Visual memory reflects a person’s ability to perceive and store information about an object in the external world obtained through the organs of vision. This type of memory presupposes people's ability to imagine and is especially important for representatives of certain professions - artists, engineers, designers. Visual memory training helps develop the skill.
Functions of visual memory
The main tasks of visual memory are fixing and remembering visual images for later use. The work of the PP can be considered using the example of recognizing a familiar face among other people. The action algorithm is as follows:
- visual perception of a face upon first meeting;
- placing the resulting image into long-term memory;
- visual perception of the face at the next meeting;
- comparing the picture with the one stored in memory.
How to develop memory in a child of preschool and school age
If there is a match, the person is familiar; if there is a mismatch, the person is not.
Attention! The brain region located in the back of the brain, the occipital lobe, is responsible for the brain.
The lobe of the brain responsible for the brain
Development of short-term memory
The development of short-term memory gives us a number of advantages:
- Helps you quickly assess the situation, respond without preparation, improvise, speak and at the same time sketch out a plan of thoughts that you would like to voice.
- Allows you to perceive the material coherently (remember what you just read and connect it with current information).
- Improves reading and reading comprehension skills.
- Helps to better perceive speech by ear.
- Improves math skills.
The list goes on. As a result, improving the level of short-term memory improves our quality of life.
Where is it used?
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The very first candidate on the list who might benefit from a salary is a person involved in the fine arts. Painters and sculptors can draw a portrait from memory or sculpt it in clay.
A short list of professions where a good salary means a lot is as follows:
- Military personnel: scouts, sappers, miners, snipers - there is a need to remember the terrain, the location of objects and notice any change in the situation;
- Police officers, detectives, security guards - a mandatory memory for faces is required for recognition and identification;
- Drivers of vehicles must remember the route and the road picture as a whole;
- Foresters, rangers and hunters are required to be able to navigate the forest, distinguish between animals of the same breed, and distinguish trees from one another.
By the way. An experienced conductor, using visual memory, knows to whom he sold a ticket and to whom he did not.
Conductor and passenger
Short-term auditory memory
Short-term auditory memory is associated with the fixation, storage and reproduction of auditory images. It is one of the types of figurative memory. Back in 1960, experimental results proved that auditory memory is one of the main conditions for storing and reproducing verbal information (George Sterling, American cognitive psychologist).
There are special tests for short-term memory, methods that allow you to assess the volume of auditory memory, but they are relevant primarily for assessing the level of readiness of a child for learning at school.
To train a child’s auditory and associative memory, you can use the “Describe Me” game. To do this, the adult names an object or animal, and the child must imagine it and name its different types, signs, actions, features, sounds. For example: a kitten is small, warm, fluffy, has long, thick fur, and can purr like this: “Purrr.” It can meow like this: “Meow.”
Adults are advised to learn to listen to the sounds that surround us and are perceived as background. Try to highlight them individually and repeat them mentally, trying to be as precise as possible. This trains both attention and auditory memory.
Online gaming simulators are very effective. Thus, thanks to training on the Zvukvar simulator, the ability to retain sound information improves and an ear for music develops. Regular fifteen-minute sessions bring tangible results.
Causes of poor memory
If a person has trouble remembering faces or gets confused in directions in the subway and underground passages, he may have problems with salary. It happens that a head injury in the back of the head leads to loss of visual memory. In addition, this includes such points as:
- deterioration of health with age;
- brain overload with excess information;
- lack of fatty acids in foods.
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Smoking, drug addiction and alcoholism significantly reduce visual memory.
Important! Diseases associated with impaired brain activity can also lead to deterioration of mental health. For example, these include Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, stroke, and brain tumors.
Deterioration of visual memory
Types of visual memory
As the Chinese proverb says: “It is better to see once than to hear a thousand times.” Visual memorization can be classified according to the following parameters:
- duration of preservation and consolidation of the image;
- goal setting;
- way of remembering.
The duration of work with a memory image can be short-term or long-term. Short-term - implies only the fact of fixation, and long-term - fixing the picture in memory for a long time.
There are two types of target setting:
- deliberate - when special methods are used to achieve the goal of remembering something;
- unintentional - there is no specific goal to remember, and the fixation of images occurs without additional effort.
Proven. Remembering what a picture of a complex formula looks like (its entire visual appearance) is easier than remembering its detailed writing.
Certain types of salary
Features of visual memory
Scientists identify the following features of the salary for various moments:
- gender;
- age;
Upon closer examination, each species can reveal its own distinctive features.
Gender
Considering the level of development of visual memory by gender, experts noted that it is higher in girls. Obviously, this is due to the fact that they have a very rich imagination. They actively use images: they dress up dolls, play “shop”, “shopping”, “dress up”. Boys are fond of outdoor games. Subsequently, the girl, having turned into a woman, continues to notice every little thing. Men tend to look at the image as a whole.
