Ebbinghaus defined memory as "the faculty of the mind to bring back past experiences into consciousness" (Haberlandt 1998). These games were interesting in that the techniques that they offered one to use really did help bring back the past experience of seeing objects. These games show that the brain needs to make logical sense of elements if one is going to store them in their memory for any period of time. It was amazing that in the first test I really paid attention to all of the elements, but the minute the screen was gone, there were only four or so that came straight to my mind. The other ones I really had to think about. I always thought I had a pretty good memory, but it seems that in order to maintain a list of things, there needs to be some kind of way of keeping the things one wants to remember alive, so to speak.
Coming up with the stories was a good way to remember a good portion of the objects. However, I had...
I've never created a story to remember things before this. I also find it interesting that when I moved on to the second test, I immediately forgot things from the first test. It was only after looking down at my paper and I saw what I wrote that I remembered those objects.
I think that creating a story would help one keep things in the memory for a longer period of time. For example, creating the story about the duck and the wrench and the trumpet is something I will probably think about randomly at some point today because the image was so ridiculous.
