Building a Master Memory

Memorising Poetry

2010-07-09T20:42:00.000-07:00

Memorise poetry? You've got to be kidding! I had to memorise long, boring poems in primary school. So why should I have to do it now?

If you were asked to recite a poem - serious or humourous, could you do that? Maybe you can remember a rude limerick or a snippet of a larger work.

Recently I started memorising poetry to build my memory "muscle". I am finding this is fun, educational as well as good mental exercise. In this article I hope to inspire you to take up this activity.

Memorising poetry and reciting it to an appreciative audience (or just yourself) is an activity that is losing popularity. Schools appear to view this activity as mere rote learning with no apparent benefit. But there are many benefits and pleasures of memorising verse.

Why Memorise Poetry?

It is fun! The most important reason is that it is fun. If you enjoy a poem, then it is satisfying to commit it to memory and make the poem part of you. As you continue to recite the poem you will enjoy it more and entertain others.

Mental Exercise. Memorising and reciting poetry develops the mental powers of visualisation, association and recall. Instead of just reading a poem out loud, memorising requires you to focus on the entire poem. Memorisation strengthens the powers of the mind.

The music of language. Reciting poetry helps you enjoy the rhythm and rhyme of a verse. That is why nursery rhymes are popular with children as they enjoy hearing the music of the verse. Poetry can be recited just as a musician plays an instrument. You can use your voice to say words with rhythm, pitch, sounds and melodies.

Education. Reciting poetry is an old tradition of learning - the ancient Greeks used it for awakening the mind and shaping character. In Shakespeare's time, memorising huge chunks of literature was part of schooling. It is my understanding that American school children learn the Gettysburg address by heart, thus instilling essential American values.

Entertainment. Hearing a poem out loud is entertaining, especially when recited from memory and not read from a book. Reciting from memory demonstrates to the audience that the person knows the poem, is familiar with the words and rhyme and is able to "perform" the poem as if it was their own. Having a repertoire of memorised poetry means you can entertain an audience any time, any place.

Voice Training. Reciting poetry is good for developing your voice. You can recite the poem at any time of the day. I enjoy reciting poems when I am talking a long walk. Once you have memorised the verse, you can focus on vocal techniques such as volume, pitch, rate, use of pauses and emotion without having to worry about reading from a book.

Verse appreciation. Once a poem has been memorised it becomes part of you. During the memorisation process you observed aspects of the poem that may not have been obvious if just reading the text.

Vocabulary and Language Development. Memorising poetry helps internalise the rhythmic, beautiful patterns of the English language which become part of your total language memory. This personal language memory bank is then used in writing and speaking. Memorisation stocks the language bank with a whole new set of language patterns. Memorising a variety of poems will add a rich collection of words to your vocabulary.

I discovered the phrase "the vision splendid" in Banjo Paterson's poem "Clancy of the Overflow". I had heard the phrase but did not know the source. Now that I have memorised the poem, this phrase is part of my working language.

How to memorise poetry?

This will be the subject of my next blog post. But first, let's review the poems I am memorising.

What should I memorise?

There are many great poems, especially the poetry of my country, Australia.

A. B. "Banjo" Paterson - Clancy of the Overflow

A. B. "Banjo" Paterson - Waltzing Matilda

Rudyard Kipling - If

Rudyard Kipling - I Keep Six Honest Serving Men (from Elephant's Child) - What, When, Where, How, Why and Who

Edward Lear - The Owl and the Pussycat

Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Kubla Khan (Xanadu)

John Magee - High Flight

Shelley - Ozymandias

What poems have you memorised or would like to memorise?

Song lyrics

How many songs can you sing from memory. Here are two classic rock songs that you should be able to sing from memory!

Bohemian Rhapsody - Queen

Stairway to Heaven - Led Zeppelin

Further Reading

[1]. In Defense of Memorization - Michael Knox Beran

A Sheep Falls out of a Tree - Why Take up Memory Training

2010-06-16T06:24:00.000-07:00

I recently read Christiane Stenger's book "A Sheep Falls Out of the Tree". Christiane is expert in memory training and grandmaster of the Youth Memory Championships. She describes some of her techniques she developed starting at school to help her academic results and how these schools helped her become a champion.

Although Memory Sports are a specialised field for elite mental athletes, developing your memory benefits you in many areas. Christiane writes how training her mind helped lower stress, increase creativity, intellectual ability and self-confidence.

You will have to read the book to understand the meaning of the title. I will give you a hint - it is a mnemonic!

In the first chapter, Christiane offers ten reasons for taking up memory training. I have summarise these points, but you will need to read the book for full details.

1. A good memory is an essential requirement for knowledge and education.

When we learn, there are three skills we follow in sequence to build up our knowledge: Obtaining knowledge, transforming it into knowledge and linking (associating) with what we already know and storing the knowledge so that it can be accessed for life (long term recall).

Memory training enables you to exploit the potential of your brain and to lay down information more easily in your memory by converting it into images and by associating it with knowledge you already have. If you can form images and associations more quickly then obviously you will learn faster.

2. Give your imagination wings.

An essential skill in memory training is the ability to make strong visual images of what you are trying to remember. Fantasy is the creative ability of the human mind to produce, envisage and combine these images. When you make associations you need to develop strong mental images. Using more fantasy and unusual images will create stronger memories.

Allowing our imagination and powers of fantasy is not usually encouraged at school. In fact, teachers tend to chastise students for daydreaming or lack of focus when too much fantasy is present. So give yourself permission to spend more time playing with your thoughts and ideas and to dream a bit more.

3. Develop your creativity

Everyone is creative to some degree. Your creative abilities can be expanded and there are many ways of training it. Since creativity is closely linked with imagination and visualisation, as you develop your powers of imagination, your creativity will develop.

One aspect of creativity is the ability to combine things in new and novel ways. Maybe you can create something new by associating two dissimilar things, or associating your problem with something in your memory.

4. Strengthen your powers of perception, your social skills, and your capacity for expression.

Have you noticed how your most powerful memories are based on events with strong emotions, for example, times of great happiness or sadness. Memory is also based on other sensory experiences, so when you train your memory and use all the senses (sight, sound, taste, touch and smell) you create more associations. Consequently you will become more perceptive and observe your environment more closely.

Training your memory will help strengthen your powers of perception and in turn will enhance your ability to express yourself in words, writing and speaking.

5. You set the guidelines for flexible and joined-up thinking.

Memory is built on association so when you learn something new, you associate it with what you already now. You are building your own networked structure of knowledge. This process uses different parts of the brain and as a result, new pathways are created or consolidated as well as creating new approaches to problem-solving.

6. You develop a good sense of time and access to time management.

Memory training helps you with time management when you train with a stopwatch. You can test your own ability at memory training within periods of time and see how much you can memorise then later recall.

This will help you better estimate how long it will take you to do other memory-related tasks.

7. You increase your motivation, responsibility for your actions, your self-confidence, and self assurance.

When you do memory training you set your own targets. The nature of memory training means you get immediate feedback after you complete an activity, as it is easy to determine if you have memorised something. This in turn makes it easy to measure your progress.

Ultimately the improvements in your memory performance will increase your self-awareness, self-confidence and motivation.

8. You improve your capacity for concentration.

Concentration is absolutely essential for all challenges you wish to master. Focus and paying attention to the material being memorised will lead to success, Memory training will help you improve your concentration and you will be able to observe your performance based on your effort at concentration.

9. You improve the speed of thinking and your intellectual grasp.
When you are training your memory you will soon notice how much progress you are making with memorising. You will notice your speed of being able to form mental images improves with practice.

10. You learn to deal with stress better.

Stress can be alleviated with good planning and preparation, but this is not always possible. Stay calm! You can create short periods of stress by training against the clock. See how much you can achieve in a 5 minute training session.

Now you will want to read the book. You can order the book from Amazon or read further reviews.

Oddbjørn By - Memory Champion and Author

2009-11-21T23:49:00.000-08:00

I learnt about Oddbjørn By from Florian Dellé's Memory Sports web site. Oddbjørn is from Norway and has been a World Memory champion. He published a book titled Memo which describes his various techniques and how these memory methods can be used in everyday life.

To give you an idea of the scope of the book, here is a condensed table of contents:

How your memory works
Numerical systems - single, double and triple digits
Tips for memorising effectively
Memo for general knowledge and in school - speed reading, history, dates, languages, geography, first aid, maths
Memo everyday - appointments, weekly agendas, birthdays, anniversaries, speeches, jokes, job interviews and parking the car
Names and Face
Memory tricks and competitions
Other memory methods - story method, link method, acronyms, mnemonic devices
Myths about memory
Profiles and World Records

The Memo method of remembering weekly schedules is to use a journey of seven steps, maybe rooms in the house. Convert the time into a key image using the number system of your choice and associate this with the room and the subject of your appointment.

This book has some practical techniques which can be applied to many aspects of your life. I have already learnt a few number systems so I won't be learning more. However I am going to memorise more journeys for memorising birthdays, my schedule and a general 'to do' journey.

1. Read an interview at Memory Sports
2. Visit the website of Oddbjørn By where you can watch videos, order books and learn more.

I before e (except after c) - old school mnemonics

2009-11-16T15:45:00.000-08:00

When you were at school, did you remember how to spell using mnemonics? My most-used rhyme was "I before E, except after C" used to spell words such as brief, receive and believe.

In this aptly named book "I before e (except after c)", Judy Parkinson has assembled a vast range of mnemonics under the title of "old-school ways to remember stuff". The book was a delight to read, reminding me of some mnemonics from my school days. The book is organised by subject and covers spelling, dates, history, science, music and much more. Here are some of my favorites:

Spelling - How do you spell committee ? Remember Many Meetings Take Time - Everyon'e Exhausted. Diarrhoea is another tricky word to spell - Dash In A Real Rush, Hurry or Else Accident!

Numbers. Can you remember the metric prefixes? Here is an example of using the unit of length - metre (spelt meter in the USA). Kilometre (1000m), Hectometre (100m), Decametre (10m), Metre (base), Decimetre (0.1m), Centimetre (0.01m) and Millimetre (0.001m): King Henry Died Mightily Drinking Chocolate Milk. Other mnemonics are offered: King Hector Died Miserable Death - Caught Measles.

Science - Taxonomy is the system or arranging animals into groups based on similarities of structure and origin. The classification starts with Kingdom, then continues with Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species and Variety. This can be remembered with Krakatoa Positively Casts Off Fumes Generating Sulphurous Vapours.

English History. From William the Conqueror to the current British moniarch, there have been eight major royal houses since 1066: Norman, Plantaganet, Lancaster, York, Tudor, Stuart, Hanover and Windsor. There are two mnemonics in popular use: No Plan Like Yours To Study History Wisely and No Point Letting Your Trousers Slip Half Way.

Music. Piano students are sure to know the Every Good Boy Deserves Favour and All Cows Eat Grass mnemonics for remembering the notes on the treble clef and Good Boys Don't Fool Around on the bass clef. I'm not sure if a 7 year old music student would understand the expression of "fooling around". I

The Work Place. This chapter offers a variety of acronyms for the workplace: KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid!). SMART Goals (Specific, Measurable, Attainbale, Relevant and Time bound). Advertisers should think of the opera AIDA (Attract attention, arouse Interest, create Desire, urge Action).

Miscellany. Do you play Snooker? Can you remember the sequence of colours in which to pot the six coloured balls after the red? Remember the mnemonic You Go Brown Before Potting Black to remember Yello, green, brown, blue, pink and black.

More details on the book can be found on Amazon: i before e (except after c)

Memory Training Course in Brisbane, Queensland

2009-10-29T15:07:00.000-07:00

Memory is a skill that can be taught. Memory improves with age. The decline of memory with age is a myth! Everyone has potentially a superb memory!

Jennifer Goddard, director of the Buzan Centre for Australia and New Zealand is running a one day Memory Workshop on Thursday, 19 November 2009 from 6:00pm - 8:00pm at the Press Club on 339 Brunswick Street, Fortitude Valley, Qld.

It is good to see that the skill of Memory is recognised as important and capable of being trained.

Please visit this link to read more about this course.

Memorising the Chinese Zodiac using a story

2009-10-27T04:37:00.000-07:00

In my previous article I introduced the Chinese Zodiac and showed how it was possible to remember the twelve animals and their corresponding years using the number peg system. 2008 is the year of the Rat, and the following years are Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Goat, Monkey, Rooster, Dog and Pig.

Another way of remembering the twelve animals is to link them together using a story. Each animal is imagined doing some sort of memorable action. In addition, your image needs to trigger recall of the next animal in the series. Here is my story.

A large RAT jumps on the head of an OX.
The OX gets really annoyed and charges into a TIGER.
The TIGER is trying to eat a large grey RABBIT.
The RABBIT runs back into his burrow and finds a Golden DRAGON hiding inside with his eyes glowing and breathing fire.
The DRAGON's tail is like a SNAKE, slithering out of the burrow.
The SNAKE wraps itself around the leg of a HORSE attempting to strangle the horse.
The HORSE shakes its leg and a GOAT runs to the horse dislodging the snake with its horns.
The GOAT tosses the snake up into a tree where it is caught by a golden MONKEY.
The MONKEY laughs and shrieks, imitating a ROOSTER.
Another ROOSTER is running in the farmyard chasing a DOG.
The DOG is chasing the PIGS and trying to eat from their trough.

Well, this story seems rather pointless and silly but I am able to recall it easily and identify the twelve animals in sequence. I have made the Dragon and the Monkey "Golden" as these represent the years for 2012 and 2016 for faster recall of the years in the story. After a few days of remembering my story I know that Dragon is 2012 and Monkey is 2016. I knew that the Rat is 2008 from the first time I memorised the story.

Converting a birth year into a Chinese sign is a process of adding multiples of 12 until 2008 or later is reached. If I wanted to convert a birth year of 1990, I add 24 to get 2014. Recalling my story starting with with the Rat (2008), Ox (2009), Tiger (2010), Rabbit (2011), Dragon (2012), Snake (2013) then Horse (2014).

This process of recall takes time, compared to the Peg System. 2014 gives a peg word of Red Tyre, and my key image was a Red Tyre around a Horse's neck. Once the "milestones" of Dragon and Monkey were remembered, I could recall Dragon (2012), Snake (2013) then Horse (2014).

We have now seen two memory systems in action to memorise the same set of information. Your choice of system depends on how you want to recall the information. The story method is great for recalling the animals in sequence, and the peg system is faster for converting years into animal signs.

Memorising the Chinese horoscope

2009-10-17T18:22:00.000-07:00

According to Chinese tradition, 2009 is the Year of the Ox. The City of Sydney as well as any city with a large Chinese population celebrates Chinese New Year with a big festival.

The Chinese Zodiac has a cycle of 12 years with each year having an assigned animal. Each sign represents a different personality. The Zodiac traditionally begins with the Rat, so here is the sequence starting with the rat and the corresponding years.

2008 Rat
2009 Ox
2010 Tiger
2011 Rabbit

2012 Dragon
2013 Snake
2014 Horse
2015 Goat

2016 Monkey
2017 Rooster
2018 Dog
2019 Pig

To work out your animal based on your birth year, take your birth year and continue to add 12 until the number is between 2008 and 2019. For example if you were born in 1972, keep adding 12 and you will get 1984, 1996, then 2008. Therefore you were born in the Year of the Rat.

