Study Smarter

Finals. Just the word can incite feelings of fear and anxiety in any typical college student. Due to busy schedules, obligations to work and other activities, time constraints, and procrastination, many college students find themselves in the unfortunate situation of cramming for a cumulative examination the night before it is scheduled to take place. Consequently, many of these students get minimal amounts of sleep the night before the exam and instead spend their night attempting to memorize a semester’s worth of information.

                Dr. Barbara J. Knowlton and fellow researchers at the University of California – Los Angeles, have done significant work with regard to discovering methods that make learning information more efficient. Knowlton and her colleagues have found that certain “desirable difficulties” created when a person is studying results in a greater ability to memorize information. One of these “desirable difficulties” that improved learning in memorization tasks is contextual inference. Contextual inference refers to learning information in an interleaved order instead of memorizing the information if a repetitive manner. Even though contextual inference made practicing information more difficult, learners benefited from the desirable difficulty. Learners is the contextual inference group had lower response time, higher frontal–parietal blood-oxygen-level-dependent signal and greater motor cortex excitability during testing, all of which are consistent with superior learning.  

                Furthermore, minimal amounts of sleep has many negative effects on our bodies, including decreased reaction time and cognitive function, and increased difficulty in learning. In a recent study published in Psychological Science by researchers at the University of California and Michigan State University found that individuals who slept for fewer than five hours, but were not totally sleep deprived, were significantly more prone to creating false memories, compared to other individuals who had received adequate amounts of sleep. This finding further demonstrates the fact that cramming for an exam the night before it is administered and choosing to study more rather than getting an adequate amount of sleep has a detrimental effect on how one would perform on that exam. The creation of false memories from lack of sleep hinders the performance of test takers, and it should be avoided in all situations in which one’s cognition and memory is tested.

If a student finds his or herself faced with a daunting exam requiring the memorization of a plethora of information at the end of this semester, it is highly suggested that they start studying early, study the information in a non-repetitive order, and get more than five hours of sleep the night before to avoid the creation of false memories.  

Knowlton, Barbara J. et al. "Brain–behavior correlates of optimizing learning through
interleaved practice." Neuroimage 56 (2011): 1758-1772. Web. 8 Dec. 2015.

Oaklander, Mandy. "Less Than 5 hours of Sleep Leads to False Memories." Time. Time, 11 Sept.
2014. Web. 8 Dec. 2015. http://time.com/3328149/sleep-deprivation-false-memories/