Memory (Part 10)

Since reports on sleep-study point to so much success in learning foreign languages it will be interesting to consider what wide-awake learners have to say on the subject. Weinland considers interest and enthusiasm of primary importance, interest not only in the language, but in the country where it is spoken.

Conversing with a person for whom this is the native tongue, and reading newspapers and magazines in the language serve both to heighten interest and practice. Pictures and advertisements help the beginner to understand the captions in foreign literature.

Knowledge of current events through reading papers in English (or the student's own language) makes it easier to understand articles on the subject in a foreign paper. Subscribing to periodicals also offers good spaced practice, which is found useful in remembering.

The card system, with the foreign word on one side and the English word on the other, is recommended, with frequent practice in self-testing. Attention and accurate first learnings, with awareness of both the similarity to and the difference from the English equivalent, are stressed.

A combination of the visual and auditory aspects of both the word and the thing it represents is necessary to make the subject think in a new language. Finding the relatedness among various foreign words is valuable, and idioms too, must be tied together. Reciting and self-testing in writing is essential, especially for the grammar.

Surveying the recommendations of the memory experts, what conditions and methods do we find conducive to recall? And how far does sleep-learning coincide with these findings?

We find consistency in many areas. There is agreement that certain time periods are better than others, that study just before sleep helps avoid retroactive inhibition of memory, also that motivation, knowledge of achievement, reinforcement by review, thinking about the material, learning during spaced intervals, understanding and repeating are vital.

Reciting and writing out the material, relaxation, interest, confidence, health and freedom from drugs, over-learning, reinforcement of motor learning with verbalization, the proper environment, and general conditioning or habit formation are also important and helpful elements of memory.

The effort to forget does not seem to be important in sleep-learning, since this form of memory stems directly from subconscious activity. If that constant evaluation of progress indicates worry, anxiety, and possible barriers in the early stages, it is implicitly considered undesirable in sleep-learning as in conscious memorizing.

Meaningful material is easier to learn both awake and asleep, according to the authorities of both schools. Association and coexistence are not stressed, except as a general free-association activity in connection with repetition, in the literature of sleep-research, nor is there too much discussion of whole and part learning, broken and serial presentation, or grouping of material.

Sleep-study advocates report no age limitations in learning capacity in older people, and seem to disagree that there are individual limits to learning potential. But they all agree that incentive is important, and the entire system of sleep-learning precludes the possibility of wandering or divided attention. They recognize the interference of emotional problems and recommend sleep-therapy as a means of overcoming these.

They seem not to be directly concerned with home influence and social training, although these are probably recognized as part of the emotional attitude. Distortion of interpretation is hardly likely during the first learning, since the subject is asleep, and the possibility of distortion occurring is subsequently not mentioned.