Well Memory Month is officially over. I hope you enjoyed the articles, videos, links, and tips posted throughout the month of November. If you’re just joining, check out the table of contents. Or read over the key points below.
At the onset, we talked about the keys to creating successful memories. Keeping those keys in mind, we realized that your ability to remember something is largely dependent on how successful you were in creating a strong association in the first place. Then we looked at one of the most powerful concepts in memory training: linking. By visually associating one image to another we can remember the second image once we know the first. We can then form links of long lists of objects in that manner.
I taught you one of my favorite tools for creating images that are easily linked: the phonetic alphabet. This system enables you to convert numbers into words which are more easily visualized and associated. Using the phonetic alphabet code, we created pegs which can be used to associate anything you want to remember in order or by number.
If you’re ready to take your memory training to the next level and are looking for some additional reading material, check out these books. I’ve read most of them cover-to-cover. Many of the techniques and ideas for this series of articles came from these book and influenced how I think about memory.
Radiolab has a lot of very interesting shows and what they talk about is worth remembering.
Then my questions:
Has anyone studied why different people remember things easiest in different ways. I learn fastest by just looking and reading, my sister learns best when she writes things down, and one of my friends learns best when someone is reading or telling him what he has to remember.
Also, I wonder about when it comes to remembering how to go between places, men usually use “dead reckoning” and women use visual markings as guides. Or to make the question more general; Do men and women form memories differently?
Thanks for an interesting blog!
/C.M - Who once new Pi to 300 decimals too
I suspect that the answer to your questions are heavily related to the 5 keys I wrote about on Day 2. In particular, interest plays a huge role in determining what we focus on and what we filter out as we go about our lives. Your personality and style of learning may be more visual than your friend and that’s why seeing the words and reading them works best for you. Writing things down may reinforce that visual learning process for your sister and also increase concentration and attention on the subject matter where she might otherwise be distracted or disinterested while reading. Your friend could be a more auditory learner.
As far as gender differences go, Research suggests that women perform better than men at certain episodic memory tasks. The sense I get from reading the articles is that women generally have better developed interpersonal skills which allows them to better classify and remember events related to people (and what events don’t relate to people?) Women have also been found to be better at remembering appearances of people, which further supports that notion.
In fact, most of the research I’m reading seems to indicate that men are at a disadvantage to women when it comes to memory. I guess that’s why I have to use all these tricks.
Thanks for your great questions, Claes. I’m going to have to check out that podcast.
In today’s post, I want to give you a chance to ask anything you like about the topic of memory improvement. I’m not an expert, but I’ve spent a lot of time studying memory tricks and I know where to go for answers, so throw it at me! Here are some ideas to get you started:
What do you have trouble remembering?
Are you looking for a specific mnemonic device to help you recall something?
Do you have questions about any of the tips I’ve posted this month?
Do you think it’s all a waste of time since we have computers to remember for us?
Have a story or link you want to share?
Want to share your own memory tricks you’ve used?
Let me know by posting a comment. If I get some good comments I’ll feature them in another article so put your URL if you want a link back to your site.
You probably have to use passwords to access at least half a dozen systems on a regular basis. I entered a password to log into my desktop at home. Then I had to enter a password to access WordPress and enter the text of this article. I have passwords to check email, view bank account information, upload photos to flickr, manage my 401K, read RSS feeds, and on and on. When I go to work in the morning I will have to enter yet another password that I’m forced to update regularly for security purposes.
The English language is full of words that are tricky to spell. Simple mnemonics can help you remember once and for all how to spell that devilish word that constantly trips you up. YourDictionary.com has a list of 100 Commonly Misspelled Words along with a simple mnemonic device to help you recall the correct spelling. Here’s an example:
restaurant - ‘Ey, you! Remember, these two words when you spell “restaurant.” They are in the middle of it.
You’ve got some URL you want to remember but it’s insanely long. You’d like it to be something you not only can easily remember but also give to someone audibly in a few seconds. How quickly do you think you could memorize this one?
There are plenty of services for reducing the length of a URL, but they often are not all that memorable themselves. http://tinyurl.com/2cg7e6 is certainly easier to remember than the above, but “2cg7e6″ is still a seemingly random string of alphanumerics.
The Solution
Try memurl. You enter the URL and it produces a shortened version that will redirect to the original long URL. In addition to shortening the length, memurl produces something that is actually remarkably easy to remember. For example:
