While novelty stimulates the brain, assimilating unfamiliar information is a real challenge, particularly when preparing for school and university exams. How then can we create associations of ideas to anchor learning over time?

When preparing for exams, it can sometimes feel impossible to cram all the information you need into your brain. But there are ways to create the conditions for the most effective revision possible.

My research on memory shows that both novelty and familiarity can influence memory. You can use the former to prepare for learning, and the latter to organize your memory and retain your knowledge.

To start, it might be going for a walk in an unfamiliar neighborhood or looking at a piece of art for the first time—in person or online—before you even begin studying.

In our lab , my colleagues and I observed that we are more likely to remember new information if we have just visited an unfamiliar place.

As part of the experiment, participants came to the lab to familiarize themselves with a virtual environment on a PC or with a virtual reality headset. It was a fantasy island with unexpected elements, such as candy canes the size of streetlights. We invited participants to return twice. During these sessions, they explored the same—now familiar—virtual environment and another one they had never seen before.

After each round of virtual exploration, participants in the experiment were presented with a series of words that they had to try to memorize. We then tested them after a completely different “distracting” task that involved solving simple math problems. Interestingly, participants who had explored a novel environment generally remembered more words than those who had explored a familiar environment. This suggests that novelty can prime the brain for learning.

After preparing your brain for a foray into the unknown, it’s time to take advantage of familiarity.

What familiarity brings to learning

Learning completely new information is often very difficult. Students often report reading several pages without being able to remember what they read.

There could be several reasons for this, but one is that it is difficult to memorize something very different from what you have learned before.

The brain likes to classify and label information, and our memory is organized into semantic categories. For example, if I mention “swivel chair,” “computer,” and “filing cabinet,” the general term “desk” might come to mind.

These types of associations are crucial when retrieving information because they can serve as clues. This is what researchers often refer to as a “memory schema . ”

When you have to learn something new, your brain tries to categorize this new information. If a connection can be made with something you already know, this information can more easily be integrated into an existing memory schema.

Based on studies , we might predict that preparing for a test is more effective when you already have some knowledge about the topic, as this allows you to integrate new information into an existing memory schema and retrieve that information more easily at a later time.

For example, imagine you’re eating a yellow kiwi for the first time. Your previous experience with green kiwis will help you recognize the fruit. The new experience of eating this slightly sweeter kiwi is easy to integrate into your existing knowledge about kiwis, including their appearance, texture, and taste.

Create information associations

However, in exams, learning often focuses on abstract concepts. The corresponding memory schemas are underdeveloped for less concrete information, making it difficult to remember.

In a biological psychology course I teach, students are required to learn about the transfer of information between brain cells. One crucial aspect of this topic is the change in neuron chemistry between when it is at rest and when it emits a signal, and the potassium and sodium chloride ions involved.

Student Cheat Sheet. Judith Schomaker , CC BY-NC-ND

Exam results showed that students struggled to remember these processes. One year, I decided to introduce a simple visual memory aid: a picture of a banana topped with a container of table salt.

Most students know that bananas are rich in potassium, while table salt is sodium chloride. This simple image shows the situation of a neuron at rest: lots of potassium inside and lots of sodium chloride outside the cell. But when the neuron is functioning, the ion channels open and, due to the laws of diffusion, potassium flows out and sodium chloride enters the cell.

After the introduction of this cheat sheet, student performance on the question on this topic increased significantly. Last year, our exam proctoring tool even rated it as “too easy,” as a large number of students had passed it. The image made it easier to integrate new knowledge into an existing schema because it associated new, abstract information with well-known elements: the banana and the table salt.

When preparing for an exam, it can therefore be helpful to think about how the new information you are trying to memorize relates to things you already know, even if that information is not directly relevant to the exam. Knowing that bananas are rich in potassium, for example, is not a learning objective in a biological psychology course.

And if you start by walking around a new place, even better. We hope these tips will help you make the ordeal of exams a lasting memory.

Author Bio: Judith Schomaker is Assistant Professor, Department of Health, Medical and Neuropsychology at Leiden University