1. The Law Of Comprehension.
This is the simplest, but also the most important. According to the German
writer Georg Lichtenberg, people poorly remember what they read because "they do
too little thinking". The more deeply you grasp what you memorise, the more
easily and the more in detail it will remain in your memory.
2. The Law Of Interest.
"For knowledge to be digested, it must be absorbed with relish," wrote Anatole
France. The interesting and "the appetising” is remembered easily as man does
not have to make special efforts, as the ability to spontaneously memorise comes
into play.
3. The Law Of Previous Knowledge.
The more one knows on a certain subject, the more easily one memorises
everything new pertaining to it. Everyone must have noticed that when he opens a
book read long ago, he reads it as if he had
never read it before. This means that when he read it for the first time he
lacked the relevant experience and information but by this time he has
accumulated them. Thus reading forms connections between the accumulated and the
new knowledge. This is the result of memorisation.
4. The Law Of Readiness For Memorisation.
The reader derives the information he sets out to derive from the text. The same
goes for the duration of memorisation. When one wants to remember something for
long, one will remember it in any case
better than when one wants to remember something for a brief while.
5. The Law Of Associations.
This was formulated back in the 4th century B.C. by Aristotle. The concepts
which arose simultaneously summon each other up from the memory bank by
association. For instance, the
atmosphere of a room evokes recollections about events which took place in it
(or recollection of what you read staying in it, and this is exactly what you
need).
6. The Law Of Sequences.
The alphabet is easy to recite in its regular order and difficult in the reverse
order. The conceptions learned in a certain sequence, when recalled, summon each
other up in the same sequence.
7. The Law Of Strong Impressions.
The stronger the first impression of what is being memorised, the brighter the
image. The greater the number of information channels, the more strongly the
information is retained. Hence, the task is to achieve the strongest possible
initial impression of the material subject.
8. The Law Of Inhibition.
Any subsequent memorisation inhibits the previous. The learned portion of
information must "settle" before the next is taken up. The best way to forget
newly memorised material is by trying to memorise something similar directly
afterwards. This is why school children are advised not to learn physics after
mathematics and literature after history and to learn poetry before going to
bed.