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| Memory Improvement Tools |
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This section helps you to improve your memory. The techniques it explains are particularly helpful in studying for exams or in situations where you need to remember detailed, structured information. They also make things like learning foreign languages and remembering people's names much easier.
This section is split into three parts: first of all, the introduction explains the principles behind the use of mnemonics. We then discuss a range of individual tools that you can use to remember information. Finally we discuss how to use the skills in practice to remember peoples names, languages, exam information, etc.
While you are reading these articles, have a look at the memory technique book reviews and resources on the sidebars - these will help you to develop your memory skills further. Enjoy the articles! |
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| • Memory Techniques - Introduction |
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These tools help you to improve your memory. They help you both to remember facts accurately and to remember the structure of information. The tools are split into two sections. Firstly we will discuss the individual tools that you can use to remember information. Secondly we discuss how to use them in practice to remember people’s names, languages, exam information, etc.
As with other mind tools, the more practice you give yourself with these techniques, the more effective your use of them will be. This section contains many of the memory techniques used by stage memory performers. With enough practice and effort, you may be able to have a memory as good. Even if you do not have the time needed to develop this quality of memory, many of the techniques here are useful in everyday life. |
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| • Mnemonics |
'Mnemonic' is another word for memory tool. Mnemonics are methods for remembering information that is otherwise quite difficult to recall. A very simple example is the '30 days hath September' rhyme. The basic principle of mnemonics is to use as many of the best functions of your brain as possible to store information.
Our brains evolved to code and interpret complex stimuli such as images, colors, structures, sounds, smells, tastes, touch, positions, emotions and language. We use these to make sophisticated models of the world we live in. Our memories store all of these very effectively. Unfortunately information we have to remember is almost always presented in only one way - as words printed on a page. While language is one of the most important aspects of human evolution, it is only one of the many skills and resources available to our minds. This section of Mind Tools will show you how to use all these resources. |
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| • Using Your Whole Mind To Remember |
By coding language and numbers in striking images, you can reliably code both information and the structure of information. You can then easily recall these later. You can do the following things to make your mnemonics more memorable: |
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Use positive, pleasant images. Your brain often blocks out unpleasant ones. |
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Use vivid, colorful, sense-laden images - these are easier to remember than drab ones. |
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Use all your senses to code information or dress up an image. Remember that your mnemonic can contain sounds, smells, tastes, touch, movements and feelings as well as pictures. |
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Give your image three dimensions, movement and space to make it more vivid. You can use movement either to maintain the flow of association, or to help you to remember actions. |
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Exaggerate the size of important parts of the image. |
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Use humor! Funny or peculiar things are easier to remember than normal ones. |
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Similarly rude rhymes are very difficult to forget! |
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Symbols (red traffic lights, pointing fingers, road signs, etc.) can code quite complex messages quickly and effectively.
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| • Designing Mnemonics: Imagination, Association and Location |
The three fundamental principles underlying the use of mnemonics are imagination, association and location. Working together, you can use these principles to generate powerful mnemonic systems.
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| • Imagination |
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It is what you use to create and strengthen the associations needed to create effective mnemonics. Your imagination is what you use to create mnemonics that are potent for you. The more strongly you imagine and visualize a situation, the more effectively it will stick in your mind for later recall. The imagery you use in your mnemonics can be as violent, vivid, or sensual as you like, as long as it helps you to remember. |
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| • Association |
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This is the method by which you link a thing to be remembered to a way of remembering it. You can create associations by:
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Placing things on top of each other. |
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Crashing things together. |
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Merging images together. |
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Wrapping them around each other. |
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Rotating them around each other or having them dancing together. |
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Linking them using the same color, smell, shape, or feeling |
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As an example, you might link the number 1 with a goldfish by visualizing a 1-shaped spear being used to spear it. |
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| • Location |
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It gives you two things: a coherent context into which you can place information so that it hangs together, and a way of separating one mnemonic from another. By setting one mnemonic in a particular town, I can separate it from a similar mnemonic set in a city. For example, by setting one in the town of Horsham and another similar mnemonic with images of Manhattan, we can separate them with no danger of confusion. You can build the flavors and atmosphere of these places into your mnemonics to strengthen the feeling of location.
Our first memory techniques, the Link and Story Methods, show how effective these ideas can be. |
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| • The Link & Story Methods - Remembering a Simple List |
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| • How to Use Tool |
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The Link Method is one of the easiest mnemonic techniques available. It works quite simply by making associations between items in a list, linking them either with a flowing image containing the items, or with a story featuring them. The flow of the story and the strength of the images give you the cues for retrieval. Taking the first image, create a connection between it and the next item. Then move on through the list linking each item with the next. It is quite possible to remember lists of words using association only. However it is often best to fit the associations into a story: otherwise by forgetting just one association you can lose the whole of the rest of the list.
Given the fluid structure of this mnemonic, it is important that the images stored in your mind are as vivid as possible. Significant, coding images should be much stronger that ones that merely support the flow of the story. See the introduction to this chapter for further information on making images as strong as possible. The Story Method is similar, except that the images are linked together as part of a story. This makes it easier to remember the order of events and create a memorable mnemonic.
Where a word you want to remember does not trigger strong images, use a similar word that will remind you of that word. |
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| • Example |
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You may want to remember this list of counties in the South of England: Avon, Dorset, Somerset, Cornwall, Wiltshire, Devon, Gloucestershire, Hampshire, and Surrey. You could do this with two approaches, the link method and the story method:
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| • Remembering with the Link Method |
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This would rely on a series of images coding information:
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An AVON (Avon) lady knocking on a heavy oak DOoR (Dorset). |
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The DOoR opening to show a beautiful SuMmER landscape with a SETting sun (Somerset). |
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The setting sun shines down onto a field of CORN (Cornwall). |
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The CORN is so dry it is beginning to WILT (Wiltshire). |
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The WILTing stalks slowly droop onto the tail of the sleeping DEVil (Devon). |
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On the DEVil's horn a woman has impaled a GLOSsy (Gloucestershire) HAM (Hampshire) when she hit him over the head with it. |
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Now the Devil feels SoRRY (Surrey) he bothered her. |
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| • Remembering with the Story Method |
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Alternatively you could code this information by imaging the following story vividly:
An AVON lady is walking up a path towards a strange house. She is hot and sweating slightly in the heat of high SUMMER (Somerset). Beside the path someone has planted giant CORN in a WALL (Cornwall), but it's beginning to WILT (Wiltshire) in the heat. She knocks on the DOoR (Dorset), which is opened by the DEVil (Devon).
In the background she can see a kitchen in which a servant is smearing honey on a HAM (Hampshire), making it GLOSsy (Gloucestershire) and gleam in bright sunlight streaming in through a window. Panicked by seeing the Devil, the Avon lady screams 'SoRRY' (Surrey), and dashes back down the path. |
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| • Key points |
The Link Method is probably the most basic memory technique, and is very easy to understand and use. It works by coding information to be remembered into images and then linking these images together. The story technique is very similar. It links these images together into a story. This helps to keep events in a logical order and can improve your ability to remember information if you forget the sequence of images.
Both techniques are very simple to learn. Unfortunately they are both slightly unreliable as it is easy to confuse the order of images or forget images from a sequence. These problems are solved using a simple "peg system" like the Number/Rhyme Mnemonic. |
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