Asking someone for their animal sign is a useful method for deducing a person's age (to the nearest multiple of 12). Chinese people often ask others for their animal sign to deduce who is the older among friends and acquaintances.

How to Memorise?

I wanted to memorise these twelve signs and their associated years using the memory techniques I have described in earlier articles. First of all, what needs to be memorised? There are two sets of information - the twelve animals in sequence, and their corresponding years.

A story could be created linking the animals together, starting in 2008. In Chinese culture, 8 is a lucky number so maybe a large pot of gold could be associated with the Rat, Dragon and Monkey since their years are multiples of 12. Converting a year to an animal would require recalling the sequence and counting the steps to find the year.

Can you devise a story starting with the Rat in the year 2008? Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Goat, Monkey, Rooster, Dog and Pig. Post your story in the comments and I will write a followup article next week.

Using the Peg System

I decided to use my Peg words for the numbers 8 to 19 and associate the peg word to the animal. I have included a link at the end of this article if you are not familar with this system. Here is the list of years and my peg word.

2008 Rat        ivy
2009 Ox         bee
2010 Tiger      toes
2011 Rabbit     tot (baby)

2012 Dragon ton

2013 Snake dam

2014 Horse      tyre
2015 Goat       towel

2016 Monkey     tissue
2017 Rooster    tack
2018 Dog        dove
2019 Pig        tap

Since all of the years are in the 21st century I only need to use the last two digits of the year to create a peg word.

The number 8 is lucky in Chinese tradition and a good way to remember the start year for the animal sequence. Because the information being memorised is Chinese I have added the colour red to the imagery of my associations.

2008 ivy Rat - a rat is climbing up a red ivy plant. The ivy is entwined in the rat' stail.
2009 bee - Ox - a giant red bee is swooping down on to the ox and stinging him on the behind.
2010 toes - Tiger - large red toes are walking quietly in the jungle. The toes belong to a tiger.
2011 tot - Rabbit - a red baby is cuddling a large soft toy rabbit
2012 ton - Dragon - a red one ton weight is being blasted by the flames from a dragon's mouth
2013 dam - Snake - a giant red snake is slithering up a river valley towards the dam
2014 tyre - Horse - a large red tyre is hanging around the horse's neck
2015 towel - Goat - a red goat is chewing a large red towel, ripping it to shreds
2016 tissue - Monkey - a monkey is blowing his nose with a large red tissue
2017 tack - Rooster - a rooster has large red tacks instead of claws, as well as a red tack protruding from his beak.
2018 dove - Dog - a dog is chasing a flock of red doves, and attempting to catch one of the birds.
2019 tap -Pig - a large red tap has been turned on and a thick sludge comes out into a trough for a pig.

Let's see the system in action for someone born in 1988. What is her Chinese sign? Adding 12 gives 2000. Adding 12 again gives 2012. This is greater than 2008, and the key image is a red TON, which is being blasted by a dragon. This person was born in the Year of the Dragon.

More information:

The Major Memory System - converts numbers into words
My 100 Peg words
Chinese Animal Signs
Chinese Zodiac
Chinese Culture and the Zodiac

Where is Montenegro?

2009-10-17T17:43:00.000-07:00

Recently my wife and I were watching the James Bond film Casino Royale. A city appeared in shot with a sub-title of Montenegro. Where exactly is Montenegro? My country memorisation project helped me answer this question.

In an earlier article, I wrote how I used a set of memory pegs to remember the countries and capitals in a geographic sequence. This arrangement helps me recall the neighbouring countries. Here is a section of my country (and capital city) memory pegs.

121    Croatia - Zagreb
122    Bosnia and Herzegovina - Sarajevo
123    Montenegro - Podgorica
124    Serbia - Belgrade
125    Albania - Tirana

So how did I recall the location of Montenegro?

First of all, I recall my mental image of a Negro the size of a Mountain (MONTENEGRO) with a red gnome sitting on his shoulder (the image of 123). I remembered the capital because the Gnome was listening to an iPod (PODgorica), shouting "Go, Ricky!". Maybe he was listening to Ricky Martin?

Now that I had the peg number of 123 for Montenegro, I can recall the countries for 122 (Bosnia and Herzegovina) and 123 (Serbia). My image for 122 (which translates to Red Nun) is a Nun wearing a red cloak sitting in a hearse (Herzegovina) which reminds me of Bosnia Herzegovina. The Nun is eating a salad which reminds me of the capital city, Sarajevo.

My key image of 124 is a red Nero and he is serving (Serbia) a large bell (Belgrade) instead of a tennis ball, over the fence onto sloping ground (a steep grade) which further reinforces the image of Belgrade.

My mental images for the associations may seem confusing but they are personal and established in my memory. Your associations will be different, but most importantly they should be memorable.

Now that I know the neighbouring countries, I can imagine the location of the country of Montenegro.

Memorising the countries and capitals of the world - my reflection

2009-10-13T04:09:00.000-07:00

Earlier this year I set myself the goal of being able to recall the names of all the countries of the world and their capitals. There are two parts of this project. The first is to be able to recite the names of the countries in sequence, and the second is to recall the capital of a given country. In addition, I should be able to recall the country when given a capital city.

My approach to memorising this project and the lessons learnt are described in this article.

1. I created a list of country names and capitals in an Excel spreadsheet. This information was sourced from the World Guide reference book.

2. I made a rough division of the world into continents and regions. This created problems as not every reference book classifies the counties so neatly. What are the borders of Europe? Which countries are in Asia? I made some mistakes on my virtual journey around Africa as I missed some islands in both the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic ocean.

3. Using a map, I worked out a journey starting in the United Kingom, and hopping from country to country in turn. I then assigned each country a sequence number for the order of memorisation.

4. I used the number peg system to associate a number to a country. Because there are over 200 countries, and my peg system consists of 100 pegs, I added colour to my pegs to create a new set of number pegs from 100 to 999. The first 100 pegs are red, the second 100 are green, the third hundred are blue.

In hindsight, the colours were sometimes difficult to recall and I should have used more action or involving the senses for example, icy cold, windy, and burning hot.

5. Now I had a list of coloured peg numbers, countries and capitals to learn. The list begins with the United Kingdom:

101 United Kingdom - London
102 Ireland - Dublin
103 Portugal - Lisbon
104 Spain - Madrid
105 Andorra - Andorra la Vella
106 France - Paris
107 Luxembourg - Luxembourg
108 Monaco - Monaco
109 Belgium - Brussels
110 Netherlands - Amsterdam

6. The memorisation process involves creating a strong mental image between the coloured peg word and the country. In addition I needed to create an association between the country and the capital.

I made small cardboard flashcards with the number on one side and the country and capital on the back. I took around 20 cards and a pencil with me on my daily walk to create vivid images. Some of my early images were not too good but I got better as my imagination became wilder with practice.

Here are my first ten peg numbers (based on the Major System).

tie
Noah
ma
Ra
law
shoe
key
ivy
bee
toes

Mental images and associations can be wild, sexy, and maybe offensive to some people. Let your imagination go wild as you are under no obligation to explain your images to other people. These are my images:

1 red tie -> United Kingdom - London A group of three KINGS have been tied up with a RED TIE but they are puffing up their lungs/chests (LONDON)

2 red Noah -> Ireland - Dublin a red faced Noah is drinking double-sized (DUBLIN) Guinness with a short leprechaun. (This image is sufficient to prompt my recall of Ireland since I know that Dublin is the capital of Ireland)

3 red ma -> Portugal - Lisbon - a large black woman (Mama) is sitting on the Porch (PORTUGAL) of her house and cuddling her Lesbian (LISBON) lover.

4 red Ra -> Spain - Madrid. A red Pharaoh (my image of Ra) is sailing down the Nile waving a Spanner (SPAIN) and shouting loudly because he is MAD.

5 red law -> Andorra - Andorra la Vella. A red faced lawyer is banging the door (ANDORRA) which bursts open onto a large valley (Andorra La Vella)

6 red shoe -> France - Paris - a red shoe is kicking a soccer ball into the Arc de Triophe in Paris and hitting the red, white and blue French flag.

7 red key -> Luxembourg - Luxembourg. A large red key is pushed into a large cake of LUX soap (an Australian brand of soap) which is between two large hamburger buns (LUX + HAMBURGER). Because I didn't add any more imagery, I know that the capital city is the same name.

8 red ivy -> Monaco - Monaco. A large piece of red ivy is draped around the neck of a MONK.

9 red bee -> Belgium - Brussels. An enormous red bee is stinging a luscious Belgiuan chocolate which is surrounded by Brussel Sprouts (BRUSSELS).

10 red toes -> Netherlands - Amsterdam. A foot with red painted toes is pushing into a wooden clog which in turn is kicking a hamster (Amsterdam) into a large net (Netherlands) draped over water (next to a dyke).

7. Testing and Review

I used the Mnemosyne Spaced Repetion flashcard software (Mnemosyne is free software and runs on Windows, Mac and Linux) to test my recall. The program displays a card with the number, I recall the country and capital, then show the answer. The program schedules the card for future review based on how I rated my recall.

Once I remembered a country I removed the card from the paper card collection and added more cards.

8. Countries and Territories.

As I memorised the islands of Africa and South America I encounted territories of other countries. Do I memorise these or not? I decided to remember most of the territories and to identify them I included the image of a terrier dog. For example, Montserrat is a British Territory with capital of Plymouth. The peg number is 302 which is a Blue Noah. My memory image is a blue-faced Noah chasing a Monster Rat (Montserrat) who is also being chased by a terrier dog with a plum in its mouth (Plymouth).

9. Continents to Country link

Towards the end of my memorisation project I realised I didn't have a means to recall the first country in my sequence for a particular continent.

I created a list of continents with the peg number for the first country in sequence. I converted the number into an image using the Major system then built an association.

Europe - 100 - Daisies
Eastern Europe - 145 - Trolley / Trowel
Middle East - 150 Tiles
Asia - 164 Teacher (in an indian classroom)
SE Asia 177 - hat cock (rooster)
ASia Pacific - 194 - toe bar
Africa - 216 - Ant - Ouch! bitten by ants
North and Central America - 269 - nacho bee
South America - 279 - knee cap
Caribbean - 293 - napalm

If I want to recall the countries of Africa, I think of the ants biting (ouch!), convert this to 216 which is green tissue. My key image is the pyramids (Egypt) covered in green tissue paper with cars (Cairo) driving down the sides of the pyramids. I can now continue in sequence, recalling the country associated with 217, 218 and so on.

10. Mistakes

After I memorised the countries of Africa it was pointed out to me I had omitted two islands. I had to add these countries on to the existing peg. For example, I omitted Seychelle (capital Victoria) so I added it to the peg for Comoros (Moroni). Now my mental image was a cormorant with a green mace (key word for 230) in its beak with a moron hanging on to mace. The moron is wearing a necklace of sea-shells with a picture of Queen Victoria.

11. Capitals to Countries.

Since I had the country and capital information in a spreadsheet, I imported the capital to country data into Mnemosyne for additional testing. I found this is a good way to confim my knowledge of the countries.

12. Lessons learnt

I use Mnemosyne daily to review my Country/Capital cards. My recall of some countries is still weak but I do know the information and Mnemosyne is helping me push the information into long term memory. It is important to review daily and Mnemosyne is the most time efficient method.

When preparing to memorise a large amount of information, I learnt how important it is to compile and check all the details. Then the memorising process can proceed.

Some of my 100 peg words didnt have strong images and these got changed during the course of this project. For example, ball is not a strong image for 95, but bull is more memorable. I used to use FAB (the washing powder) for 89 but I also use vibe (vibraphone). I have found it is possible to remember multiple keywords for the number pegs without becoming confusing.

Mnemosyne (when used daily) is a great way to assess how fast it is possible to memorise a lot of information. I only worked on creating associations on my weekends or an occasional lunchbreak, but I used Mnemosyne almost daily for review. Often I would be frustrated at how I had forgotten things, and sometimes I would refine the image to help my recall.

I also learnt how to convert very difficult words into something memorable. For example:

Equatorial Guinea - A guinea pig running around the Earth's equator
Burkina Farso - a fat lady wearing a bikini (Bikini Fatso)
Liberia (capital Monrovia) used the image of a group of choir boys from Libera driving the Moon Rover.
Senegal (Dakar) - a man waving his pants ("Daks") at a flock of seagulls.

Click on the picture below to show the information I have memorised.

More information:

My number pegs
My list of peg numbers with countries and capital list.

Announcing the Memory Masters web site

2009-10-04T15:39:00.000-07:00

I am pleased to announce the launch of the Memory Masters web site - the creation of Florian Dellé, webmaster of Memory-Sports and regular Memory Sports athlete.

Each week Florian is adding content on one aspect of memory and I am writing on another topic. Currently I am exploring different systems for memorising numbers.

I am looking forward to contributing to Memory Masters and being part of the global community of people interested in developing memory skills. The site has a forum where you can discuss all aspects of memory.

Now let's travel to Memory Masters!

How does a teacher learn all the names of the students?

2009-10-03T18:06:00.001-07:00

Photo from Flicky by smr+lsh

This is a guest post by Bob Madigan who has written previously on this blog. Bob is a teacher and describes how he remembers the names of his students.

Remembering the names of people in a group can be made easier if the names are available beforehand. I am a teacher and I have this situation when a class starts. Typically there are 30 to 40 people in a new group, and I like to try to learn their names as early as possible. Usually I have them by the end of the second class. Here is my approach.

Before the first class, I study the computer listing of names and put them in a journey with one name at each locus. I use the standard techniques that Charles has described in earlier posts for encoding names. I practice the journey enough so that by the day of class I can rattle off the list of names forward or backward, but more importantly, when I look at one of the names I can easily visualize the place where it is located on the journey.

This preparation greatly simplifies the task. I don't have to learn the names since I know them. I just have to associate a distinguishing feature of each person with the locus where his or her name is stored.

I get there early on the day of the first class and as the students assemble I steal a look at each to identify a feature I will later associate with their place on the journey. When it comes time for introductions, I move to each person in turn so I face them as they say their names. I ask them to not only give their names but also some information about themselves - typically their major area of study and their year in school. I don't try to retain these facts, but by moving around and by asking for extra information, I slow the process down a little so I have more time to associate the feature I have identified with the place in the journey where the name is.

Usually I do the introductions toward the end of class, and as I am walking away afterward, I run back through the journey and visualize the feature of each person I have placed at each locus. This immediate rehearsal helps lock down the information. Almost always I will find there are a couple of names where the features are too fuzzy to be helpful, usually because I let my concentration slip during the introduction. In the next class, I make it a point to get those names. I also make sure I can mentally name each of the others as they assemble on the second day. If not, I go over to the student and reintroduce myself.

Learning names is a highly desirable social move that pays dividends by facilitating rewarding interactions. When I learn the names of my students, I turn a sea of faces into a collection of interesting individuals with whom I now have an important connection. It completely changes the experience from the front of the room.

First day of a new job - name overload!

2009-10-03T17:54:00.001-07:00

A challenging time for remembering names is when a new employee, contractor or consultant joins an organisation. In my company I meet new employees being given a tour of the floor and being introduced to many people in a short space of time.

How can this process be improved for the new starter? In this article I write about some resources can you use when settling in to a new environment?

The new person may be overloaded with an abundance of new names, but often the reverse situation can occur. Managers can help pave the way for new staff introductions by sending an introductory email BEFORE the start date. Information to include should include the name, role and some useful background information.

Name plates. Usually you can find name plates on partitions next to the desks. These are particularly useful to reinforce the name when you meet people.

Office Floor Plans. This is useful for finding people as well as building up a mental picture of where people work. You can also use it a checklist to tick off the names once you have been introduced.

Phone List. The office phone list is another useful checklist of names and spellings. Challenge yourself to meet everyone on the list, or at least to associate the face with the name.

Organization Chart. This document shows reporting structures and team members. Usually known as "org-charts" they are usually out of date when published but still a useful resource. Ideally these charts should be annotated with photos of the people as this would be a great way to memorise names and faces.

Newsletters and Annual Reports. Look for publications that include labelled photos of staff. Annual Reports are particularly useful to help you identify members of the management team and board of directors. Imagine what an impression you can make when you greet a director by name and you have yet to be introduced!

Intranet. Does your company have an intranet or online directory? Some organisations have an online directory with a photo. The intranet is often a source of new staff announcements and you should read these carefully. In my company, these announcements are often published a week after the person has started. This is a pity as the power of the introductory article has been lost.

Use all these resources and you will become a corporate name guru. This skill will help you in the work place and your career.

Good luck! Do you have some stories to share? Please add these to the comments.

The DOMINIC system for remembering numbers

2009-10-02T18:50:00.001-07:00

Arnold Schwarzenegger - helps me remember the number 16

This article is about a system for remembering numbers devised by Dominic O'Brien - a past World Memory Champion and author of several books on memory.

The technique assigns a person and an action to two digit number pairs. The picture of Arnold Schwarzenegger flexing his muscles is my image for 16. How Schwarzenegger represents 16 will be explained later in the article.

O'Brien light-heartedly named the system the DOMINIC system (Decipherment of Mnemonically Interpreted Numbers Into Characters). I will use this acronym to refer to the technique and the two digit numbers.

How the System Works

The DOMINIC system works by breaking longer numbers into pairs of digits with each pair representing a person performing some action. Numbers are replaced with letters for numbers using the following rules which are easy to remember.

The number 0 (zero) becomes O
The first five digits (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) become A, B, C, D and E.
The number 6 becomes S because the sound is similar and more names begin with S than F.
The 7th and 8th letters of the alphabet are G and H (which has some resemblance to 8)
The number 9 becomes N because of the similar sound.

It won't take long to learn these substitutions.

Once you have memorised this list you can proceed to the next step.

Finding Names for Digit Pairs

Write a list from 0 to 99 and review each number in turn after mentally translating the numbers into the DOMINIC letters. Do the initials suggest something to you? The number 20 is BO and this suggested Buddha sitting under the Bo tree. It could also suggest Little Bo Peep minding her sheep.

Usually the number pairs have no meeting or associations. Some exceptions are 07 (James Bond 007), 13 (unlucky- black cat), 21 (21st birthday party), 100 (a century).

Use the first association that comes to mind as this will prove more effective in the long term. The number 11 translates to AA which suggests Andre Agassi hitting tennis balls.

Assigning an Action to the Name

The person you have chosen needs to have an action that is unique on your list of 100 names. Therefore, now you have chosen Andre Agassi for 11, don't use Bjorn Borg for number 22. We don't want two tennis players competing on the list!

The DOMINIC technique separates actions from the person for remembering longer numbers, so your action should be capable of being performed by other people. Choose an action that is distinctive and obvious for the person. What sort of name should you use?

For maximum effectiveness you should use a mixture of famous people as well as your friends and family. Some letters have obvious suggestions such as HO suggesting Santa Claus saying 'Ho Ho Ho!' as he rides his sleigh. I know some Chinese people with the surname of Ho, and I could have used one of them instead with a unique action.

You will probably get stuck trying to think of names for some numbers so have a look at my list for ideas. Only use this as a last resort as my suggestions probably don't have as much meaning for you, unless the name is a public figure with whom you are familar.

Here is a selection of my names and actions.

02 (OB) Obi-Wan Kenobi - Waving light sabre
03 (OC) Oliver Cromwell - Loading musket
09 (ON) Oliver North - Testifying in Court
14 (AD) Jesus - Preaching a sermon
15 (AE) Albert Einstein - writing on a blackboard
16 (AS) Arnold Schwarzenegger - Flexing muscles
22 (BB) Bugs Bunny - Eating a carrot
33 (CC) Charlie Chaplin - swinging the cane and walking
40 (DO) Homer Simpson - Eating donuts
56 (ES) Edward Scissorhands - snipping the bushes with his scissor hands

How to Memorise Two Digits

Imagine you want to remember that your friend lives at number 86. I use the image of Hans Solo (played by Harrison Ford) navigating his space ship to remember the house number, by remembering Hans Solo flying his spaceship into my friend's house. Maybe there is a big crash, the sound of laser cannons or his side-kick Chewbacca.

How to Memorise Three Digit Numbers

Three digit numbers can be remembered by combining the image for the first two digits with the number shape (or number rhyme) for the third digit. For example, the number 224 is a combination of Bugs Bunny eating a carrot and a sailing boat. Imagine Bugs Bunny sailing the boat and eating a carrot. Maybe Bugs Bunny is throwing carrots over the side of the boat.

How to Memorise Four Digit Numbers

A four digit number can be remembered by splitting the number into a pair of two digits. Use the person image for the first number and the action for the second number. For example, if you want to remember 8094, use the DOMINIC numbers 80 (Santa Claus) and (Neil Diamond). My image would be Santa Claus on stage wearing a diamond crusted guitar singing 'Crunchy Granola Suite'.

How to Remember Longer Numbers

Longer numbers can be broken down into a series of two digit numbers and a single digit after decomposing odd numbers. Use a sequence of person, action, person action and make a story from these images.

For example, here is the technique for remembering the phone number 9788 1656 of your local French restaurant. The number becomes 97-88-16-56, Nigella (97 person), tickled by Playboy Bunnies (88 action), Arnold Schwarzenegger (16 person) and cutting bushes with scissorhands (56 action).

Now create a story using these images and associate with the restaurant. For example, Nigella Lawson is seated in the restarant being tickled by Playboy Bunnies. Arnold Schwarzenegger arrives at the restaurant and his arms are like those of Edward Scissorhands. Arnold thumps his way around the restaurant cutting all the flowers with his scissorhands.

I think this story is vivid and easy to remember, compared to the dull sequence of 9788-1656. What do you think?

For more information and examples:

How to Develop a Perfect Memory - Dominic O'Brien - Published by Pavilion Books (c) 1993. Out of Print - Chapter 4 How to Remember Numbers
Quantum Memory Power: Learn to Improve Your Memory with the World Memory Champion! - CD audio book by Dominic O'Brien
Mentat Wiki article about the Dominic System and more links
My list of names and actions for Dominic Numbers
Another list of suggested names and actions by Matt Vance

World Memory Championships

2009-10-02T16:20:00.000-07:00

For many years I have been interested in developing my memory to remember numbers, facts, names and faces and language.

Lately I have become aware of a sporting event with a difference - a Memory Championship. At first I thought this event would be only of interest to geniuses and geeks, but the "sports" utilise the various memory skills I have written about on this blog.

I first heard of these Memory events through the work of Tony Buzan. You can read more on the World Memory Championships web site. Tony has written many books on Memory as well as Mind Maps.

Jennifer Goddard of the Buzan Centre in Australia has prepared a series of 10 videos to provide insight into how a National Memory Championships is run. These 3-4 minute on-line presentations are suitable for people interested in competing in a memory event, volunteers who help adjudicate and journalists and other people interested in how a memory championships is run.

Random Words
Binary Numbers
Names and Faces
15 Minute Numbers
10 Minute Cards
Speed Numbers
Abstract Images
Historical Dates
Spoken Numbers
Speed Cards

Watch the videos here.

Memory Championships held in Europe and you can read about these on the Memory Sports web site run by Florian Delle. Florian recently competed in the Swedish Memory championships.

You may think Memory Championships are for the elite memorizers however the "sports" must be a good way to give the brain a workout. I have never competed in such an event but I am going to have a go at practicing Names and Faces and 10 Minute Cards (memorising the sequence of a shuffled deck of cards).

Can you name everyone on the bus?

2009-09-25T23:52:00.000-07:00

Photo by Daryl Fritz on Flickr

Many years ago I spent 21 days on a bus/camping trip in Europe with Contiki tours. There were approximately 40 people in the group from Australia, South Africa, USA, Israel, England and Hong Kong.

Our tour guide had issued a challenge. Whoever could stand up at the front of the bus and name everyone by first name would get a prize. I thought this was a wonderful icebreaker activity to motivate people to make an effort and get to know their fellow travellers. Unfortunately someone else beat me to the prize.

How often have you joined a class, club or social group and been worried about meeting everyone? Are you interested in getting to know everyone there or do you try and avoid social encounters? You will never know if you have something in common with a stranger until you start a conversation and introduce yourself.

Become the kind of person who initiates conversations and gets to know others in a group. After you have spoken with someone and remembered the name you now have something you can build on for future interactions. You may have decided you don't have anything in common but at least you made the effort to speak and make a connection.

There are countless situations where you join a group where you are going to see the people on a regular basis - daily, weekly or monthly. University students starting a new tutorial class, starting work at a new job, joining a Toastmasters club or sporting club. Maybe you have enrolled in a personal enrichment course -- there are many friendships to be made by getting to know other people.

Go on. Don't be shy.

Introduce yourself to others in a group and see if you can name everyone in the group.

How to remember a deck of cards

2009-09-22T04:13:00.000-07:00

If you were given a pack of 52 shuffled playing cards, could you remember the sequence of cards? Does this sound impossible?

Memorising a card deck is part of Memory Sports and you could do it as well. There are two main skills required - developing a strong mental image for each card, then memorising the sequence of cards using a journey of 52 stages.

A playing card belongs to one of the four suits - Clubs, Hearts, Spades and Diamonds and is going to be a number between 2 and 10 or a Jack, King, Queen or Ace.

We explored the Journey method in an earlier article, but how can we make cards memorable? I chose the method described by Harry Lorayne in his book "How to Develop a Super Power Memory".

Each card is converted into a key image (known as a 'peg word') based on the suit and the value according to a pattern.

Every peg word begins with the initial letter of the card suit. Therefore all the words for the Spades suit begin with S, Diamonds with D, Clubs with C and Hearts with H.

Each word ends with a consonant sound based on the phonetic value of the card. The phonetic system converts 1 to T or D, 2 to N, 3 to M, 4 to R, 5 to L, 6 to G or SH, 7 to K or hard G, 8 to F or V and 9 to P or B.

The Ace is given the number 1 and the 10 card is turned into 0. The peg word for the Ace of Spades would begin with S and end in T or D - "suit". The peg word for the 10 of clubs begins with C and ends with S - "case".

The peg words for the Jack is the suit itself, so the Jack of Diamonds is a "diamond".

The peg word for the King is a word that sounds like King and starts with the first letter of the suit, so we have King, Hinge, Sing and Drink.

The peg word for the Queen is a word that sounds like Queen and starst with the first letter of the suit, so we have Cram, Queen, Steam and Dream.

A mnemonic for remembering the four suits is CHaSeD (Clubs, Hearts, Spades and Diamonds).

Here are my peg words which I based originally on Lorayne's list, then I modified to my own preference.

Clubs

2 Clubs - Coin (large gold coin)
3 Clubs - Comb
4 Clubs - car
5 Clubs - Coal
6 Clubs - Cash (pile of $100 bills)
7 Clubs - Coke can
8 Clubs - Cuff (of a shirt sleeve)
9 Clubs - Cap
10 Clubs - Case
Jack of Clubs - Club (golf club)
King of Clubs - King (fat man with a crown)
Queen of Clubs - Cream (pile of whipped cream)
Ace Clubs -cat

Hearts

2 Hearts - hen
3 Hearts - Ham
4 Hearts - Hare
5 Hearts - Hail
6 Hearts - Hash
7 Hearts - Hog (a large pig)
8 Hearts - Hive (bee hive)
9 Hearts - Hub (car hub-cap)
10 Hearts - Hose (green garden hose)
Jack of Hearts - Heart
King of Hearts - Hinge
Queen of Hearts - Queen
Ace Hearts - hat (Fedora hat)

Spades

2 Spades - sun
3 Spades - sum (Sigma sign)
4 Spades - sewer (pipe)
5 Spades - sail
6 Spades - sushi
7 Spades - sock
8 Spades - sieve
9 Spades - soap
10 Spades - suds
Jack of Spades - Spade
King of Spades - Sing
Queen of Spades - Steam
Ace Spades - suit

Diamonds

2 Diamonds - dune
3 Diamonds - dummy (pacifier)
4 Diamonds - door
5 Diamonds - doll
6 Diamonds - dish
7 Diamonds - deck (of cards)
8 Diamonds - dove
9 Diamonds - DEB mashed potato
10 Diamonds - dice
Jack of Diamonds - diamond
King of Diamonds - drink (tray of)
Queen of Diamonds - dream
Ace Diamonds - date

Now you will need a Journey of 52 stages to locate the cards in turn.

Shuffle the playing cards then reveal the first card. What is the peg word image? Create an association with the first stage of your journey. Draw the next card, recall the peg word and create an association with the second stage of your journey.

Practice using one suit of cards, then two and work your way up to the full deck. By the way, the world record for memorising a deck of cards is under a minute! With practice you should be able to memorise a deck of cards in under five minutes.

Now that you memorised peg words for the playing cards, you can use these images for other card games. In a later article I will write about "Memory" - a game of matching pairs of cards.
Read more about remembering cards at the Memory Sports web site.

Mind Your Mind - Alzheimer's Disease Awareness

2009-09-22T03:54:00.000-07:00

Last Friday, schoolboys were selling fund-raising badges and toys. I noticed the toys included yellow elephants and squeezable brains. How could I resist buying these items with my interest in memory and brain skills?

The fund-raising was for Alzheimer's Australia research projects.

What is Alzheimer's disease and how can it be prevented?

Alzheimer's disease is the most common form of dementia in the elderly and may start as early as mid-fifties. The cause is faster than normal loss of nerve cells in the brain, the cause of which is unknown.

Alzheimer's symptoms include recent loss of memory, loss of initiative and reduced physical activity. There is no cure and treatments are aimed at keeping the patient content. From diagnosis to eventual death takes seven years on average.

Dementia is a mental disorder in which the patient develops confusion, irrational behaviour. inappropriate reactions, poor or jumbled speech patterns, hallucinations and loss of short term memory. It is a permanent condition and unfortunately there is no cure for most causes.

How can you minimise the risk of degeneration of your brain? The Alzheimer's institute has some recommendations for brain fitness. Their campaign is called "Mind Your Mind" and is based on research that shows adopting a 'brain healthy' lifestyle may reduce the risk of developing dementia.

The Mind Your Mind signposts are:

Mind Your Brain
Mind Your Diet
Mind Your Body
Mind Your Health Checks
Mind Your Social Life
Mind Your Habits
Mind Your Head

A good way to exercise the Brain is to develop memory skills. Learn memory technqiues and challenge the brain each day. Crossword puzzles, word and puzzles, board games, thinking games like chess and Go.

Read more at the Alzheimers Australia web site where you can download posters and brochures.

Definitions from "The Complete Family Medical Guide" - Dr Warwick Carter - (c) 2003 Hinkle Books

Remembering 20 items with the Journey method

2009-09-19T04:56:00.000-07:00

How would you go about remembering these twenty items?

In the previous article I described the Journey method. Now let's see the method in action.

1. Use your Journey

First of all, I need to explain the steps of my journey. The journey starts in my bedroom then visits every room, going out the front door, along the driveway then down the street past my neighbouring houses.

You won't be able to visualise all my steps so I stopped the journey at the letter box. This should be sufficient to explain the process.

- Bedroom
- Ensuite bathroom
- Entertainment area (TV, sofa)
- Bookshelf out the back
- Toilet
- Laundry
- Kitchen
- Dining Room
- Lounge Room
- Front Hall
- Out on the porch (entrance lobby)
- On the driveway
- At the letter box

2. Assign each object to a stage and create a strong image

Bedroom - Lightbulb - Huge lightbulb lying on the bed shining brightly

Ensuite bathroom - Easter Egg - The bathtub is filled with easter eggs. The eggs are overflowing onto the bathroom floor.

Entertainment area - Saucepan - A large saucepan is on the television set. A cooking program is being shown with the saucepan bubbling and overflowing on to the floor/

Laundry - Wineglass - A large wineglass on the washing machine is filled with washing powder and overflowing on to the floor

Kitchen - bicycle - A bicycle has been parked in the kitchen and a chef is seated on the bicycle but still able to reach the bench to chop up vegetables and stir the pots.

Dining Room - Car - A small car is parked in the diniing room and the dining table is balanced on the roof the car. Guests are sitting around the table using very high chairs

Lounge Room - Chair - A very large dining chair is balanced on the lounge suitee. Each dining chair leg is pushed into one of the lounge chairs making it very difficult to sit on the lounge.

Front Hall - Pencil - A large pencil is lying in the hallway very similar to a cannon about to be launched when the front door is opened.

Out on the porch - Postage Stamps - The front door has been wallpapered with stamps and the front doormat is a very large postage stamp.

On the driveway - Toothbrush - The toothbrushes are laid out on the driveway to make an articial grass covering.

At the letter box - Apple - An apple has been pushed into the letter box. An arrow has been fired in to the apple and holds a letter, probably sent by Robin Hood.

3. Review the list

Go back to the beginning of the journey, the bedroom, and recall what was happening there. A lightbulb! Go to the bathroom and what is there? Chocolate easter eggs. Continue the journey to recall the main items.

Review the list about an hour later and you will be surprised to see how much you can recall.

4. Conclusion

The Journey method is very powerful and I am now developing more journeys for remembering different things.

All images from commons.wikipedia.com

The Journey Method (revisited)

2009-09-12T16:59:00.000-07:00

The Journey method is a means of remembering items in sequence. The method is based on a mental journey along which is a number of stages or locations. Each stage in the journey is used as an anchor for placing the information you want to remember.

The technique is relatively easy to use as the steps of the journey should be well established in your memory provided you have chosen a familiar mental route.

1. Creating The Journey

Think about a journey you can recall easily. A good starting place is inside your home. Start in your bedroom and follow a path through each room in turn. You could leave your house and continue the journey through the garden all the way to the shopping centre, bus stop or train station.

2. Remembering Information

Information is stored by mentally walking the journey and placing the items at each stage. Pause at the location, then imagine the sights, sounds and smells of the location. Create a vivid mental image of the item you are memorising at this location.

Move on to the next stage of the journey then repeat the process with the next item. When you are finished placing all the items, review the journey and check the information at each stage

3. Recalling The Information

Recalling the items is now a matter of mentally walking the journey and pausing at each location. What is happening at this stage? Use all your senses to help recall the association you made earlier. Once you have recalled the information, move on to the next stage.

What Can You Remember With The Journey Method?

This is a great method of remembering longer lists of items. For example, if you were shown a set of 20 items and asked to remember them all, you could mentally place the items on the stages of your journey.

A deck of cards (52 in total) can be remembered using a longer journey of 52 stages.

Many Journeys

Just using one journey can be confusing for memorising multiple sets of information. Typically you could use the same journey for remembering things that can be forgotten after a while.

Dominic O'Brien (author of Quantum Memory Power and many other books on memory) recommends using different journeys for different purposes. A journey of 31 stages can be used as a mental appointment book. Another journey can he used as a mental intray.

Milestones

I created a mental journey of 52 stages from my bedroom up to the footbridge of the Wahroonga railway station. I created a mental milestone every 10 steps to allow rapid access to different parts of the list. The image I use is of numbers 20 feet high glowing brightly like beacons. The milestones are useful for checking that I haven't forgotten one of the stages.

This journey is going to be used for remembering the sequence of a deck of playing cards. I won't list the stages of my journey in this article as it won't make sense, but I have a printed copy which I used to check my recall when first establishing the journey.

Practice Using The Journey

Use the journey for remembering lists of items. Gradually increase the number of items remembered. For example, remember this list of 10 items: teacup, chess set, milk, light globe, soccer ball, car keys, tape measure, mobile phone, compact disc and postage stamps.

Happy travelling on your mental journeys of memory!

The Number Shape System

2009-09-11T05:31:00.001-07:00

In an earlier post I wrote about the Number Rhyme system for converting numbers into memorable images. This required thinking of a word that rhymes with the numbers from zero to ten.

The Number Shape system requires you to think of something that looks like the number.

Look at each number in turn and think what it looks like. This is my list which I have attempted to illustrate above.

0 - soccer ball (football in the UK)
1 - candlestick
2 - swan
3 - handcuffs
4 - sail boat
5 - hook
6 - elephant trunk
7 - axe
8 - hourglass
9 - balloon and string
10 - stick and hoop

The numbers can be used as pegs for associating information just as I described in an earlier article on Number rhymes. A useful application of the Number shapes is explained in Dominic O'Brien's Quantum Memory Power CD set.

When you need to remember numerical information, use the Number Shape image. For example, to remember that Mars has 2 moons, imagine a swan flying gracefully around the planet Mars.

To remember there are 4 horses on a polo team, imagine a sailboat sailing around the polo field with the players hitting the boat.

To remember that Santa Claus's sled is pulled by 8 reindeer you could imagine Santa holding the hourglass shouting out "We're running late!". If you had used a snowman as an image for the number 8, then your mental image would be much easier.

How do I pronounce your name? Just ask the person!

2009-09-10T06:13:00.000-07:00

When presented with a list of names, some people feel challenged by the task of saying the names out loud. Naturally there is a fear of making a mistake and offending the person by saying the name correctly.

So what is the secret? It is quite simple! The best way to learn how to pronounce a name is to Ask the Person! You can do this tactfully without offence. If the person's name is unusual or difficult, do you think you will be the first person to seek clarification?

If you are unsure, ASK the person for clarification, LISTEN CAREFULLY to hear the pronunciation, then REPEAT it back for clarification. I am amazed to see people ask for confirmation then ignore what they heard.

I recently attended a Toastmasters speech contest. During the speaker briefing, the contest chairman reviewed the list of contestants and confirmed the pronunciation of the names.
I was surprised at the difficulty this person showed in mastering the pronunciation. Why was this?

Take the first name of Megan. The owner of this name likes to pronounce it Meg-an, not Mee-gan. This is a common variation. But the chairman didn't really listen and said it wrong. We chimed in "It's Megan.. not Meegan!".

The second incident was with the surname of Dokulil. When you see it written you may wonder about the pronounciation. But it is quite simple. The owner of the name said "It is pronounced as it is written - Dock - oo - Lill". Quite simple.

The third name was a Greek surname of Sofatzis. Once again, let the owner of the name pronounce - So - far - tsis. Easy! Hear it, then repeat to confirm your understanding.

Confirming the pronunciation of a name shows respect to the person and shows you were listening. There are many ways to ask tactfully. Ladies named Karen sometimes prounce it Kar-ren. Sarah is sometimes pronounced Sar-ra. Make sure you use the name as its owner pronounced it to you.

"Do you pronounce your name Karen or Kar-rin". And if you make a blunder with the name when reading out loud, the person will probably tell you the correct way. So listen carefully.

A final reminder of the technique:

Ask the person to say their name
Listen carefully
Repeat the name for confirmation.

Chinese Names

2009-09-05T13:55:00.000-07:00

I grew up in a culture where people had a surname, a "Christian" name (a term no longer used for various reasons) and a middle name. In my primary school days, boys used to call each other by their surname or a nickname.

Over the years I have strived to learn how names are used in other cultures. The first culture and country I am going to write about in this series of names from around the world is China. This will include names from Hong Kong and Taiwan.

A lot of informaton in this article was taken from Wikipedia, but I have added stories of my own experience. I look forward to feedback from my Chinese friends on how you use your name, particularly in regard to your Chinese and "Western" names.

ORDER OF NAMES

Several different conventions are followed by Chinese in the use of names.

First of all, the Chinese name is written with the family name first, followed by the given name. For instance, Lee Ming is "Mr Lee" not "Mr Ming". The family name of Chinese leader Mao Zedong is Mao and his given name is Zedong.

ADOPTING WESTERN NAMES

When Chinese people emigrate or do business with Western countries they often adapt their name by adding a Western first name to their surname, for example Fred Lee.

Other variations include combining a Western name with Chinese surname and given name, for example, Fred Lee Ming. Another variation is to follow the Western name with Chinese given name then surname, for example, Fred Ming Lee.

NAMES MADE FROM INITIALS

An interesting variation on adapting Chinese names is to use the initials of given names. I know a few Chinese men with two given names. Their "Western" name is their initials. For example, I have worked with "KK" Lam in Singapore and "KK" Leung from Hong Kong. The father of one of my daughter's classmates is "CC" Cheung, and another father is "CP" Chan.

I am curious about these abbreviations but I haven't always got the information. KK Leung was Kin Kwong Leung which always made me think of "King Kong".

SURNAME SPELLING

Chinese names are written (not surprisingly) in Chinese characters. When translated to English, the Western spelling can vary. For example, on the list of 100 most common Chinese surnames published in 2006, the character for Li (李) is also shown as Lee. Spellings will be different depending on whether Mandarin or Cantonese pronunciation is used.

Consider these Mandarin/Cantonese pairs: Zhang and Chang, Zhao and Chiu, Zhu and Chu, Wu and Ng, and Liang and Leung.

The spelling of these names can be your clue to indentify where the person is from. For example, I have a colleague with surname of Li and he is from China, but another fellow named Lee is from Singapore. I used to work with a Helen Lee whose accent was so Australian, that after a telephone call to a customer, she received a fax sent to Helen Leigh.

HOW MANY SURNAMES?

Although there are thousands of Chinese family names, the 100 most common surnames are shared by 85% of the population. The top 10 surnames account for about 40% of Chinese people in the world: Li/Lee, Wang/Wong, Zhang/Chang, Zhao/Chao , Chen/Chan, Yang/Young , Wu/Woo/Ng , Liu/Lau , Huang/Wong , Zhou/Chow.

Commit those names to memory and you will have a great conversation starter: "Did you know that you have one of the ten most popular Chinese names in the world? And 40% of Chinese have one of these names?".

MIXED MARRIAGES - East and West

I have two stories to share about marriages of a Chinese person and an Australian.

I used to work with an ABC (Australian Born Chinese) named Karen Chong. She was married and I naively assumed her husband was Chinese. I later found out that her husband was an Australian named Bruce. I asked her why she didn't use her married surname and she replied "When people hear the name Chong, they know what to expect".

I encountered the reverse situation at a client. I was studying a document which referred to a Denise Wong. I happened to be working with a Caucasian lady named Denise, so I asked her where I could find Denise Wong to ask some questions. She said, "Oh, that's me. My husband is Chinese!". This led to an interesting conversation and she said that bank tellers were always suspicious when she withdrew money.

The moral of these two tales is that you should never assume too much about a person, just looking at the surname!

Learn more about Chinese names and you will learn about the long history of China and its fascinating culture.

Suggested Wikipedia reading:
Chinese Name,
Chinese Surname
Chinese Given Name

A history of Australian names

2009-09-05T13:40:00.000-07:00

Learning the history of migration in your home city, state and country gives you a useful background for talking to people about their names. This knowledge can be a great conversation starter when discussing a person's name. You can approach the topic by saying "My hobby is researching my family tree. What is the history of your name?".

I live in Sydney in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Sydney has become a multi-cultured society with over one quarter of the state's residents born overseas. My surname of Cave goes back to England and has been traced back to 12th Century France.

Here is a brief summary of Australia's immigration in the last two hundred years.

The colonisation of Sydney started in 1788 with the arrival of over 160,000 convicts from England and Ireland. From the early 1790s, free immigrants came to Australia fueled by the rapid growth of the wool industry in the 1820s. Many people migrated from the United Kingdom to take advantage of the jobs and opportunities in rural Australia.

The Gold Rush era of 1851 to 1860 attracted up to 50,000 migrants each year. The Chinese immigrants were the largest non-British group. Other events in the 19th Century attracted particular groups of migrants.

During the 1840s, a large number of Irish immigrants settled in Australia to escape famine in ther homeland. Labourers from Melanesia were recruited in the 1860s to work on Queensland plantations. Japanese fishers helped build the pearling industry in the late 19th Century.

A large influx of migrants occurred after World War II. Australia negotiated agreements with other governments to bring more people to Australia. British people could migrate to Australia for the princely sum of 10 pounds, earning the nickname of a "Ten pound Pom". Migrants from Hungary and Czechoslovakia (as it was then known) arrived in 1956 and 1967 following unrest in their countiries

At the end of World War II (145), Australia's population was just over 7 million with around 90 percent born in Australia. In 2006, the population had risen to nearly 20 million with neary 25 percent born oversears. 43 percent of the population were born overseas or have a parent born overseas, the most popular countries being United Kingdom, New Zealand, China and Italy.

New South Wales is a good example of multiculturalism. In 2006, twenty five percent of residents were born overseas. The top 12 countries of birth are United Kingdom, China, New Zealand, Vietnam, Philippines, India, Lebanon, Italy, Hong Kong, Greece, Korea and South Africa.

The highest rate of growth in absolute numbers in the last five years has been from China, India, Philippines, Korea and Iraq. I will be writing articles on names from these countries.

Understanding the history of migration in your part of the world, and a knowledge of names from different cultures will help greatly in your new interest in names.

Australian information from : www.immi.gov.au and NSW Information from NSW Department of Health:

Nominating Facial Features, Morphing Names

2009-09-03T05:39:00.000-07:00

In an earlier article, I described Benjamin Levy's NAME method of remembering names. NAME stands for Nominate, Articulate, Morph and Entwine.

In other words, you Nominate a memorable facial feature, say it (Articulate) quietly to yourself, Morph the name into something memorable, then create a strong active association between the facial feature and the morphed name. In this article I elaborate on the Nominate and Morph phases.

Nominate

First of all, let's explore the challenge of closely looking at a person's face and identifying a key feature.

Levy writes, "There are a couple of ways to really examine a face.

