Memory and Intelligence: Are They Connected?

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Are memory and intelligence connected?

Yes, but probably not in the way you think.

Memory and intelligence are not the same thing. Nor does improving your memory automatically raise your IQ.

But memory gives your thinking something incredibly important:

Information you can actually access and use.

Working memory helps you hold information in mind while solving problems. Long-term memory gives you knowledge and experiences to draw upon. And retrieval allows you to bring what you know back into awareness when you need it.

I’ve spent decades studying, using and teaching memory techniques. They helped me complete my PhD in Humanities at York University, and I’ve continued using mnemonic strategies for languages, books, speeches and many other learning projects.

That experience has taught me something important:

There’s no need to promise that memory training will magically increase intelligence.

It’s already enormously valuable to remember more of what you learn and retrieve that knowledge when you want to think, speak, write or solve a problem.

Let’s look at why.

How Are Memory and Intelligence Connected?

Researchers have studied the relationship between memory and intelligence for decades.

One of the strongest connections involves working memory, which helps you temporarily maintain and manipulate information while completing a task.

For example, imagine solving a problem that has several steps.

You have to remember where you started, keep track of what you’ve already established and hold relevant information in mind while deciding what to do next.

That’s one reason researchers have found a strong relationship between working-memory capacity and fluid intelligence.

However, a relationship doesn’t mean the two abilities are identical.

A large meta-analysis examining working memory and general intelligence concluded that they overlap substantially without being the same construct.

That’s a useful distinction because it helps us understand exactly where memory improvement fits.

Working Memory Keeps Information Available

Your working memory helps keep relevant information available while you’re thinking.

Suppose you’re reading an argument.

To decide whether the conclusion makes sense, you need to keep earlier premises available long enough to compare them with what comes later.

Or suppose you’re doing mental arithmetic. You have to maintain parts of the calculation while manipulating other parts.

Working memory is involved in both situations.

Attention matters too. Research into working-memory capacity increasingly emphasizes the ability to maintain access to relevant information while dealing with distraction and interference.

This helps explain why being tired, distracted or divided between several tasks can make you feel less mentally capable even though your underlying intelligence has not suddenly disappeared.

Long-Term Memory Gives Your Thinking Something to Work With

Working memory is only part of the story.

Much of what makes intelligent thought possible comes from information you have already learned.

Your long-term memory contains vocabulary, concepts, experiences, facts, procedures and associations that you can draw upon when solving new problems.

Interestingly, one study comparing working memory, processing speed and secondary memory found that retrieval from secondary memory was a particularly strong predictor of fluid intelligence.

Other studies have reached somewhat different conclusions about exactly how much working memory and long-term retrieval contribute.

That’s normal in cognitive science.

What matters for us is the broader point:

Intelligent thinking depends partly on having relevant information available and being able to retrieve it.

Retrieval Turns Stored Information Into Usable Knowledge

Knowing something and being able to access it are two different things.

You’ve probably had the experience of knowing that you know someone’s name but being unable to produce it.

The information may be stored in memory without being immediately accessible.

That’s one reason I emphasize active recall so much in my teaching.

A major review of retrieval-based learning found that practicing retrieval can slow forgetting and improve later access to learned information.

This is where memory improvement becomes practically important for thinking.

The more reliably you can retrieve what you’ve genuinely learned, the more knowledge you have available for comparison, explanation, analysis and problem solving.

Can You Have a High IQ and Still Be Forgetful?

Absolutely.

Memory and intelligence overlap, but they are not identical abilities.

Someone can perform very well on reasoning tasks and still forget names, appointments, vocabulary or information they’ve read.

Likewise, someone can develop exceptional skill with mnemonic techniques without that achievement proving that their general intelligence has increased.

Even highly trained memory champions forget things.

Why?

Because forgetting can happen for many ordinary reasons.

You might never have encoded the information properly in the first place. Your attention might have been divided. Similar information might interfere with retrieval. Or you may simply lack a useful cue for bringing the memory back.

That’s why I prefer to focus on memory as a trainable set of skills rather than treating every forgotten detail as evidence about intelligence.

Does Improving Your Memory Increase Your IQ?

Not necessarily.

This is where discussions about memory and intelligence often get carried away.

Because working-memory performance correlates with intelligence, it can be tempting to assume that training working memory must therefore increase general intelligence.

The evidence doesn’t justify making that promise.

