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Click Here to Go to Our Latest Article On Remebering Names and Faces
Memory Improvement Techniques, an Overview In a world that’s as awash in information as ours is, keeping track of all the information in your own mind can be a daunting task. Sure, most people can remember the gist of things, but without specific training in techniques, it’s hard to do “error checking”. Fortunately, that specific training is easy to get at.All memory techniques rely on association. You take the list of things you want to memorize, and associate them with certain words or mental images. By tying these words and mental images together into specific sequences, you can recall the entire series of things to remember by playing back a “movie in your head”. The mental images used need to be vivid and evocative – funny and absurd images work the best.There are a number of variation on the mnemonic techniques, outlined below.The Peg SystemThe Peg System requires memorizing a list of words that are associated with numbers, usually by sound, or rhyming. For example, gun for one, shoe for two, tree for three, door for four, hive for five and sticks for six. To use a peg system, number the items to be memorized, then make a mental image of something related to the item to be memorized with the “peg word”, for example, something fired out of a gun would be the first item on the list, an item in a pair of large clown shoes would be the second item and so on. Link System The Link System of memory management works for up to 5 to 7 items. You take the concept to be recalled and “link it” to an absurd image. This is good for remembering names. For example, if you need to recall that Ambrose Burnside was a Union General, you can link it like this: Amber Rose (Ambrose) burning by the side (Burnside) of a group of people with picket signs (Union), holding martinis (Made from gin) next to their ears and wearing Overalls (Gin-Ear-Overall – general). Because the image is silly, it’ll be remembered. Mnemonics The most commonly encountered form of memory aid is the mnemonic system, and you encounter it nearly every day in the form of advertising jingles. If you remember the little ABC “Schoolhouse Rocks” short films, nearly every single one of them used rhyme and meter to make something stand out in the memory of the listener. Mnemonics are an excellent teaching aid. Roman Room System The Roman Room system, or system of loci, or “Palace of Memory”, requires that the user visualize a familiar building with a lot of rooms in it. One that they can walk around in without thinking about it. Assign an order to the room, and make a mental image of the things to remember, and place them in each room in turn, with an association that is funny, or blasphemous. Something easily remembered. Then, when you need to recall all the parts of your speech before the Senate in order, you just wander the villa in your mind looking for the absurd images to remind you of each point in turn. Alphabet System The Alphabet System requires memorizing a list of words and using them as “pegs” to hang concepts on. Most peg systems are around 10 to 15 items long. Typical peg words can be animals, usually arranged or sequenced alphabetically. For example, aardvark, baboon, cat, dog, eagle, fox, goat, hippo and so on. When you need to memorize something, picture each animal in sequence doing something related to the item to be memorized. For a shopping list consisting of bananas, bread, cereal and milk, you’d picture an aardvark peeling a banana, while the baboon was baking bread, the cat was eating cereal, and the dog was carrying a carton of milk in its mouth. Major System The most refined system for memorizing numbers is called the Major Mnemonic System, which encodes digits in consonants, and the consonants are used to form words. It was originally developed in the 1730s, and is an excellent way to remember telephone numbers and other numerical data.
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