Verbal memory: definition, tests, development

2024 Author: Miguel Ramacey | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 06:11

Very often you can hear that a person has a verbal memory, and that you need to try to develop it in every possible way. However, what does this term mean? What is meant by verbal memory? This is exactly what this article will help you figure out. You will learn what verbal memory is, how it differs from non-verbal memory, how to check its condition, and how to develop it at any age.

What is this?

Verbal memory is a memory that is responsible for a person's ability to remember various information provided in verbal form. This means memorizing texts, news, poems, reports that you are going to present, and so on.

As a rule, the use of exclusively verbal memory can be problematic, since it can be extremely difficult to remember pure text. However, this type of memory will be very useful to you in life, regardless of which career path you choose. Accordingly, you need to develop it. Verbal memory is what allows you to absorb the most complex information, that is, dry text.

Verbal and non-verbal memory

However, before the speechwill talk about how exactly this type of memory can be improved, it is necessary to fully understand what it is. And the easiest way to do this is with a comparison - so you can understand how verbal memory differs from non-verbal.

As mentioned earlier, in the first case, you memorize information that comes to you from outside in the form of text, words, speech. Accordingly, non-verbal memory is the exact opposite. And the information that you receive and remember in this way is neither text, nor speech, nor anything else like that. Most often these are images, faces, images, aromas, sounds, etc.

Thus, verbal memory is responsible for verbal data, while nonverbal memory is responsible for figurative data. And at the same time, studies show that one type of memory in all people is better developed than the other. Why is this happening?

Hemispheres of the brain

Memory properties depend on what you do to develop it, not in the first place. Initially, the advantages of one or another type of memory is determined by the development of one of the two hemispheres of the brain.

The left hemisphere of the brain is exactly the center that is responsible for remembering verbal information, while the right one is already responsible for images, sounds and other non-verbal forms of information. Accordingly, now you know that if you want to develop the verbal properties of memory, then you should concentrate on the activity of the left hemisphere of the brain.

Separately worth talking about lefties. Manybelieve that absolutely all left-handed people have completely opposite functions of the hemispheres of the brain compared to people who write and perform basic actions with their right hand. However, this is a common misconception - in fact, most people who write with their left hand have exactly the same brain functions as right-handers. Only thirty percent of them have a change in the functionality of the cerebral hemispheres to the opposite.

Verbal intelligence

If you want to know how the development of verbal memory goes, then you first need to understand one more concept, such as verbal intelligence. What is it, and what does it have to do with memory?

The fact is that the connection between the two concepts is direct - verbal intelligence is responsible for a person's ability to analyze textual information and generate it independently. Thus, the higher it is, the better you can understand the text, the wider your vocabulary.

You can easily understand that this improves your verbal memory as well, as you are able to remember more different information, being aware of it, and not just memorize it. It will be much more efficient to use your memory by filling it with what you understand than just a bunch of letters and words that you can only mindlessly repeat.

Verbal memory is formed in children, that is, already at a very young age. So parents should think about how to stimulate its development and increase the verbal intelligence of children from an early age.age.

Semantic memory

There is one more concept that is worth mentioning before proceeding directly to the methods of developing and improving verbal memory. This is semantic memory. This concept can be found less often in everyday life, but much more often it is used in psychology. What is it?

Actually speaking, this is a kind of system in which a person stores his generalized idea of the world around him in verbal form. Thus, this is a subspecies of verbal memory, since semantic memory does not imply the storage of any emotions or experiences associated with information about the world around. And these emotions can only be stored in a verbal format.

Testing

So, it's time to move on to practice. What needs to be done to determine how well your verbal memory is developed? The test is mainly conducted on young children under the age of ten, as it can be a little difficult to determine the level of verbal intelligence or verbal memory in adults.

The reason here lies in the fact that it is at the very youngest age that a constant increase in certain knowledge occurs, so you can easily determine at what stage of verbal development a child is. Adults, on the other hand, do not differ too much from each other in this indicator.

Children's verbal memory is tested using game methods. For example, a child is offeredchoose an extra object or image from a row, or finish the sentence you have begun. These little tests will help determine your baby's developmental level.

However, verbal memory in psychology is also tested in adults. How does this happen? The most common variant is that the psychologist reads to the patient a list of fifteen words that are absolutely unrelated to each other, and the latter must reproduce them. Typically, the average person is able to remember seven out of fifteen words after one reading. When the list is read to him four times in a row, he can already reproduce from twelve to fifteen words. Fifteen minutes later, that number drops back to ten words.

So if you show similar results, then your verbal memory is normal, if the results are worse, then you should work on it. However, even if the results are normal, you can always strive for something more. How exactly? This will be discussed now.

Development in children

As mentioned earlier, verbal memory in children is best developed by playing. The fact is that memorizing words, sentences and entire texts is a rather boring and uninteresting activity, so a small child is unlikely to show serious interest in this. And as you know, a small child must be interested in order to achieve something from him. Therefore, try to come up with various games that will include memorizing words and sentences. Instead of texts, let the child learn poems, as theyare given much easier, and the rhythm of their pronunciation always pleases children. Later, you can move on to more serious options, but always remember that children should be interested, otherwise the results will be miserable.

Trainings

If we are talking about adults, then such simple techniques will not have the most impressive efficiency. Therefore, you need to pay attention to the trainings that psychologists can recommend.

One of the most popular is TV news repetition. Its essence lies in the fact that when watching the news, you need to repeat what the presenter said, as accurately as possible. In this way, you can develop your verbal memory much more effectively than when you just read and memorize some text.

Age features of memory

Of course, when a person grows old, his memory deteriorates significantly. However, it is worth noting that when trying to reproduce a story just read, seventy-year-old people show no worse result than twenty-year-olds. But if you ask them to try to reproduce the same story as accurately as possible half an hour after reading, young people do a much better job.