The Way Memory Tics: The Roman Room The brain is the organ responsible for storing memories.

Physiologically, a memory is stored in 4 different parts in the brain based on its type. These parts are called the Cortex, the Limbic, the Cerebellum, and the Brainstem (Perry 2003). Each part is responsible of storing a particular memory or a part of a memory. The Cortex or the Cognitive Memory is in charge of storing cognitive information such as names, faces, and facts. The Limbic or the Emotional Memory is the part that stores emotional information such as fear, pleasure, and sadness. The Cerebellum or the Motor-Vestibular Memory is capable of storing physical-based memories such as typing, playing the piano, or riding a bike. The final part, the Brainstem or the state memory, stores the anxiety or arousal states associated with a traumatic events (Perry 2003). But how do people interact with their memories willingly, or what is the part that psychology plays with memory. There are many ways people use to store information and recalling it. One of the oldest methods is the Roman Room method. Its believed that the technique dates to Ancient Rome, hence its name. Basically, it is a mental ability to create a virtual room in the mind and then placing items within it to referee to different information intended to be stored and to be recalled at ones desire. This way has strengths and weaknesses which vary from an individual to another. Its strengths are; helps in memorizing a list or several of unrelated pieces of information easily, and its very easy to use compared to other memory enhancing approaches and techniques. One weakness could render this method ineffective is, the inability of the user to maintain the imaginary room organization, or the whole room at all for a long period of time. Individuals with low mental capacity concerned with their spatial

Academic Preparation 2 Unit 5: Memory

Ismail Qaznili

intelligence may also find it hard to use this method, thus they may resort to using a different approach or technique. This technique is effective because it involves more than one sense to create the aiding memory, because the more senses involved the stronger this memory would become and would be there in the mind for a long time. Though this method maybe inappropriate to be used in critical and rash situation, for it requires a degree of concentration to enable the user to arrange the items in the room with carefulness to avoid causing a chaos, and to make it is possible to retrieve all the parts of the information. To conclude, the technique has proved its viable and reliable since its creation till recent times. It helps with storing and recalling information easily and it can be used by anyone. Perhaps there is no need to intervene with it to preserve its feat of ease and its purpose to store information

References Perry, B. EFFECTS OF TRAUMATIC EVENTS ON CHILDREN Child Trauma Academy 2003. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mnemonic http://www.fun-with-words.com/mnem_example.html http://www.buildyourmemory.com/roman.php http://www.academictips.org/memory/romanrom.html http://www.mental-workout.com/articles/improve-your-memory/use-theroman-room-system-to-improve-your-memory/ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1mweFSqACU

Academic Preparation 2 Unit 5: Memory

Ismail Qaznili