For example, a large meta-analysis of working-memory training found improvements on trained and closely related memory tasks but no convincing evidence of reliable transfer to broader abilities such as nonverbal or verbal intelligence when appropriate control groups were used.

That’s actually good news if you’re interested in serious memory improvement.

You don’t need an IQ claim to justify learning how to remember.

If memory techniques help you retain a language, remember names, master material for an exam, deliver a speech without notes or retrieve more of what you’ve read, they have already done something valuable.

Is Intelligence Fixed?

Intelligence isn’t best understood as a single mental substance that either stays frozen or endlessly expands.

Different cognitive abilities can change for different reasons, and intelligence tests measure several kinds of performance.

Learning also changes what you know.

But learning a new fact or mastering a mnemonic system does not automatically prove that your general intelligence or IQ has increased.

I think there’s a more useful question:

Can you become better at learning, remembering and using knowledge?

In my experience, the answer is clearly yes.

And that’s the kind of improvement memory techniques are designed to produce.

How Memory Techniques Make Knowledge More Usable

Memory techniques help solve a practical problem:

Information doesn’t help you very much if you cannot retrieve it.

That’s why my approach to improving memory focuses on skills like attention, association, organization, mnemonic encoding and deliberate retrieval.

I’ve personally relied on these processes throughout advanced academic work and continue to use them whenever I want important information available without constantly looking it up.

The goal is not to fill your mind with random trivia.

It’s to make useful knowledge easier to access.

1. Pay Attention to What You Want to Remember

Memory starts with attention.

Before applying any mnemonic system, decide exactly what you want to retain.

This sounds simple, but many apparent memory failures begin because the information was never clearly identified and encoded in the first place.

2. Organize and Associate the Information

New information becomes easier to remember when you connect it with information you already know.

This is one reason association plays such a large role in my memory strategies.

Rather than repeatedly exposing yourself to information and hoping it sticks, you deliberately create connections that can later help trigger recall.

3. Use a Memory Palace When Location Helps

The Memory Palace technique gives information an organized spatial structure.

You choose familiar locations and associate the material you want to remember with specific stations inside them.

For me, this has been one of the most useful ways to transform information into something I can systematically retrieve rather than merely recognize when I see it again.

4. Use the Right Mnemonic System for the Material

There isn’t one memory technique for every situation.

Different systems solve different problems.

• Use the Major System when you need memorable associations for numbers.
• Use a PAO System when person-action-object combinations make numerical information easier to encode.
• Use the Pegword Method when a stable series of cues is useful.

The important principle is not collecting techniques.

It’s learning how to match a technique to information you genuinely want to retain.

5. Retrieve What You’ve Encoded

Encoding is only the beginning.

You also need to practice bringing the information back without looking at the answer first.

That’s where deliberate retrieval helps transform a temporary learning experience into knowledge that is easier to access later.

When recall fails, don’t treat the failure as proof that you have a bad memory.

Identify what failed.

Was the association weak? Was the Memory Palace station unclear? Did you confuse two similar items? Did you review too late?

Then correct the problem and retrieve again.

Memory Helps You Put Knowledge Into Action

One of the reasons I care about memory so much is that recall supports real performance.

A musician who wants to memorize song lyrics needs access to the words while performing.

An actor who wants to memorize lines has to retrieve them at the right moment while doing much more than merely reciting text.

Learning works the same way.

You can recognize a concept on a page and still struggle to explain it without looking.

Once you can retrieve the idea, compare it with other ideas and explain it in your own words, your knowledge becomes much more useful.

That’s why I don’t see memory improvement as an isolated brain exercise.

It’s part of successful learning.

Memory and Intelligence: The Most Useful Way to Think About the Connection

So, are memory and intelligence connected?

Yes.

Working memory is strongly associated with reasoning ability. Long-term memory supplies knowledge. Retrieval brings stored information back when you need to use it.

But that doesn’t mean memory and intelligence are interchangeable.

And it doesn’t mean that memorizing more information automatically increases your IQ.

The more useful conclusion is much more practical:

Better memory skills can help make more of what you learn available for thinking and action.

That’s the goal I’ve pursued throughout my own memory training and the reason I continue teaching these techniques.

You don’t need to become obsessed with an intelligence score.

Choose something meaningful to learn.

Encode it well.

Retrieve it.

Use it.

Then learn something else.

If you’d like help putting that process into practice, grab my FREE Memory Improvement Kit:

It will show you how to start using practical memory techniques so you can retain more of what matters and make that knowledge easier to recall when you need it.