One is to look at it and mentally draw the letter Z across it: start at the eyes and eyebrows on the left, zip across to the right, diagonally across the nose, then left to right across the mouth.

Another is to mentally draw a figure eight, circling down from the eyes to the mouth and back up again."

Practice this skill when looking at people when you are out, or on television or pictures in newspapers and magazines. As you practice this study of faces, you will develop your facial vocabulary for describing a person's features.

Morphing Names

How can you convert names (with no intrinsic meaning) into something memorable?

1. Add vowels. For example, Scott could be transformed into Scoott with the addition of an "o" and your morphed name could be Scooter. Try adding a vowel or two (A, E, I, O or U) tothe name.

2. Build your wordpower! Morphing names is going to depend on your personal history, backround, education and the associations you have build up in your life. Use wordplay to transform the name. Ask youself "What does sound like, or remind me of?".

"A great way to build your wordpower is to do Crossword Puzzles. This keeps your mind nimble and alive to new ways of looking at language" (Levy).

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Here is Levy's summary of making effective Name morphs.

1. Begin with the same letter of the name you are Morphing.
2. Try to choose sound-alike jobjects, rather than verbs or adjectives.
3. Choose distinctive objects.
4. When necessary, you can make an effective Morph by using an image inspired by the name. Maybe ruby slippers remind you of Dorothy (in the land of Oz).
5. Be imaginative - what does the name sound like?
6. If the name seems overwhelming, break it down into one-syllable components.

Morphs enable you to see names that normally you only hear.

More interest in names leads to a better chance of remembering them.

Create your own list of Morphed Names and review it regularly. It is a good idea to have the same morph for the same name, as this is your personal collection of name images. Links to my personal list can be found in an earlier blog article.

Nicknames - good and bad

2009-09-02T03:31:00.000-07:00

Nicknames can be a useful technique for remembering people's names but inappropriate nicknames can be embarrasing. This leads to the story of why there is a picture of Brad Pitt at the top of this article.

In my workplace there is an employee named Brook who looks a little bit like Brad Pitt. It didn't help that our office nickname fanatic decided to call this fellow "Brooke Shields". Soon after, the feminine nickname transformed into "Brad Pitt".

Now that Brook was being called Brad, and all knowledge of his real surname was lost, meeting "Brad" in the kitchen required several seconds of thinking to remember his name.

The moral of the story is that if you are going to give someone a nickname, use a variation of the real name. For example, Larry can be Leisure Suit Larry, and Bob can be Bob the Builder.

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I was reading on Wikipedia how George W. Bush ("Dubya") used nicknames to refer to fellow politicians and White House staff. Vladimir Putin was "Pootie-Poot", and Condoleezza Rice was "Condi".

Associating a Name with a Facial Feature

2009-08-29T04:31:00.000-07:00

Nominate Articulate Morph Entwine

In the previous blog post I wrote about the FACE method which has the goal of ensuring you get a person's name and remember it after the meeting.

But what happens when you are introduced to groups of people? This is a common scenario in business meetings or at a cocktail party. You won't have time to use the FACE method. This article describes Benjamin Levy's NAME method for associating a person's name with a facial feature. When you next see the person, the face will remind you immediately of the name!

A big challenging of remembering names is they are not inherently memorable. What images come to mind when you try to memorise Dave, Steve, Sue, Jenny, Louis, and Alan? The challenge then is to make names become memorable. This is done by morphing the name into something memorable. But more about that later.

The basis of the NAME method is converting the name to something memorable, then associating it with a prominent facial feature.

The four steps of NAME are Nominate, Articulate, Morph and Entwine:

1. Nominate

When you meet someone for the first time, look carefully at the face and pick out a feature. Maybe it is the feature that grabbed your attention when you first saw the person. But make sure you don't pick a feature that could change such as hair, glasses or jewellery.

Become aware of facial features. Look at the person's eyes, eyebrows, nose, lips, facial structure, ears, and chin.

2. Articulate

Once you have identified the feature, silently Articular precisely what you observed. This confirms your full devotion and attention to the feature you have nominated.

Over time you will develop an awareness of the structure and appearance of the human face, and a useful vocabulary for describing faces. As you observe people in public places, practice identifying a feature and describing it silently to yourself.

3. Morph

Names have no inherent meaning which makes then difficult to remember. In this stage we morph, or transform the name into something which sounds similar but memorable. For example, "Sam" sounds like "SPAM". "Geoff" sounds like "Chef". Now you can visualise a can of SPAM for Sam, and Chef's hat for Geoff.

It is important to morph the name into a word that has a strong, memorable image, usually a noun.

4. Entwine

Now that we have a strong mental image of the name, and a nominated facial feature, we need to create a memorable association between them. The goal is to create an unforgettable assocation with lots of exaggeration and action. Levy recommends including violent images, and possibly obscene or ludicrous. The mental image is only known to you, so there are no limits to your imagination.

An example of using this system is if you meet a man named David. He has a high forehead. You morph the name David into an image of a STAR OF DAVID. The star is entwined in the forehead maybe the star is very hot and burning into the forehead.

The mother of one of my daughter's classmates is named Ann. I imagined an ant walking across a particular feature of her forehead.

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Now you know the NAME method:

Nominate - survey the face, then choose a feature
Articulate - describe the feature so you know it
Morph - names don't have meaning, so change them into something similar with meaning
Entwine - the facial feature and and the morphed name

You will need to practice the NAME method by regularly studying faces. Look at people in shopping centres, restaurants, public transport. Practice face studying at every opportunity! Observe faces closely and be amazed by everyone's uniqueness.

You should use the same morphs for names. I created lists of over 200 male names and 200 female names. These can be downloaded and used as the basis of your own personal name morph list:

Boys names with morph words
Girls names with morph words

Getting and using names with the FACE method

2009-08-29T01:09:00.000-07:00

Benjamin Levy (shown in the photo) in his book "Remember Every Name Every Time" describes two techniques for getting and remembering names. He uses acronyms to remember the techniques and the first techniques is called the FACE technique.

FACE stands for the four essential steps in the process of remembering names and faces: Focus, Ask, Comment and Employ. Levy says that if you 'follow these four simple steps and you will never again say, five minutes after meeting, "What was that guy's name?".

In this article I will give a summary of the FACE technique. However I highly recommend you buy Levy's book as it is a complete name remembering course.

1. Focus

This is the phase where you can you do some preparation. If you are attending a conference or you have access to a guest list, read through the list and look at the names. Familiarising yourself with names will prepare you for the actual introduction.

It is very important to have the attitude and interest when you meet strangers. Be genuinely interested in knowing their names and getting to know them. Don't take the attitude that the meeting is not important because you will probably never see them again.

Levy writes, "The wonderful thing about meeting strangers is that you never know if the next one is going to have a profound impact on the rest of your life. Assume value! That's why you should approach each new meeting as an opportunity for career advancement, every stranger as a potential benefactor".

When you do meet the person be focused on the person you are about to meet. Don't worry about trying to make a good impression or think what clever, witty thing you are going to say. When you shake hands with the person, get your name out quickly so you can concentrate on the name you are going to remember.

I find that when the person doing the introduction is a bit slow at saying my name (maybe they have forgotten my name!) I help out by saying "Hello, my name is Charles." Usually the person will respond promptly with "Hello, my name is ... ".

Never let go of the handshake until you have got the name, and never commit the sin of looking around to seeing if there is anyone more important, attractive, or interesting than the person you are meeting.

2. Ask

Now that you have focused on hearing the name and you are positive you heard it correctly, it's crucial to ask to hear it again anyway. This can confirm you didn't mistake hearing Tom for Don, or Julia instead of Julie.

Getting the other person to say their name also helps reinforce the name in this phase of remembering. You can confirm the name by repeating it back, "Robert?". If you are still unsure, you can make up an excuse about yourself to ask the person to repeat the name. For example, "I'm sorry, my hearing is not the best. Did you say Robert?".

Just make sure you have heard the name correctly and to imprint it into your short term memory. In the next step, you will elaborate on the name to make it become a more permanent memory.

Now that you have the name, it is time to ask some questions about the name. The answers will help make the name more memorable by giving you more information to make lasting associations.

Levy writes, "It is a delicate art, asking people about their names: there's a fine line between sounding curious and sounding like a stalker. Be careful to keep your tone light, not urgent."

People are usually flattered when you ask about their names as it shows you are interested. There are all sorts of questions you can ask:

- Clarify the spelling, for example Catherine .. is that a C or a K?
- Stephen. Is that spelt with "ph" (Stephen) or "v" (Steven)
- Do you like being called Robert, or do you shorten it to Rob or Bob?
- Is Ann short for anything? My friend Annaliese now likes to be
called Ann.

Note how each of these questions uses the person's name and this helps make the name more permanent in your memory.

3. Comment

Our memories are built up by associating new information with information we have stored already. The goal of this phase is to make some comments about the person's name. Perhaps the name reminds you of someone famous, or a friend or family member. I used to work with an Elizabeth Taylor (it was her married name) and she told me the comments she got when introduced. "I suppose your husband is Richard Burton?".

Become interested in names and build up a mental encyclopedia of name facts. Look at the names of actors, actresses, sports men and women, politicians and world leaders. Collecting names and facts is a fascinating pastime. When you meet someone, say that you have bene reading a blog about remembering names and you would like to learn more about their name!

4. Employ

Now that you know the name, use it in the conversation, but be careful not to overdo it. A good way to use the name is to introduce the person to someone else. if yo are at a cocktail party, you could say "Can I get you another drink, Julie?".

When you finish speaking with the person, make sure you use the name at the end of your conversation: "Well, it was great meeting you Julie".

Levy's summary from the book:

The essentials of maintaining FOCUS:
- Be prepared
- Assume value
- Focus on the other person, not yourself

Reasons for ASKING:
- Confirm that you heard the name pronounced correctly.
- Clarify the spelling
- Discriminate between the full name and its diminutive.
- Ask for more information - flattery will get you everywhere

COMMENT in order to:
- Categorise
- Cross-reference
- Connect

Try to EMPLOY the other person's name in any one of four ways:
- When possible, make the other person's name the topic of your initial conversation
- use it once in the course of talking
- Introduce the person to others
- Say goodbyte using the name

Every time you see a new face, think FACE.

In the next article I will introduce the NAME method for storing these names in your long term memory.

Memory Sports web site - how to become a memory champion

2009-08-25T19:17:00.000-07:00

I just discovered the Memory Sports web site which focuses on learning techniques for memory competitions. For example, memorising the sequence of a deck of cards, or remembering a long number squence.

Have a look at the Memory Sports web site and be inspired!

How to develop a Super Power Memory (book review)

2009-08-22T03:50:00.001-07:00

How to Develop a Super Power Memory is one of many excellent books by the great memory practictioner, Harry Lorayne. I own three books by Lorayne but I borrowed this book from the library.

Lorayne has demonstrated his methods as a memory entertainer especially his skills in remembering names. This book covers a broad range of memory skills with lots of exercises and practical examples.

He starts by highlighting the importance of observation and says:
"There is no such thing as a bad memory. There are only trained or untrained memories."

Lorayne describes the Link method, Peg system using the Major system, Alphabet Peg system, remembering speeches, articles and anecdotes, playing cards, dates, long numbers, foreign vocabulary and names and faces.

This is a good introduction to many memory systems and is particularly helpful in demonstrating systems for remembering names.

How not to remember a name (humour)

2009-08-22T03:46:00.000-07:00

This fellow was very proud of the way he could remember names by association, until he met Mrs Hummock. Mrs Hummock was quite heavy, and had a large stomach, so he decided to use "stomach" as his association.

Three weeks later, he met the same lady, glanced at her stomach, and feeling very pleased with himself, said, "Good day, Mrs Kelley!".

Remembering the digits of Pi

2009-08-22T01:31:00.001-07:00

My favourite subjects at school were science and mathematics. I was fascinated by the number "Pi" and how the numbers after the decimal point went on for ever. Pi was my first transcendental number.

Pi is the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter.

At first I was taught that Pi was approximately equal to 22/7. This is only accurate to two decimal places (3.1428571...)

I learnt a better approximation was 355/113 which was interesting because it has a pattern of repeated odd numbers 113355, split into two (113 and 355) then made into a fraction. It is accurate to sixdecimal places: 3.1415929.

For some reason I memorised Pi to 12 places (3.141592653589) using rote learning. I remembered the sounds and rhythms of saying these letters out loud.

But how can we memorise the numbers using a mnemonic?

A traditional way to remind yourself of the decimals is to use phrases containing word-length mnemonics, where the number of letters in each word corresponds to a digit.

Pi to 6 decimal places:

How I wish I could calculate Pi

This gives Pi as 3.141592

Pi to 14 decimal places:

How I like a drink,
alcoholic of course,
after the heavy lectures involving
quantum mechanics

This gives Pi as 3.14159265358979

And here's a rhyme to 20 decimal places of Pi:

Now, I wish I could recollect pi.
'Eureka,' cried the great inventor.
Christmas Pudding, Christmas Pie,
Is the problem's very centre.

This gives Pi as 3.14159265358979323846

And to 31 decimal places:

Sir, I bear a rhyme excelling
In mystic force, and magic spelling
Celestial sprites elucidate
All my own striving can't relate
Or locate they who can cogitate
And so finally terminate. Finis.

This gives Pi as 3.1415926535897932384626433832795

This useful method of remembering Pi only works up to thirty-one decimal places, unfortunately, because the thirty-second number after the decimal point is 0.

Memorising large sequences of the decimal value of Pi appears to be part of memory competitions. The number sequence is not random, but it can't be predicted. Read more about Pi at Wikipedia

Mathematics is the subject I have studied the most in my life. I have a Bachelor of Science majoring in Pure Mathematics and Computer Science, but since leaving university I have developed interests in many other areas of life.

I highly recommend the film Pi, the 1998 American psychological thriller directed by Darren Aronofsky.

Verses from "I before e (except after c) - old school ways to remember stuff" by Judy Parkinson (c) 2007

Further techniques for remembering names

2009-08-20T04:37:00.001-07:00

My recent article on techniques of remembering a person's name, prompted Bob Madigan in Alaska to send me a detailed insight into his strategy for recalling names. With Bob's permission I am publishing his methods.

Here are a couple of additional thoughts on remembering names based on my experiences using similar techniques. I agree that the best way to learn a person's name is to get an image of the name associated with a feature of the face.

One of the big problems I have is that introductions sometimes occur in busy social situations where a lot is going on. I can find I just don't have the mental horsepower to find a substitute word, identify a facial feature, generate the images and get everything associated in the time available.

I use a flexible strategy that I can adjust depending on the cognitive load I am carrying at the moment.

The top priority is to get the first name and, if possible, the last name. This means, as you point out, attentively listening to the name, repeating it back to the person, and looking carefully at facial features.

If I'm feeling cognitively stretched (maybe another introduction is about to occur or other activities are in play) I will not try to do anything at this point more sophisticated than making sure I bring my attention back to the new person in a few seconds and mentally rehearse the name. If I can just keep hold of the name, I can work out a longer lasting association later.

I find it's helpful to do several more rehearsals after increasing intervals (a minute then five minutes) to make sure the name doesn't escape. Sometimes these rehearsals are enough so I feel I have learned the name without the need for more sophisticated mnemonics. Other times, though, I decide I need more help, so then I work on imagery as my cognitive load permits.

I also really like the imagery technique you mention of associating a first name with a known person and it works well for me. I call this the "shadow technique" because I imagine the other person looking over the shoulder of the person I am introduced to. Now to get the association to last, the shadow and the new person need to interact in some way, but if things are busy, I just make sure I get the shadow in there and then rehearse it soon. I can work out an interaction between the two later as long as I can keep the name.

The substitute word technique is the most sophisticated strategy for me. Sometimes it is easy, but other times it can be hard. I agree with you that it is definitely worth the effort provided you have the time and focus to work it out.

Let me make a couple of quick comments on facial features. I liked your suggestions about features to look for. The best one is the one that hits you first because you want it to be a feature that will pop out next time. When I started working on being better with names and faces, I found that I didn't naturally look at faces very carefully.

Here is an interesting exercise that I found helpful in getting better at it. If you walk in a busy place where people are streaming past you, say a shopping mall or a sidewalk you can practice really seeing faces and doing it quickly. I pick someone walking toward me and look at the person carefully for a second or two with an emphasis on finding a distinctive feature. When I look away, I still have the image of the face. I choose the feature I would use if I were trying to learn the person's name. After 3 or 4 faces, I try to go back and recall the earlier faces with an emphasis on the selected features. I found that I got better at it with practice.

Remembering Given (First) Names

2009-08-15T19:17:00.000-07:00

Doctor Bob from The Muppets - my key image for people named Bob

Nowadays it is more common to be dealing with people on a first name basis. The memory books by Harry Lorayne which have been my main reference on memory skills emphasise surnames.

Usually I don't have a problem remembering surnames because they are fairly unique. My big challenge is when I am introduced to a group of people with popular names. Men named Bob, Chris, David, Mike, Rick, Dan, Tony, Terry and Jack. Women named Sue, Julie, June, Sharon, Debbie and Amanda. I know many people with these names, and I find it hard to make the names unique.

There are several techniques for remembering given names, and I will describe two of these methods.

1. Asssociate with someone with the same name

The first method is to picture someone you know well with the same name, then associate that person with the person you are meeting. For example, you could be introduced to a fellow named George. You identify a distinguishing feature of George's face then associate that with George Bush.

A variation on this technique is to imagine the new person doing something associated with the person who shares the same name. For example, there is a fellow at my office named Bob. I have given him the name Doctor Bob after the character in Sesame Street. Nicknames can be useful for remembering names but fraught with danger which I will write about later.

2. Substitute words

The second method for remembering first names is to use a substitute word. These are generally easy to find, for example Harry could be "hairy", Clark could be "clock", Anne is "Ant" and Cate could be a cat.

Eventually you will develop your own collection of substitute words for firstnames - a personal memory dictionary of first names. It is important that the substitute word has meaning for you.
Two popular writers on memory, Benjamin Levy and Kevin Trudeau have supplied lists of substitute words for names which can be used and modified.

Examples of boy's names

Adam - Fig leaf
Alan - Lion
Andrew - Android
Bill - Duck's Bill
Bob - Bobsled
Brian - Brain
Bruce - Bruise
Cameron - Camera
Charles - Chairs
Chris - Christ on the cross
Daniel - Dancer, Dam
Dave - Dive, Diver
David - Star of David
Dennis - Dentist (holding the drill and mirro)
Derek - Derrick (large crane)
Donald - Donald Duck
Douglas - Shovel
Ed - Horse (Mr Ed)
Elliott - Eel Yacht
Eric - Ear-ache
Eugene - Ewe (sheep) wearing jeans
Frank - Frankfurt / Hotdog

Examples of Girl's names

Abigail - Bee in a pail (bucket)
Adeline - A Dandelion
Alice - Lice
Amanda - A man with a panda
Angela - Angel with wings
Anita - Ant-eater
Ann - Ant
Annabel - Ants on a bell
Barbara - Barbed wire
Belinda - Bell in a Window
Claire - Chocolate Eclair
Clara - Clarinet
Claudia - Cloud
Sacha - Red sash tied around the waist

My short-term project is to compile my lists of substitute words for my lists of frequently encountered names. I will publish this when it is complete. I encourage you to think of your own substitute words and write these in the comments.

Associating a name to a face

2009-08-15T17:21:00.000-07:00

Drawing by Charles Cave - Carbonico pencil - scanned and post-processed in Gimp

Now that you know how to convert a name into a substitute word, here is the technique for associating the name to the face in such a way that you remember them both.

This technique requires you develop the skill of looking at all the features of a person's face then identifying the one outstanding feature. It could be anything: small eyes, tiny mouth, thick lips, thin lips, high forehead or lines and creases on the forehead.

Pick the feature that is the most outstanding for you. Someone else might choose a different feature. This is not important as the thing that stands out the most to you is what will be most obvious to you when you next meet the person.

You were probably taught as a child that you shouldn't stare because it is rude. In order to remember a face you need to look at the person's features. Make a quick scan of the face. It can be done in a matter of seconds and your observation will not look like staring.

Eyes - colour, shade, close or apart?
Eyebrows - non-existent, thin, bushy?
Nose - length, shape, colour
Cheeks - fullness, dimples, colour, cheekbones
Mouth and lips - thickness of lips, width
Chin - shape, prominent?
Head shape - overall impression of shape
Hair - colour, length. Hairstyles change so don't rely too much on this! An Indian colleague of mine got his head shaved and when I saw him next I thought he was a new employee
Neck - thickness, shape

Cartoonists regularly look for distinguishing features when drawing caricatures. Look at a selection of political cartoons and identify the key feature. A cartoon has an economy of line and shows the essence of a person's appearance.

Once you have a distinguishing facial feature, you are ready to associate it with the name. For example, if Mr Sachs has a very high forehead, you might visualise a lot of sacks falling from his forehead. Mr Hamper might have a big mouth, so imagine his mouth is the entrance to a clothes hamper. Miss Forester has definite lines on her cheeks, so imagine a forest of trees growing out of them. Hopefully you get the picture!

Remembering Surnames

2009-08-15T15:35:00.001-07:00

The long term remembering of people's names first requires making the name memorable then associating it with the face. In case you are wondering about the picture of a salmon ... it is my key memory image of a fellow I worked with whose surname is Salmon.

In this article I talk about remembering surnames, and in the next article I show you how to associate the key image with the face.

Surnames can be grouped into two broad categories: Names that mean something and those that don't.

Traditional English names derive from occupations (Baker, Cook, Cooper, Carpenter and Smith), animals (Fish, Fox, Salmon), directions (North, South, East and West) or English words (Ash, Brown, Black, King and Queen). It is quite easy to think of a key image for each of these surnames.

There are names that by themselves don't have meaning but they suggest a strong mental picture. Maybe it is the surname of someone famous or notorious. For example, Todd (I went to school with an Alan Todd) suggests Sweeny Todd (Tim Burton's recent film of Sweeny Todd). Lincoln suggests American president Abraham Lincoln and Keating suggest a former Australian Prime Minister, Paul Keating.

The surnames that don't suggest an image require you to use your imagination to make the surname mean something to you. The technique is to convert the name into something memorable by using substitute words.

No matter how strange the name may sound upon first hearing it, it can be broken down into a substitute word or thought. Simply think of a word or phrase that sounds as much like the name as possible. For example, I used to work with an Indian gentleman with the surname of Venkataraman. This reminded me of the song Day-O by Harry Belafonte: "Come Mister Tallyman, tally me banana". The tally-man reminded me of taraman. After 5 years, I still remember this fellow's name.

Break long names into syllables and see what thoughts and ideas you get. Use whatever you think of first as this is the most memorable image. You can be as silly or as rude as you want. You don't have to tell the person your mental image if you are complemented on your skill at recalling names.

Names such as Cameron suggest a camera, Renard reminds me of a fox, Heath reminds me of the vegetation on the moors of Scotland. McCulloch suggest a brand name of chain saw. The surname of Corneil (not to be confused with Cornell!) suggests a corn cob and a slippery eel.

So what do you do with this key memory image? The next step is associating with something memorable about the face.

Get a person's name in every meeting you have

2009-08-15T14:38:00.001-07:00

It is very important to be interested in the person in order to remember his or her name. Devote your full attention to the person when you meet. Don't take the attitude that the person is unimportant because you are unlikely to meet the person again.

Every person you meet is important. You just don't know how this person could be part of your life in the future. This is especially important in business situations.

Here are guidelines for meeting people and remembering names:

1. When introduced, make sure you hear the person's name in the first place. Don't be afraid to ask the person to repeat the name. If you are uncomfortable about asking, use self-deprecating comments before the question, for example, "It is noisy here, I did't quite catch that. Would you mind repeating your name?"

2. Once you have heard the name, ask the person to spell the name. This helps imprint the name in your memory and may lead to further conversation about the name. Names which are supposedly common have a variety of spellings: Ian/Iain, David/Dafywd, Cate/Kate.

In business situations, the introduction may be accompanied by the exchange of business cards. Use the card to start a conversation about the name now that you can see the name written clearly.

3. If you know something about the name, or it is similar to a name you know, then make a comment. For example "My aunt is named Joy". Be careful to don't offend, "We gave that name to our bulldog!".

4. Ask for more information about the name, particularly if you are curious about the origin of the name. Don't assume someone's nationality based on the name. It is always best to ask questions and let the person do the talking. Your goal is to remember the person's name as well as getting to know them, so let them do the talking.

5. Repeat the name as often as you can during the course of the conversation, but don't overdo it!

6. Use the name when you finish the conversation and say good bye.

In my next article I will describe techniques for continuing to remember the name long after your introduction.

Remembering Names

2009-08-10T04:54:00.001-07:00

Do you have trouble remembering names?

Do you find yourself saying "Oh, I know your face, but I just can't remember your name!"

The most common complaint I hear about memory skills is the ability to remember names.

In this series of blog articles, I will show you some techniques to ensure you will never forget a name again. Knowing and using people's names is important for your business, social and personal life. You meet people continually (unless you are Robinson Crusoe living on a deserted island) and want to remember the names of the people you meet.

A person's name is his or her most prized possession. The most pleasing sound a person hears is their name being used and remembered by others. So don't embarrass yourself by saying to people you have previously met "What is your name again?".

What is the real problem with remembering names?

Studies have shown we can remember thousands of faces. In one experiment, people were shown several hundred photos of faces. Next, they were shown the same photos again with some new images added. The people were asked to identify faces they had not seen in the first pass, and the recognition of unfamiliar faces was quite easy.

What this experiment shows is that we don't seem to have an issue with remembering the face. The brain is highly skilled at remembering images. The challenge we have is to remember the name associated with the face.

The main reason that most people forget a name is because they never remembered it in the first place. This often happens because they never even heard the name in the first place!

Often the person doing the introduction mumbles the name or doesn't give the name. I have been in situations where a new employee is brought around to be introduced. The conversation goes something like this: "This is Charles and Bill and Jim who look after the system". Charles, Bill and Jim are now wondering who the new employee is until someone takes the initiative and asks "I didn't catch your name". Shame on the person responsible for doing such a poor introduction!

Sometimes we are so worried about creating a good first impression or wondering what to say to the person that we don't listen to the introduction.

The first technique for remembering names is to be sure you hear the name in the beginning of the introduction. Listen carefully and don't worry about how you are going to respond. If you are not sure of the name, ask the person to repeat it.

If you are still not sure, ask the person to spell the name. Asking about the spelling of the name is a good conversation starter especially for names with several spellings like Katherine - Catherine - Kathryn. Even names like Ian and John can be spelt differently (Iain and Jon), so demonstrate your interest in the person by asking about the spelling.

You may realise that the name is similar to a friend or relative of yours, so mention this fact. This helps impress the name in your memory and builds more assocations. I used to work with an Elizabeth Taylor (it was her married name) and she told me how challenging it was to book a restaurant with ther name. The usual response was "I suppose your husband is Richard Burton?". I have also worked with a Kieran Kearing whose brother Paul visited from Ireland. Having the same name is a former Australian Prime Minister caused an airline to reject a booking on the pretext it was a hoax!

I live in Sydney which is a very cosmopolitan, multi-cultural society. I hear names from Asia, Europe, England and Ireland. In my office there are Indian names: Anil, Shruti, Himali, Vasu, and Shoba; European names: Mikhail, Vitaly, Ergun and a selection of more familiar names of English origin: Alan (2), Andrew (2), Chris (5), David (4), Diane, Daniel (2), John, Sue and Mark.

Once you have established the name, use it in the conversation. This will help you better remember the name as well as showing the person that you know his or her name. But don't go crazy with repeating the name, or you will drive the person crazy. When you finish talking with the person, say something like "It was good to meet you Vladimir".

Make it your goal to know a person's name even if you think you are unlikely to see them again. Following this principle will cause you to show respect and be interested in others.

When you introduce people, make it easy for everybody by stating the new person's name several times and give some background to use as a conversation starter. For example, "Hi everybody. I would like to introduce Robert who is starting today. This is Bill, Charles and Jim who look after the systems. Robertused to work at Microsoft so I am sure you will have a few questions for him".

Make sure you hear the name of the person of the person at the time of introduction.
If you are not sure of the name, ask the person to REPEAT it.
For further clarification, ask the person to SPELL the name.
Make a comment about the name - someone you know with that name, or a famour person.
If the name is unfamiliar, ask about the origin on the name.

And here are some tips for introducing yourself.

If your name is hard to pronounce, make it easy for people to pronounce your name. My wife's name is Etsuko and she tells people it rhymes with "Let's Go", otherwise Australians want to say "Ett-SUE-Ko".
If someone asks you to repeat your name, help them out. I heard of a situation where a lady with an unusual name rudely told the person "I am not going to repeat my name!". She was then introduced to a group as "Elizabeth with a surname I cannot HOPE to pronounce!" (voice dripping with sarcasm).
Foreign names pronounced differently in English. The German composer Richard Wagner has a surname pronounced "Vargner" in German. However this name is usually pronounced "Wag Ner" (like "Wag your tail") in Australia and America. If your surname is Wagner and you want people to use the German pronunciation then make sure you emphasise the pronunciation!

In my next article I will write how to make any name have meaning using a substitute word and how to associate it with the person's face.

Mnemosyne Flash Card Program

2009-07-25T19:03:00.000-07:00

The Mnemosyne program is a free, open-source tool for memorising question/answer pairs. It uses a sophisticated algorithm to schedule the best time for a card to come up for review. Difficult cards that you tend to forget quickly will be scheduled more often, while Mnemosyne won't waste your time on things you remember well.

The software runs on Linux, Windows and Mac OS X and can be downloaded from the Mnemosyne project page. A discussion forum is available and users have contributed a variety of card decks for study, especially language. Personally, I prefer to prepare my own flash cards based on the material I am memorising.

An earlier flashcard program is SuperMemo. The web site has some very useful articles on spaced repetition and myths about memory and learning. Unfortunately the program's user interface looks awful.

I also trialled the Anki program but encountered some issues opening my card databases on a USB. After two failures I abandoned the program in favour of Mnemosyne. A flashcard program has to be used for many months and the research behind Mnemosyne appears more rigorous.

