Memory Improvement Games

M.D. Norman Doidge says that throughout our life our brain is capable of changing its structure and forming new neurons. Previously, it was believed that after childhood the brain began to decline. Still, the brain requires a certain amount of exercise to stay in shape, and mental exercises have been designed to stimulate and challenge the mind and memory. Exercises to help improve the memory for visual patterns and calculating figures in your head are often included in memory improvement games.

Games for Chunking Information

• The memory can be divided into sensory, short-term and long-term memory. Sensory memory allows a person to retain impressions of sensory information for a short while, 200 to 500 milliseconds. Short-term memory refers to a person's ability to hold things in memory for a short time. It has a short duration and the number of items that can be held in the memory is usually described as plus or minus seven items. The capacity can be increased by using different strategies to chunk the items together, for example, learning a number sequence by chunking three numbers together. The UK-based online site Your Amazing Brain (youramazingbrain.org) has several good games to help you train your memory. There is also information about why certain memory strategies may help to improve your memory. Try Can You Remember These Phone Numbers? to help you with remembering long mobile numbers by chunking the numbers together in groups instead of trying to remember a long string of numbers.

Short-Term Memory

• A glitter memory game can be found at Memory-Improvement-Tips (memory-improvement-tips.com). This game is a variation of the classic memory game, where you turn up a card and try to find the matching card. If you make a mistake, you have to turn both cards over and start again. Trying to remember where different glittering squares are placed helps to exercise short-term memory. Neurolight is a game that tests your short-term spatial memory. Spatial memory means memory for location. A pattern sequence is marked out in neurocolors. Your task is to recreate the pattern sequence. Several different levels will challenge both children and adults and the game is found at Improve Memory (improvememory.org).

Working Memory

• The ability to hold information in the mind while doing other tasks is vital when performing tasks such as reasoning and learning. Active monitoring and manipulation of information requires that the information can be held in short-term memory. Tricky Sequence Question -- IQ Test Style is a game that relies on your working memory. Seven figures are presented and they form a sequence. Five of the figures are numbered and one of them does not fit into the sequence. This game is challenging and is found at Smartkit (smart-kit.com).

Long-Term Memory

• Long-term memory can store large quantities of information but problems are often linked to accessing the information. The game Ways to Remember can be found at Exploratorium (exploratorium.edu). By using elaborative encoding, you train to remember a number of things by making up a story. Encoding means to transform something into a memory.