Research has revealed that there are powerful suggestive elements to memory recall.
The importance of suggestion in memory is exemplified in hypnosis when the suggestion -- you will NOT remember is implanted and that is indeed what happens.
The subconscious mind believes this suggestion under hypnosis and does not allow the conscious mind to remember out of hypnosis.
You have the choice of positively or negatively 'programming' yourself into learning or not learning your material.
One hypnotized group was given positive suggestions that they would remember a given set of information, and a control group was not hypnotized and not told anything about positively or negatively learning a given set of information.
Afterwards, the hypnotized group scored higher than the learning level exhibited by the control group.
In another experiment, positive suggestions to learn better were given to one group prior to using 'sleep-learning' cassettes (but unknown to them, their speakers were unplugged and no actual sleep-learning input was available).
A control group was given no suggestions at all prior to the same unplugged, sleep-learning input.
The mere suggestion that the one group would learn better again significantly improved recall.
In another example, there were 2 groups where one was exposed to an optimistic, positive teacher who expected good results, and the other group was exposed to a teacher with a negative attitude.
Naturally, the group exposed to a positively expectant teacher improved their learning recall more than the negatively programmed group.
As an exercise before learning a given set of material, eliminate negative state- ments from your conversation like, "I hate (this subject or that)," or "I always forget (such and such)," or "I never can remember (those things).
" You certainly cannot expect to learn something better, if you tell yourself you can't learn it.
Replace this negativity with positive programming by affirming to yourself at least 3 times, statements like, "I am learning (this material) better today," or "My memory is improving in (this area or that)," or "I always remember (these things).
" By doing this one thing alone, your recall will be improved by a significant percent and the positive belief system in yourself will be more firmly established.