Memory skills vary widely between one person and the next, as does intellectual capacity. A person with good memory is not necessarily more intelligent than someone whose memory lets them down, but there is a connection between memory and mental performance.
How would you describe your memory? Good on facts and figures, but heavily reliant on diaries and calendars for appointments? Can you remember all the family’s birthdays but find that you are always losing scarves, gloves, and other personal possessions? Generally, we tend to categorise ourselves according to the perceived weaknesses in our memories and pay less attention to our memory strengths. Yet memory is as individual as personality – we all have different skills and talents.
The same can be said of intelligence. While a good memory is certainly an asset in mental tasks and tests, the link between memory and intelligence is not straightforward. It is not always the case that a person of high intellect has a good memory in all areas – so the stereotype of the absent minded professor has some validity. A talented scientist might have developed an advanced theory on how the universe was formed and have a superior recall for a thing related to the subject but may be completely unreliable in other areas, losing spectacles and papers and forgetting appointments. One of the important early predictors of whether information n will be held in memory is attention, and many academically brilliant people have very selective attention.
Different kinds of intelligence
Psychologists now talk of multiple intelligences – as many as seven different types – each of which brings at least one aspect of memory into play. A professional footballer or tennis player could be said to have physical intelligence, drawing on body coordination skills that are honed and carved into the memory through practice. Top sportsmen and women teach their bodies to make the right movements in the right situations, and these movements are remembered unconsciously.
A professor of physics or astronomy will score highly in logical or math emotional intelligence and have a memory that can process this type of information rapidly. Architects are likely to excel in spatial memory:_ in particular, the ability to visualize drawings in three dimensions. People who are able to speak several languages have a high level of linguistic intelligence, supported by a superior memory for words and their sounds. In contrast, professional musicians and singers may have an exceptional musical memory as a result of constant practice. One element of high social intelligence is the ability to ‘ read’ others. Leadership and negotiation skills may initially stem from a superior memory for names and personal details and a sophisticated recognition of behavioral cues exhibited by others.
What is common to all the different forms of intelligence is the ability to concentrate wholly on a task and to make connections between new information and existing knowledge. These are also key strategies in developing a good memory. However high the intelligence, achievement owes as much to interest, dedication, and practice as it does to natural memory.
Memory in education
Rote learning was once considered a major educational tool. Today, children are encouraged to research material themselves, which not only means they must demonstrate an understanding of what they learn but also increases the chance of it being retained in memory.
FIND YOUR INTELLIGENCE TYPES
Get together with some friends or family members and try these tests to find out your intelligence strengths.
Logical-mathematical intelligence
- Set the clock and get everyone to count backward in sevens from 100, writing down the numbers – 100, 93, 86, and so on. See who is the fastest and who makes the fewest errors.
- What is the next letter in this sequence, and why? A C F J 0
Linguistic intelligence
- Get everyone to make three lists of words – animals, fruit or vegetables, and countries – each word starting with a different letter. Who makes the fullest alphabetical lists in five minutes?
Social Intelligence
- To test who has the best memory for people and personal details, ask everyone to invent a new name, age, and hometown for themselves. Each person then recites their invented details in turn. Finally, give the group five minutes in which everyone writes down everyone else’s details and see who performs best.