My Journey Through Africa

2009-07-25T18:35:00.001-07:00

Yesterday I started the memorisation of the countries of Africa. By the end of this exercise I will be able to name every country number on the map above and its capital.

How good is your general knowledge of Africa? Write down the countries using the map above and give yourself a score out of 53! Click the map above for a larger view.

I have never travelled to Africa but I am fascinated by the variety of cultures, wildlife, climate, music, and deserts. I enjoyed Michael Palin's series on Sahara, and I am about to read Paul Theroux's book Dark Star Safari in which he describes a journey overland from Cairo to Cape Town. As I read the book my knowledge of the countries and capitals will be reinforced.

Two more books on my "Africa" list are Ryszard Kapuscinski's The Shadow of the Sun (published by Penguin in their inexpensive Popular Penguin series) and "Out of Africa" by Isak Dinesen.

Cardboard flashcards

2009-07-25T17:17:00.001-07:00

In my previous post about memorising the countries of the world, I described making cardboard flash cards. Here is a photo of the collection I am currently memorising.

I printed the countries and capitals in a large font so I can read them without the aid of my glasses. This is most important for when I am on my walk! On the front of the card I write the peg number and the capital and country are pasted on the reverse side.

As I review the cards and think of associations, I jot notes in pencil under the country name. Lately I have not been writing a lot as the associations stick in my memory, which is the purpose of the exercise. My association skill generation is getting stronger.

Each day I add a few new cards to the ring, and remove the cards I have memorised. My longer term review of the material is done using a software program called Mnemosyne.

These cardboard cards are the scaffolding for building my long term geographic knowledge. Once they have fulfilled their purpose, I can throw them out knowing that the information is in my long term memory.

Memorising the countries of the World

2009-07-25T16:58:00.001-07:00

Can you name the capital city of any country? Could you name all the countries of Europe? Is Vanuatu a country or a city? And where is Montenegro anyway?

These are the sort of questions that used to bug me. How could I build up my General Knowledge of the world as quickly and comprehensively as possible? A good starting point is knowing the names of each country and their capital cities.

I decided to memorise the names of all the countries of the world and their capital cities. My strategy was to use peg words with which to associate the information.

1. The first step was to compiling a list of countries and capital cities. I used the World Guide 11th edition (published in 2008) as my reference from which I created a spreadsheet of country names and capitals. The World Guide is available from New Internationalist magazine.

2. The next step was to sequence the countries to make a journey around the planet. Each country in my list should be a neighbour to the previous and next countries on the list. Sometimes this required crossing oceans, for example, going from the United Kingdom to Portugal. The advantage of remembering the countries in sequence is being able to recall a country's neighbour which helps recall the location of a country on the globe.

3. I used the Major System and my key words for the numbers 0 to 99. Each of these numbers has a key image(a peg word), for example 21 is "net". Because there are more than 99 countries, I needed more peg words.

This problem was solved by extending the peg words by modifying them. This system is called the Self Enhancing Master Memory Matrix by Tony Buzan in his book "Master Your Memory". Very simply, it uses the hundred peg words then multiplies the list by 10 using some new images.

I modified my peg words using colours, so the numbers 100 - 199 are Red, 200 - 299 are Green, 300 - 399 Blue, 400 - 499 Brown, 500 - 599 Gold, 600 - 699 Violet, 700 - 799 Black, 800 - 899 Grey, and 900 - 999 are White. I only need the first three colours for the countries.

4. I connected the peg words to the countries and their associated capitals. The first fifteen items on my list are shown below, showing the link from the peg number to the country and then to the capital. Some countries are very small and the names are the same, for example, Monaco, Vatican City and San Marino.

101 -> United Kingdom -> London
102 -> Ireland -> Dublin
103 -> Portugal -> Lisbon
104 -> Spain -> Madrid
105 -> Andorra -> Andorra la Vella
106 -> France ->Paris
107 -> Luxembourg -> Luxembourg
108 -> Monaco -> Monaco
109 -> Belgium -> Brussels
110 -> Netherlands -> Amsterdam
111 -> Germany -> Berlin
112 -> Liechtenstein -> Vaduz
113 -> Switzerland -> Bern
114 -> Austria -> Vienna
115 -> Italy -> Rome

5. The memorisation technique was to take the peg word image for each number, then create an association to the country name. Next I would create an association between country and capital. For example, the peg word for 101 is Tie (as in necktie), and 101 has the modifier of Red. I imagined three kings (UNITED KINGDOM) tied up with a large red necktie and they were puffing up their chests (lungs -> LONDON) trying to escape.

I know some of the capital cities very well, for example, London is the capital of the United Kingdom. Some capitals have tricky spelling so more time was needed to be spent forming association, for exampled Ljubljana is the capital of Slovenia. My image was a packet of jubes being eaten by Jana Wendt, an Australian television reporter.

Here are some more of the associations I created:

104 - red Ra (pharaoh) waving a spanner (SPAIN) madly (MADRID) about

105 - red law -> Red faced judge opening a door (ANDORRA) covered with legal documents opening into a valley (LA VELLA)

106 - red shoe -> Red shoe kicking a soccer ball into the arc de triomphe (FRANCE, PARIS)

107 - red key -> Red key jammed into a bar of LUX soap squeezed between two hamburger buns

108 - red ivy -> Red ivy draped around a monk's neck (MONACO)

109 - red bee -> Red bee stinging a BELGIUM chocolate jammed between two BRUSSEL sprouts

6. How do I create the associations?

I found that I need to be in a relaxed state of mind to devise the associations. What I did was to cut up some cardboard into small pieces, and write the number on one side and the capital and country on the other side. I would take these cards on my walks and work on one card at a time, exploring associations and occasionally writing pencil notes on the card.

Names of countries and capitals need to be converted into memorable images. I try to find a word that reminds me of what I am remembering. For example, San Merino became a Merino sheep. Monaco becomes a MONK, Croatia became a CROW, and Bulgaria became a Bulging Sofa.

One of the big challenges was creating strong images for the foreign words. For example, Skopje sounds like Skippy (or skipping rope). Tbilisi (capital of Georgia) became a cup of Tea sitting on a duck's bill floating on the sea. This image was enough to recall Tbilisi. Abu Dhabi reminded me of Fred Flintstone yelling "Yabba Dabba Doo!".

Creating these associations is a powerful workout for creativity and imagination.

My lunch time and weekend walks are a great place and time for reviewing the cards and building up my memory. In addition I refine the associations for the numbers that were hard to recall.

7. How do I test my knowledge?

As well as learning new information, I needed to review the older material. My cardboard flash cards are great for learning the new material as I usually only carry around 20 - 30 cards. The old cards are bundled with a rubber band, and a little bit clumsy to review. I could review the list from the beginning, but this is not efficient as some of the associations are well remembered and others are not.

I started using a Flashcard program (Mnemosyne) to test my knowledge. This is software that shows you a question, you think about your response, press a button to show the answer, then rate yourself on how well I knew the answer. Based on response to "how well do I recall I answer", the program schedules the card to be shown at a particular interval. Cards I know well get schedulded many days into the future, but the cards I don't know will be scheduled for much sooner. My strategy is to use the Flashcard program every day.

Another advantage of the Flashcard program is that it shows the cards at random. Trying to test myself using the physical cards meant I was seeing the cards in the sequence.

8. Accessing a particular continent

What if I wanted to name all the countries for Asia Pacific? Which number do I start with? For this reason, I have memorised the starting numbers for each continent. I know that United Kingdom (the beginning of Europe) is 101 but Asia Pacific starts at 194. The number 194 can be translated with the Major System to Toe-bar (T-B-R). I imagine an Australian Holden car with a giant toe-bar at the back.

Yesterday I started creating associations for Africa which started at 216. This means I have already learnt 115 countries and capitals, so I am about half way through this project.

Creating strong associations

2009-07-25T15:08:00.001-07:00

In an earlier article about the number rhyme system, I gave examples of how I would make asssociations with the peg words and my shopping list. I had four items to remember: Post a letter, buy a loaf of bread, collect medical benefits from my health fund, and buy a newspaper. The pegwords for the first four numbers are gun, shoe, tree and door.

My suggested associations were walking into the post office and fire bullets at a target on the wall on which was pinned my letter. Using the shoe, I walk on the dough being used to make bread. In the tree, there is a large stethoscope (reminding me of a doctor) hanging from a branch. Attached to this rope-like stethoscope are medical receipts attached with hypodermic needles. For the fourth item on my list, the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald is pasted on a door. The entire door has been wall papered with newspaper.

I received feedback from my friend Dilip Mukerjea (owner of 'Braindancing International' and the Buzan centre in Singapore) encouraging me to create wilder associations. These are his suggestions.

Just a thought for you. I strongly recommend that your associative imagery NOT be as 'logical' as you have depicted. My preference is, for easier recall, that the imagery should be:

Mad (incongruous), NOT at all logical, though you have introjected a certain amount of welcome illogicality (e.g. shoe on the dough. For me it would be shoe on the dough and with each step the dough animatedly metamorphosing from shoeprint into dough shoe in the shape of bread loaves!)

Movement (animated) (e.g. I would prefer the stethoscope if it were going into a manic dance mode, wrapped around a 'medic in the air' (medicare) so that the entire tree was shaking (note the real-time "-ing" factor). Perhaps the stethoscope is dropping off dollar notes for the payment that is due to you.

The medical receipts bit is great. Thus, by this logic also, your number 1, 'gun' could be going 'ballistic' by firing the letter(s) from its barrel into a letter box at the post office as opposed to being static on the wall, being fired at. The animation effect enables recall to be easier as the brain emerged and evolved in response to the need for movement and locomotion.

Multicoloured - get psychedelic and infuse your imagery with dazzling colours.

Multisensory - Have your medical receipts screaming "Pay me! Pay me!" or some such thing. The shoe on the dough could be taking a zigzag pattern and steaming aromatic odours, squeaking melodiously, breathing, changing colours with each breath, etc.

I have made the above four elements easier for you to recall by using the letter 'M' for each of them, so that you can visualise their behaviour - they work very well for me.

Anyway, hope this is of some help. Each person has their own preferences, especially when it comes to activating the association cortex! The above might look elaborate in the beginning but gets 'automatic' in time as you must already know.

My list of 100 peg words

2009-07-22T18:48:00.000-07:00

These are the words I use for the numbers zero to 99. You will need to read my earlier article about the phonetic system for this article to make sense.

I memorised the following list mainly by rote learning. As I reviewed each number, I converted it in my mind to the phonetic equivalent then asked myself "what image did I use for this?". I would think of each vowel in turn (a, e, i, o and u) and would see which word came to mind. For example, 21 could be "nat", "net", "nit", "nut", "knot". I had chosen the word "net". The learning process didn't take too long and was easier than it looked.

If you would like to use this list, I would encourage you to change any word to something more memorable, particularly those words you have trouble recalling. For example 99 has the phonetic equivalent of B/P B/P so you could words like Bib (baby's bib) or bap (a type of bread roll) or pub (have a beer!).

Choose the word that comes to mind quickly. Just be careful you don't have words on your list whose images could be confused. For example, I used to use the word Ball for 94 but this was getting confused with the rounded image of Peach (96). I changed my image for 94 to Bull.

Here is my list with some comments on some of my key images

0 saw a handsaw
1 tie necktie
2 Noah standing on the deck of the Ark
3 ma A large motherly lady
4 Ra Pharaoh
5 law Judge wearing a wig
6 shoe
7 key
8 ivy
9 bee

10 toes
11 tot A baby
12 tan
13 dam
14 tyre
15 towel
16 tissue
17 tack thumb tack
18 dove the bird
19 tap

20 NASA Think of a Space Shuttle
21 net
22 nun
23 gnome garden gnome
24 Nero Roman Emperor - wearing toga
25 nail large nail (not like 17 tack)
26 nachos like a corn chip
27 neck
28 knife
29 nib old fashioned writing implement

30 mace
31 mat
32 moon
33 mummy Egyptian mummy
34 mower Lawn mower
35 mail Letter box
36 match
37 mike microphone
38 mafia Don Corleone
39 map

40 rose
41 rat
42 rain
43 ram
44 rower
45 rail
46 roach
47 rake garden rake
48 roof
49 rope

50 lassoo (some confusion here with 49 rope)
51 lid
52 lion
53 llama
54 lyre
55 lily
56 leech
57 log
58 lava
59 lip

60 cheese
61 sheet
62 chain
63 chime Wind chimes
64 chair
65 cello
66 church
67 cheque
68 sheaf
69 ship

70 case
71 cat
72 can
73 comb
74 car
75 coil
76 cage
77 cake
78 cafe
79 cape

80 fez Moroccan hat
81 foot
82 fan
83 foam
84 fire
85 file
86 fish
87 fag cigarette
88 fife
89 vibe vibraphone

90 bus
91 bat
92 bone
93 bum
94 pear
95 bull large bull with horns
96 peach
97 bike
98 puff of smoke
99 pipe

Remembering the calendar for 2009

2009-07-20T18:51:00.000-07:00

On which day does Christmas fall this year? What about your birthday? How did you work out the answer?

You probably found the nearest calendar, maybe on the computer or your mobile phone then looked up the answer. How long did that take?

How would like to memorise the calendar for one year, just like the image at the top of this article? You can do this by remembering just four words.

Here is the method for working out the day of the week for any date in the current year. This is how I did it for 2009.

1. Write down the date of the first Sunday of each month to make a list of 12 numbers. These are shown in red in the calendar above. The dates for 2009 are 4,1,1,5,3,7, 5,2,6,4,1 and 6.

2. Separate the numbers into four chunks of 3 digits, therefore: 411, 537, 526 and 416.

3. Convert the four 3-digit numbers into phonetic equivalents using the Major System. I used the 2Know program to derive the phrase: "aerated oilymuck lunch radish". How do I remember this? I image myself sitting down to lunch staring at a bowl of bubbling (AERATED) soup that looks like used engine oil (OILYMUCK). I am forced to eat this for LUNCH with a large red RADISH on top.

4. To find the date for any date is just a matter of recalling the number of the month by first recalling the appropriate word, in this case RADISH (R-D-SH). December is SH which is the equivalent for 6. Therefore the first Sunday of December is the 6th, so you have a starting point for calculations. The second Sunday will be the 13th (6 + 7), the next Sunday the 20th (13 + 7). Count forward 5 days and you reach Friday.

You should be able to perform the last step in less than a couple of seconds. People will soon start calling you the walking calendar. As well as developing your memory skills, this technique will give your arithmetic skills a further workout.

The Major System

2009-07-18T18:19:00.000-07:00

The Major system is a memory technique for remembering numbers of arbitrary length. It works by converting numbers into consonant sounds which are then converted into recognisable words by adding vowels.

These words can then be memorised easily particularly when used in conjunction with other memory techniques. The system is not new and was introduced by Stanislaus Mink von Wennshein (1620 - 1699) and refined by others with the most recent work by Harry Lorayne, author of many popular Memory improvement books.

Here is the table of numbers and how they convert to letters. The conversion is phonetic so you will notice the choice of letters sound roughly similar.

0 s, z, soft c
1 t, d, th
2 n
3 m
4 r
5 l
6 j, sh, soft ch, dg, soft g
7 k, hard ch, hard g, ng, qu
8 f, v
9 b, p

The vowels (a, e, i, o, u) and the letters h, w and y do not have any associated number so they can be used as fillers or "wild cards" to make the words.

