。假如要求你记住下列生词：男人、凳子、狗、课桌、女人、马、孩子、猫、椅子。很多人会把这些按词义相近编成下列三个小类：男人、女人、孩子；猫、狗、马；凳子、椅子、课桌。不用多说，第二种分三小类的办法比第一种不分类的办法更容易记住。 Association refers to taking the material we want to remember and relating it to something we remember accurately. In memorizing a number, you might try to associate it with familiar numbers or events. Fox example, the height of Mount Fuji in Japan - 12,389 feet - might be remembered using the following associations: 12 is the number of months in the year, and 389 is the number of days in a year (365) added to the number of months twice (24)." 建立联想"指的是把我们要记的材料和我们已经精确的记住的材料之间联想起来。要记住一个数字，你可以把这一数字与你已经熟悉的数字或事情联系起来。例如：日本富士山的海拔高度是12，389英尺，你可以把这一数字用下列联想方法：一年有12个月，389是一年365天再加上一年12个月乘上2（24）。 
直观形象"是最后一种方法。研究的结果已经表明，如果让人们把要记忆的事物都想象出生动的直观形象，在完成各种不同类型的记忆工作中，记忆都会产生惊人的效果。有一项调查研究：要求一组受试者使用直观形象法来记住一些生词，在此相对照的第二组受试者只用重复法来记住这些生词。调查结果是，凡是能用直观形象法记生词的人都能记住80%-90%，在之成鲜明对比的是，凡是用机械重复法记生词的人只能记住30%-40%。这种能形成一幅完整的形象，把所有的信息都存放到脑海里的一幅画面中去的方法，有助于我们储存记忆材料。 Short-term Memory 短时记忆 There are two kinds of memory: short-term and long-term. Information in long-term memory can be recalled at a later time when it is needed. The information may be kept for days or weeks. Sometimes information in the long-term memory is hard to remember. Students taking exams often have this experience. In contrast, information in short-term memory is kept for only a few seconds, usually by repeating the information over and over. For example, you look up a number in the telephone book, and before you dial, you repeat the number over and over. If someone interrupts you, you will probably forget the number. In laboratory studies, subjects are unable to remember three letters after eighteen seconds if they are not allowed to repeat the letters to themselves. 有两种记忆：短时记忆和长时记忆。处于长期记忆中的信息，在后来需要的时候能够回想起来。这一信息可以保持数天或数周。有时处于长时记忆中的信息很难记起。参加考试的学生经常会有这种经历。反之，短时记忆中的信息只能保持三两秒钟，通常还得再三复习这一信息。例如，你在一本电话号码簿中查到一个号码，在你还没拨号之前，你得再三复习这一号码。如果这时有人打扰了你，你也许会把这个电话号码忘了。通过实验研究表明，如果不准被测试的人复习，那么十八秒以后，被测试的人连三个字母都记不住。 Psychologists study memory and learning with both animal and human subjects. The two experiments here show how short-term memory has been studied. 心理学家们以动物和人这二者做测试对象分别研究了记忆和学习的情况。这里这两类试验都表明了研究短时记忆的情况。 Dr. Hunter studied sort-term memory in rats. He used a special apparatus which had a cage for the rat and three doors. There was a light in each door. First the rat was placed in the closed cage. Next, one of the lights was turned on and then off. There was food for the rat only at this door. After the light was turned off, the rat had to wait a short time before it was released form its cage. Then, if it went to the correct door, it was rewarded with the food that was there. Hunter did this experiment many times. He always turned on the lights in a random order. The rat had to wait different intervals before it was released from the cage. Hunter found that if the rat had to wait more than ten seconds, it could not remember the correct door. Hunter's results show that rats have a short-term memory of about ten seconds. 亨特博士研究了大老鼠的短时记忆。他用了一种特殊装置，这种装置上有个鼠笼和三扇门。每扇门上都有一盏灯。首先，把大老鼠放到一个关着的鼠笼里。接着，把其中一盏灯打开然后再关上。只有在这扇门那里才有给老鼠听的东西。在把灯关掉以后，必须让这个老鼠等候一段短时期，这才把它从鼠笼中放出去。接下来，如果这个老鼠走对了门，那么，门那里摆着的食物就是对他的奖赏。亨特博士多次做过这种实验。他总是没有按固定顺序随便打开任何一盏灯。让老鼠等候的时间间隔也完全不同，然后才把大老鼠从鼠笼中放出去。亨特博士发现，如果老鼠必须等候10秒钟以上才放出，那它就记不住哪扇门是正确的。亨特博士实验的结果表明大老鼠能有大约10秒钟的短期记忆。 
后来，享尼希博士研究了那些把英语作为第二种语言来学习的人，是怎样记生词的。他实验的对象是洛杉矶加州大学的75名学生。他们都是各种程度的英语学生中的代表人物：初级的、中级的、高级和以英语为母语的学生。 To begin, the subjects listened to a recording of a native speaker reading a paragraph in English. Following the recording, the subjects took a 15-question test to see which words they remembered. Each question has four choices. The subjects had to circle the word they had heard in the recording. Some of the questions had four choices that sound alike. For example, weather, whether, wither, and wetter are four words that sound alike. Some of the questions had four choices that have the same meaning. Method, way, manner, and system would be four words with the same meaning. Some of them had four unrelated choices. For instance, weather, method, love, and result could be used as four unrelated words. Finally the subjects took a language proficiency test. 开头，先让受试者们听一段以英语为母语的人所朗读的一小段英文文章的录音。听了录音以后接着让受试者参加一次共15个问题的考试，看看他们都记住了哪些生词。每个问题有四个选择项。受试者必须圈出他们在录音中所听到的单词。每个问题有四个选择项听起来很像是一样的。例如：weather天气，whether是否，wither枯萎，wetter润湿剂。有些问题的选择项的意义像是一样的：method,way,manner和system.有些问题的四个选择项之间没有任何关连：weather,method,love和result.最后，受试者们都参加一次语言熟练程度的测试。 Henning found that students with a lower proficiency in English made more of their mistakes on words that sound alike; students with a higher proficiency made more of their mistakes on words that have the same meaning. Henning's results suggest that beginning students hold the sound of words in their short-term memory, while advanced students hold the meaning of words in their short-term memory. 享尼希博士发现，凡是英语熟练程度低的学生多在声音相似的单词中会弄错；凡是英语熟练程度高的学生多在意义相似的词汇上会出错。享尼希的实验结果表明：初学者能把单词的声音保持短期记忆。享尼希的实验结果表明：初学者能把单词的声音保持短期记忆，而程度高的学生能把词汇的意义保持短期记忆。
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