Age
The psychology of children and adolescents at a certain stage of development allows us to observe eidetic memory in them.
Attention! This is one of the varieties of vision, which is the ability to see an object after it is no longer in sight.
This age-related phenomenon allows the owner to see a previously seen picture on a blank sheet of paper and can be either obvious or hidden. In the first case, a really non-existent picture is observed with open eyes, in the second, to do this you need to close your eyes and concentrate. Sometimes an adult is endowed with such abilities.
Figurative memory
Distributing this method of memorization according to the degree of maturation, the following phases are distinguished:
- Preschool (maximum) – changes in the structure of the eyes occur, the importance of tactile sensations decreases, and mobility increases in children 3-4 years old. They visually record the entire object; at 5-6 years old, a preschooler can already, while looking at an object, note individual details in memory;
- Junior schoolchild (voluntary) - the volume of learning increases due to the task being set for the child to learn something by heart, conscious work with visualization occurs;
- Teenage (delayed) - work with visual images is relegated to second place by logic, thinking determines the purpose of visualization and its feasibility;
- Adult – at this age, the functioning of visual memory directly depends on life style and profession.
Interesting. The volume of visual memory among lovers of an active lifestyle is several times higher than that of homebodies.
This is due to the large amount of incoming visual information that can be stored, both unintentionally and intentionally.
What is she like?
Visual memory is the ability to receive and retain visual images, as well as reproduce them in the mind, evaluate and comment. A person is able to retain memories of something he once saw for a long time, then talk about it in detail, focusing on the preserved image, as well as some tactile sensations - sound, color, smell, texture, and so on.
It is impossible to clearly separate this form of memory from its other types, since they are all organically interconnected and exist in close synergy. Our vision plays a huge role in human development, allowing us to improve our imagination. It makes it possible to mentally reproduce an already seen object or event, and then imagine something completely new. That is, memory plays a direct role in the analysis of events, the development of logic and creativity.
It is not the same for all people, but it can be developed and improved. A child is born without any knowledge of the world around him, but his senses allow him to begin studying, and the ability to remember records the received data and retains the most vivid and necessary memories. The more information the brain receives, the more it can be stored.
It is believed that a person receives 80% of information from vision, so it is possible and necessary to develop your abilities. Having an excellent memory helps in learning, allowing you to quickly and efficiently absorb educational material. It promotes high-quality work, as it speeds up the processing of received information and stimulates the growth of creativity and ingenuity.
The volume of visual memory is an important indicator that determines a person’s ability to remember. You can identify it using a test with lines or matches. The more details you can remember, the more volume it has.
Diagnostic methods
You can determine whether visual memory is bad or good using tests. They are carried out independently or entrusted to a psychologist. The basis of any tests are pictures. Emphasis is placed on the number of drawn objects, their location and small details. A simple exercise to do with an assistant:
- lay out 10 small objects on the table;
- within one minute carefully remember them;
- after which, they close their eyes, and the assistant removes one of the objects and changes the location of the remaining ones.
The test taker must open his eyes and say which item is missing.
How to develop visual memory
If tests show a low ability to remember a briefly seen picture, then how to develop visual memory? There are ways to improve it.
A person can improve visual memory by doing exercises like:
- solving rebuses, puzzles and finding differences in drawings - such games are useful at any age;
- splitting the image into details - memorizing individual fragments after visual separation allows you to quickly fix the entire image in memory;
- verbal expression of the image - when breaking down the image, you can describe each fragment in detail in words; words recorded in a certain order will help you remember the image;
- development of synesthetic perception - linking visual pictures with the senses, creating associations: red color - sweet taste, blue color - smells like the sea, hedgehog - prickly to the touch, etc.
ZP at any age is an excellent assistant for movement, communication and creativity. It is indispensable in everyday life; full development of personality is impossible without visual memory, so it is imperative to train it.
Which of the greats had eidetic memory?
Many great people have had the gift of eidetic memory. This helped them keep in mind, combine and analyze a huge variety of different information in the areas of activity in which they were engaged. This quality was extremely useful in an era when personal computers did not yet exist. Here are just a few of these people:
Sergei Rachmaninov, Russian composer and pianist. Having once looked at unfamiliar notes, he could immediately play any complex musical composition with absolute precision.
Nikola Tesla, electrical physicist. I never used notes because I kept everything in my memory.
John Paul II, Pope. Fluent in 21 languages.
Seneca, Roman philosopher. In exact sequence, he recalled from memory two thousand words he read, often not even related in meaning.
Winston Churchill, British politician. Knew all of Shakespeare by heart.
Heinrich Schliemann, archaeologist. I studied any foreign language in a month and a half.
Paul Morphy, chess player. He remembered all the moves of the games he played.
Daniel Tammet. Able to name more than 22 thousand decimal π
Alexander Suvorov, Russian commander. He knew by sight and name every soldier in his army, which consisted of 24 thousand people.
