Sunday, March 27, 2016

Intelligence: How can we make memorization more fun?


First, let's examine the question's premise a bit. Should memorization be fun and is fun generalizable? For e.g., bungee jumping is surely fun for some but unlikely to be fun for someone deathly scared of heights. Another related issue is whether making memorization fun makes it more effective. After all, when the outcome, i.e., the study subject, is inherently uninteresting to a pupil, there's only so much that process could contribute. Any number of mnemonic tools, tricks and now even apps like Memrise (1, 2) claim to have cracked the code for effective memorization. However, an age-old tradition steeped in hidebound conservatism and which has remained seemingly unchanged for thousands of years probably has them all beat when it comes to 1) effectiveness, 2) absence of fun, and 3) applicability to everyone, not just those innately endowed with superior memory abilities.

Non-fun memorization can be exceptionally effective
Wouldn't an unbroken oral memorization tradition conservatively estimated to have lasted ~3000 years suggest exceptional effectiveness? Rote memorization involving elaborate mnemonic techniques, Vedic chant, including traditional face-to-face oral training, this cultural peculiarity of the Indian sub-continent provides durable, empirical data that memorization needn't be fun to be effective and long-lasting.
Conservatively estimated to have originated in the Late Bronze Age to the Iron Age India, the Vedas have been passed down for ~3000 years in an unbroken tradition, largely orally in the initial millenia.
What's this memorization process? Starting at a young age, typically between 9 and 12 years of age, children, mainly boys, train in memorizing Vedic texts daily for 8 to 10 hours for ~ 7 years in Vedic Patashalas (Vedic Pandit Training Schools). Each of these texts contains 40,000 to 100,000 words apiece. The process involves learning the exact intonation and accompanying hand gestures. In this manner, the initial 7 years of training totals ~20,000 hours.

Effective, nay stupendous, non-fun memorization is possible even without pre-selection for innate memory ability
All well and good but what makes this rote memorization process even more compelling is participants aren't selected using any selection process or entrance exam that tests for innate memory or recitation abilities. For example, in a 2015 peer-reviewed study (3) published in the journal NeuroImage, none of the trainee Pandits tested came from 'traditional family lineages of reciters'. Even more remarkable, the Vedic Patashala dropout rate is reportedly a low 5%.

The study (3), a collaboration between the Center for Mind/Brain Sciences, University of Trento, Italy, and the National Brain Research Centre, Haryana, India, 'conducted structural analysis of gray matter density, cortical thickness, local gyrification, and white matter structure, relative to matched controls', and 'found massive gray matter density and cortical thickness increases in Pandit brains in language, memory and visual systems, including i) bilateral lateral temporal cortices and ii) the anterior cingulate cortex and the hippocampus, regions associated with long and short-term memory’ (3).
Albeit in the narrow sphere of rote memorization of extremely specialized material, the continuing existence of both process (a specific oral learning tradition) and product (the Vedas) is proof positive that this training system's very effective. All the more remarkable considering it's survived the entire gamut of historical vagaries, wars, invasions, famines, colonization and the like. As the authors of the study (3) state, 'while the ability of Yajurveda Pandits to perform large-scale, precise oral memorization and recitation of Vedic Sanskrit texts may, prima facie, appear extraordinary or bordering on impossible, textual memorization and recitation are in fact standard practice in traditional Sanskrit education in India...while the Pandit's memorization capacity may appear unique to graduates of a Western educational system, it is one of several memorization-related study traditions current in the Indian subcontinent'.

What could explain the success of such a presumably non-fun memorization program?
1) A group activity (see picture below from 5), i.e., shared commitment and sacrifice of time and effort, may help better engage the mind in the learning process.
2) Discipline and practice as in every day for several hours per day. In this regard, the process is uncannily similar to the process of spatial memorization techniques revealed in the famous London Taxi Driver study (4), which found the phenomenal memorization capacity of the archetypal London taxi driver involved learning not just expert spatial navigation but also 'rote memorization of a large volume of preset verbal sequences' (3), i.e., ~30,000 street and place names 'in 320 set sequences totaling ~120,000 words, with part-time training over ~3 to 5 years' (3). In fact, the 2015 Vedic Pandit trainee study (3) found similar hippocampal differences to those reported in the London taxi driver study, i.e., generalizable memorization principles are at work in two different processes, textual versus textual-spatial, in two different cultures.
3) The student's not alone. His teacher, the guru, is equally invested in the student's learning. Let's recall this is an oral learning tradition. It requires Guru-Shishya (teacher-student) face-to-face training.
4) Continuous practice. Once trained, most students go on to become either Vedic teachers themselves or priests.  In any case, they continue at least ~3 hours of daily recitation. This continuing practice ensures memorized material's retained over time.

This memorization system offers some general principles for effective memorization, namely, having a partner/partners who participate(s) in the learning process, and more importantly a teacher who's evidently heavily invested in the student's learning, and regular practice, something that requires discipline more than fun. The former, having a partner, may be helpful for topics/subjects engaging little by way of innate interest, for e.g., memorizing just for tests and exams.

More importantly, given its unbroken lineage of thousands of years and therefore unparalleled success in rote memorization, the Vedic memorization process offers the world a unique test-bed. Modern scientific investigation should research it to deconstruct its processes and thereby make its general memorization principles and practices available for the benefit of all.

Bibliography
1. BBC News, David Robson, May 1, 2015. How to supercharge the way you learn
2. BBC News, David Robson, March 7, 2014. How to learn like a memory champion
3. Hartzell, James F., et al. "Brains of verbal memory specialists show anatomical differences in language, memory and visual systems." NeuroImage (2015). http://ac.els-cdn.com/S105381191...
4. Maguire, Eleanor A., et al. "Navigation-related structural change in the hippocampi of taxi drivers." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 97.8 (2000): 4398-4403. http://www.pnas.org/content/97/8...
5. The Hindu, Suganthy Krishnamachari. October 8, 2015. http://www.thehindu.com/features...


https://www.quora.com/Intelligence/How-can-we-make-memorization-more-fun/answer/Tirumalai-Kamala


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