It is no exaggeration to say that if you can persist in reading this book, your understanding of the world will rise to a new level.
I have nothing to share after reading:
After more than a month, I finally finished reading Zimbardo's book General Psychology intermittently, and took a lot of notes in the middle. Now I try to share with you some psychological skills that I think are practical.
Because the original impetus to read this book was to save my terrible memory - I don't understand why human beings claim to have a massive brain of 760 million terabytes, but I can't remember my wife's phone number or even any one The license plate number, and I can't even remember the name and appearance of a friend who has eaten several times. So first of all, what I want to share is the skills of memory: how to remember, how to remember firmly, and how to remember for a long time. I will try to explain all this in the simplest language possible, with as little psychological jargon as possible. (It's worth mentioning that I've forgotten most of the terminology too.)
But there are three basic terms that must be emphasized, that is: sensory memory, working memory and long-term memory, which we call the three stages of memory.
First, let’s look at a clip from the cartoon Crayon Shin-Chan: One afternoon, Meiya was busy preparing dinner in the kitchen, and she had to ask Xiaoxin to go to the store to buy three things: radishes, duck eggs and pork. While accepting the mother's task, Xiaoxin's brain was exposed to a lot of information:
The look on my mother's face when she speaks,
The dog Xiaobai flashed past her,
The TV in the living room is playing the sound of the program,
As well as the temperature in the room and the slight touch of the friction between your skin and the fleece.
This information is what we call sensory memory. Sensory memory is complex and short-lived. Most of it will be forgotten instantly. Only a very small amount of information will be approved to enter the second stage of memory: working memory.
Working memory can be maintained for a long time, but most people will not exceed 20 seconds, and this is still a narrow channel. The capacity of ordinary people is to hold about seven items at the same time. At present, Xiaoxin’s primary working memory is of course radishes, duck eggs and pork. In order to prevent this memory from being washed out by new memories that are constantly being generated, Xiaoxin adopted a method called “retentive retelling” by psychologists. Repeating these three things in my mouth, while heading to the store - here we can recall the embarrassing scene when we got a string of numbers that must be remembered, while looking for pens and papers in our hearts, You can probably understand Xiaoxin's mood at this time. But Xiaoxin's misfortune was that just when he was about to arrive at the store, he bumped into an old man head-on. After the emergency was over, Xiaoxin found that he had completely forgotten these three things. Had to accept the reality of returning home empty-handed to face the furious mother.
What would happen if the time was turned back and the mother of the beautiful child went to the store to purchase in person?
Meiya does not need to use the inefficient method of "retentive retelling"—she may meet Teacher Jiyong at the door, be furious at Xiaoxin's performance in kindergarten, dodge a speeding car on the road, and pass through a Even so, when she finally arrived at the store, she still remembered that what she wanted to buy were radishes, duck eggs and pork. This is because for Meiya, radish not only means radish, but also radish soup, and duck egg means not only duck egg, but also salted egg yolk, just like pork is not only pork, but also pork hot pot. We can say that Meiya used the information in her old long-term memory to give new meaning to her working memory, and successfully incorporated it into her long-term memory. This process is called "fine retelling" by psychologists. Fine retelling is the most effective way for human beings to maintain long-term memory. Regarding fine retelling, let's look at another example:
Suppose you go to the planetarium and see the constellation Leo, also known as the Hercules constellation, before the introduction column. If you have no knowledge of Greek mythology before and don’t plan to delve into it now, then I bet you are going to the next booth This awkward name will be forgotten before, but if you used to know that Hercules was a hero in Greek mythology, then the moment you see this message, a bullet will pop out of your long-term memory. Little hands, grab this new knowledge point with a "whoosh", very quickly! So fast you don't realize this process! If you also know that Hercules is the son of Zeus, the killer of the giant lion, the terminator of the Hydra, and the hero who saved Prometheus, then there will be five or six little hands stretched out at the same time, not only bringing this new The information will be captured in, and it will be firmly pressed in your long-term memory, in its proper position, and it will be unforgettable for a lifetime.
The capacity of long-term memory is a mystery to psychologists, because no one has been able to use it up until then, and psychologists prefer to understand it as a warehouse with limited capacity compared to most people. Think of it as a frame structure, a three-dimensional large net woven by your past experiences. The larger the structure is, the more memories it can accommodate. The more precise the weaving of this large net, the more information it can capture The stronger it is - "the more you use your brain, the smarter it is", this common saying is more than mere rhetoric.
So far, I have basically finished the general concept of memory. When I have time, I will continue to write about the shortcomings of memory, which is what psychologists often call the "seven deadly sins of memory", and some techniques that can significantly improve memory.
We have repeatedly emphasized that it is best to have a systematic reason for reading - the longer you have been in a major, the stronger your learning ability in this major: I think there was a senior who just observed the ordinary apple falling. You can understand "universal gravitation" through the physical process. If it were me, you would let me eat that apple tree!
From all of the above, we can conclude the first and most important thing about memory:
When you are exposed to a new thing, the deeper you understand it, the stronger it will be remembered. The so-called understanding, my personal definition is "using your existing knowledge to explain new things." I will repeat it again-this process of understanding is what psychology calls "fine retelling". , I suggest you take notes or even write a review. Writing a review is a process of absorbing, sorting out, and turning it into your own use. This is the most thorough "retelling" I can think of. Of course, the premise is that this book must be Worth reading - most books are not only not worth writing a review, they are not worth reading at all.
A negative example is to use some "speed reading method" skills to read an unfamiliar professional book with few plots. It is difficult for these words to break through your working memory and enter long-term memory. If you memorize these things you don’t understand by rote memorization, this kind of memory will also encounter a cliff-like decline in a short period of time. Regarding this, the psychologist Ebbinghaus’ experiment on the “forgetting curve” is enough to prove it .
So many people have questioned,
"Why do I forget all the books I read in a few days? What's the use of reading?"
Here I want to tell you a cruel fact: In fact, you forget much faster than you think—according to the characteristics of "working memory", when you turn a page, you have already forgotten the previous page. If you forget all the content, you have wasted a lot of time and just created an illusion of "I am learning" for yourself.
Second, how to remember those monotonous content, such as the names of strangers, such as Xiaoxin's shopping list mentioned above-radishes, duck eggs and pork. Psychologists suggest that we use our imagination to give meaning to this information, such as we can combine "radish, duck egg and pork" into "bow-legged superman beats pig-headed monster."
Third, even if you don’t take notes while reading, it’s good to draw a point with a pen. Biological psychologists say that different parts of your brain are responsible for your vision and actions, which means that when one day you want to When recalling this information, there will be more than two departments responsible for helping you retrieve it. If you can still compare the corresponding diagrams at this time, discuss with friends afterwards, and watch related videos, then more brain departments will be retrieved. assigned to this work.
Although there are some helpful tips for memorizing, they all boil down to two points:
One, stay focused.
Second, deepen understanding.
Concentration ensures effective absorption, and understanding ensures long-term memory.
And these two points are probably what we have been repeatedly emphasized by our teachers since elementary school.
See here is not a little lost?
Yes, there is no memory cheat book for changing one's life against the sky, no peerless magical skills that open your mind, and no shortcut to success that subverts cognition.
Stay focused when studying, don't listen to music, don't look at your phone, a familiar melody may waste half an hour of your hard work. Don’t get distracted, don’t wander, don’t daydream, don’t learn intuitively when your mind wanders – just give yourself a little push in your brain to bring your thoughts back on track before moving on.
Here is another psychological tip: try to make your learning environment as comfortable as possible, so that every time you think about learning, you will feel a sense of pleasure in your subconscious.
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