The first step in using the Major System is to memorise the substitute letters. This is quite easy:

0 - Zero sounds like s or c. 'o' is the last letter of zero
1 - The letters D and T have one downstroke
2 - The letter N has two downstrokes
3 - The letter M has three downstrokes
4 - The last letter of four is R
5 - The letter L can be thought of as the Roman L meaning 50 or a hand spread with five fingers, the index finger and thumb forming an image.
6 - The letter J is the mirror image of 6
7 - The letter K when seen as a capital contains three number 7s
8 - The letter F when handwritten, has two loops, similar to the number 8.
9 - The letters B and P are mirror imags of 9.

So how do you convert a number into a word?

Write the letters for each word in sequence but leave some spacew between them. If there are choices of letter for a number write them above each other. Now look at the letters and see what words you can make by adding vowels or the "wild card" letters.

I memorised my building access code of 3702 as follows. The number translated to M K S N. This made me think of "moccasin". Now I just imagine a moccasin sitting on top of the security number pad. I haven't worked in that building since December 2001, and I still remember the code!

Telephone numbers can be remembered easily. For example, the NRMA Roadside Assistance number is 13 11 11. This translates to T/D M T/D T/D/ T/D. I thought of "auToMaTeD DuD" as the mnemonic. My car is automatic transmission but since it doesn't work, it is now a dud.

The major system is the basis of a larger number peg system. A substitute word is chosen for each number from 0 to 99. The best way to choose the words is to see which word comes to mind when you translate the number into letters. For example, 7 is K or G. How about "key"?

My first ten numbers and associated words are:

0 saw (imagine a handsaw for cutting wood)
1 tie (necktie)
2 Noah (Noah standing on the ark)
3 ma (A large woman wearing an apron)
4 Ra (Looks like a pharaoh mask)
5 law (Imagine a judge's wig)
6 shoe (brown leather shoe)
7 key (a large, old fashioned key)
8 ivy (a vine of ivy)
9 bee (a large bumblebee)

I have developed my own list of words up to 99 which I can give you if you are interested.

Thinking of words can be challenging at times, but I get help using the 2Know program. Type in the number and the program suggests substitute words from its extensive dictionary. The program is free!

SMASHIN' SCOPE

2009-07-18T17:08:00.001-07:00

In an earlier post I wrote about the three foundation pillars to Memory: Association, Image and Location. These can be remembered with the image of Muhammid Ali.

Memory works by ASSOCIATING new information with stored memories in some imaginary LOCATION. The stronger the image (using all the senses if possible) the more ways the IMAGE can be associated and later recalled.

Tony Buzan writes in his book "Master Your Memory" about 12 special techniques for strengthening your skills of making strong images and assocations. The first letter of these techniques spells the phrase SMASHIN' SCOPE.

Synesthesia and Sensuality. Synesthesia (also spelled synaesthesia) is from the Ancient Greek "syn" meaning together and "aisthesis" meaning sensation. Many great memorisers have developed an increased sensitivity in each of their senses to enhance their powers of association and recall. Use all of your senses when developing an image

Vision - What does it look like? Colour? Brightness? What can you see?
Hearing - What does it sound like?
Smell - What is the smell? Perfume? Pungent? Chemical?
Taste - Describe the taste sensation
Touch - What does it feel like? Textures?

Kinaesthesia - awareness of bodliy position and movement in space

Movement - action enhances a memory. Make your images alive and moving as if they were scenes from a movie.

Association - What you are trying to remember should be associated with something you already know. Typically, this known item is a peg in your number system, or a location on an imaginary journey.

Sexuality. We all have a good memory and wild imagination when it comes to sex, so use it! You don't have to tell anyone that you used strong sexual imagery to remember something.

Humour - the more ridiculous, absurb, funny and surreal you make your images, the more memorable they will become. Humour puts your mind into a playful state making you more creative and open to new possibilities.

Imagination. The images you create in your mind can be as fantastic and wild as you like. Unlike a big-budget Hollywood film, you can create blockbuster images in your memory.

Number. Numbering adds specifity and efficiency to the principle of order and sequence.

Symbolism. Substituting a more meaningful image for an ordinary or boring image makes a stronger memory. I think this letter could stand for Substitution where you use a different, but associated image to aid recall. For example, in remembering the countries of the world, I used the word Bratwurst (a type of meat) to help me remember Bratislava (the capital of the Slovak Republic).

Colour - Use all the colours of the rainbow to colour your image (remember Roy G Biv?). Don't make your associations just in black and white - make them full technicolor.

Order (or Sequence). When items are memorised in a sequence, you can recall the items by taking a mental journey through this sequence.

Positive Images - make your images positive and pleasant. We are better at recalling happy images and negative memories are usually suppressed. When your images are bright and positive you will enjoy the experience of recalling them.

Exaggeration. As far as possible, exaggerate everything in your images. Exaggerate the size, action, colours, sounds and quantities.

Some of the information in this articles is from Chapter 4 of "Master Your Memory" by Tony Buzan, published in 2000.

The Number Rhyme System

2009-07-18T16:10:00.000-07:00

Our lives are full of numbers. Telephone numbers, building access codes, PIN numbers for our bank cards, passport number, and so on. The problem with numbers is they are not easy to visualise and remember. You probably remembered your telephone number by rote learning.

Numbers are just numbers. They don't have personality or strong visual imagery. This is where the number rhyme scheme comes into play - a system where each number from 0 to 10 has an associated rhyming word.

Say the numbers from 0 to 10 out loud and see which word comes to mind. The drawing above shows the numbers that came to my mind along with a drawing of that image. Here are the numbers and words:

0 - Hero (hence the superhero)
1 - Gun
2 - Shoe
3 - Tree
4 - Door
5 - Hive (a bee hive)
6 - sticks
7 - heaven
8 - gate
9 - wine
10 - hen

Now that I have a series of strong mental images, I can use them as mental pegs for making associations. The items to be remembered are associated with the number rhyme image and the item to be remembered.

This system is very useful for when you suddenly think of something you need to do. For example, once when I was on a walk I remembered a few things I needed to do. I associated each item with a number in sequence and I don't need to write anything down. However I start the numbering from one (the gun).

For example, if I wanted to remember the following chores to do at the shops:
Post a letter (1)
Buy a loaf of bread (2)
Visit the Medicare office to submit a medical expense claim (3)
Buy a newspaper (4).

I could imagine the following associations: Using the GUN, I walk into the post office and fire bullets at a target on the wall. My LETTER is pinned on this target. Using the SHOE, I walk on the dough being used to make BREAD. In the TREE, there is a large stethoscope (reminding me of a doctor) hanging from a branch. Attached to this rope-like stethoscope are medical receipts attached with hypodermic needles. On the DOOR is pasted the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald. The entire door has been wall papered with newspaper.

So how do I remember these items when I go out to lunch? First I think of gun. What am I doing with the gun? Shooting in the post office (going postal?) What am I doing with the shoe? Walking the dough. I think you get the idea. Creating vivid associations helps make the associations memorable.

The number rhyme system is a useful method of remembering short lists of items for relatively short periods of time. You can't use the list for multipled lists as your memories will get jumbled. There are other systems for doing this, such as the Major System and the Dominic Number system which I will write about later.

There is also a number shape system where the key images are derived from the shape of the number. For example, one looks like a candle and four looks like a yacht. I will write about this system in a later post.

Mnemonics

2009-07-16T04:13:00.001-07:00

Do you know Roy G Biv? He is the fictitious man whose name is a mnemonic for remembering the colours of the rainbow - Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo and Violet.

A mnemonic is a technique used to help remember and recall information. The word mnemonic is from the Greek word mnemonikos which refers to Mnemosyne, the personification of memory in Greek mythology.

Mnemonics are usually based on a word, name, acronym, rhyme or short sentence.
First letter mnemonics encode the information to be remembered as the first letter of a name or word, such as ROY G BIV.

Another example is the mnemonic for remembering attributes of goals: SMART. The letters standing for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time-Bound. The problem with these first letter mnemonics is being able to recall the word if there are many similar words with the same first letter.

I recently learnt a mnemonic for remembering the states of Canada from West to East: BASMOQ (British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec).

Sentence mnemonics encode the information as the first letter of each word in a memorable sentence. I prefer this method as the imagery of the action is more memorable.

The colours of the rainbow can also be learnt as Richard of York Gave Battle in Vain. Personally, I prefer ROY G BIV.

I learnt the names of the Great Lakes in America as Some Men Have Early Onions (Superior, Michigan, Huon, Erie and Ontario). It is a silly sentence but I have remembered it for over 35 years.

When I learnt piano, my teacher used mnemonics to teach the names of the notes on a treble clef: Every Good Boy Deserves Fruit (EGBDF) and FACE for the notes between the lines. On the Bass Clef, the lines are Good Boys Deserve Fruit Always, and the notes been the lines are All Cows Eat Grass.

I devised a mnemonic to remember the order of letters in the Japanese syllabary (Hiragana and Katakana): A Kind Samurai Told Naomi How My Yak Ran Wild. This allows me to remember the first letter in each row: A, Ka, Sa, Ta, Na, Ha, Ma, Ya, Ra, Wa. What about N and O?

Rhyme Mnemonics are short verses or poems to help remember information. The earliest one I learnt was to remember the number of days in the month.

30 days hath September,
April, June and November
All the rest have 31
Except February, 28

The first two lines are the most useful part of the verse and I still use this mnemonic. I know February has 28 days and 29 days in leap years, so I only need to know which months have 30 days.

Another rhyme I learnt in Primary school was In fourteen ninety two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue. This is not much use as all it tells me is a year. I don't know where Columbus went or why!

I use the rhyme of I before E except after C to determine spelling of words receive and sieve. Another spelling mnemonic was to determine the difference between principal (head of a school) and principle: The principal is your pal (friend)

Mnemonics are good for recall as well as fun and a quick way to recall information. I don't use them much but it is good mental exercise to devise them.

Here is an exercise that shows how the alphabet can help you recall all the boys (or girls) names you can recall in a limited name. Decide whether you are going to recall boys' or girls' names.

1. Set a timer for 2 minutes.

2. Write as many names as you can.

Reflect on how you recalled these names. Did you think of people you worked with? Your friends? People from your school days?

3. Now write the letters of the alphabet, set the timer for another 2 minutes then write a name against each letter of the alphabet.

What sort of names did you think of immediately for each letter? Which letters did you get stuck on thinking of name. What Boys names begin with Y? Which Girls names begin with X?

4. Set the timer for another 2 minutes and write more names against the letters in any order you like.

Were the names you had already written useful in generating more associations?

Did you notice how the first letter is like a piece of bait used in "fishing" for ideas? I will have more to say on this topic in a future blog article about a book (and software program) called Ideafisher.

Do you have some fun mnemonics? What mnemonics have you used in your life? Please share in the comments.

1. Read more about Mnemosyne , Mnemonics and SMART Criteria at Wikipedia.

The Journey Memory Method

2009-07-13T04:59:00.000-07:00

The Journey memory method is straight-forward. You assign the items you want to remember to locations on a predefined journey. Each item needs to be associated with the location using a strong mental image, and employing all five senses.

The system is also known as the Locus or Loci method since the method has been documented as far back as Ancient Rome. Orators would imagine key images of their speeches at different locations around the room.

The journey should be familiar to you and easy to recall. For example, I have a journey in my house with the following stages:

1. Bedroom
2. En suite bathroom
3. The TV/Hifi entertainment area
4. Bookshelf area
5. Toilet
6. Laundry
7. Kitchen
8. Dining Room
9. Front Lounge Room
10. Entrance Hall

I could continue my journey outside for longer lists:

11. Front Porch
12. Car port
13. On the driveway
14. At the letterbox
15. On the road outside our house
16. At the intersection of our street
17. At the bus stop
18. At the bottom of the hill on Finlay Road
19. At the intersection with the highway
20. At the railway station.

In Dominic O'Brien's Quantum Memory Power CD set, he gave a list of items to remember. I listened to this list once over 8 days ago without revision and I can still remember most of the items.

The first item was "Wallet" so I imagined a very large wallet on my bed,as big as the bedspread. The third item was "snake" and I imagined a very large snake draped over our lounge chair watching television. The fourth item was "screwdriver" which I imagined jammed into the bookcase. The fifth item was "peach" and I imagined a very large juicy peach on top of our toilet.

I wont recount the remaining items I remember but the act of using strong images of the item being remembered with some action at the place on the journey, makes a very powerful recall technique.

O'Brien offers other suggestions for Journeys including a 31 step journey for memorising your calendar, and journey in a holiday destination (or some other pleasurable place) to use as a mental in tray. His suggestion for forgetting one of the associations is to take a mental hand grenade and blow up the item.

In summary, the Journey method is very effective and only requires you devise some mental journeys to place the things you want to remember. You can have a lot of fun exercising your imagination to make make the items you are remembering associate with the stages on your journey. Use all of the senses - sight, sound, taste, touch and smell. Imagine your association using all of the senses and your recall will be so much better.

I already know my house journey, but I need to work on my 31 step journey for a calendar/diary and another journey for memorising speeches!

Rote Learning - Good or bad?

2009-07-12T05:13:00.000-07:00

Do you recognise the "Times Tables" from your primary school days? This chart is printed on the back of exercise books for the benefit of struggling school students.

Much of the learning I did in primary school was through rote learning. This is a common memory technique where the material is repeated again and again until is is drilled into long term memory.

Do you remember learning the alphabet and using songs and rhymes to help you remember the sequence of letters? Maybe you used to sing the alphabet song:

A - B - C - D - E - F - G
H - I - J - K - L - M - N - O - P
Q - R - S - T - U and V,
W - X - Y and Z
Now I know my A - B - C's
Next time won't you sing with me?

The idea of rote learning is that if you repeat it often enough, you will recall it. I'm sure you can recite the alphabet from A to Z. But what you learnt was reciting it in the forward direction. Here is an experiment: Time yourself reciting the alphabet from A to Z, then try it again from Z to A. What you learnt was a chain of associations from A to B, B to C and so on util Y to Z. You didn't learn the alphabet in reverse so the recall is much more challenging.

The "times table" was probably the biggest learning challenge in primary school along with learning the spelling of words. I think rote learning is necessary in the early stages of learning anything as the foundation of knowledge is not present. Mathematics often requires learning things "by rote" with understanding coming later. Regular revision and games helps reinforce the memory and systems such as Kumon and Mathletics (used in my daughter's school).

Rote learning can be fun when it is made into a game or competition. Learning to spell words is a matter of repetion and revision, and a Spelling Bee is a popular way of proving one's spelling memory. I am proud to say that both my daughters did very well at spelling in primary school and won awards for spelling.

My daughter's school put on the "25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee" musical in 2009. She played cello in the band, and I must say the production was magnificent and the music most enjoyable. Have a look at the online game: as well as reading more about spelling bees at Wikipedia.

Rote Learning is sometimes referred to as learning "parrot fashion", or learning "off by heart". It does work, but the problem is the material is not assimilated with other knowledge or it can be distorted. Try learning a phone number, long quotation or poem "off by heart" then test your recall a few days later. Your recall won't be as strong as using memory techniques (mnemonics) based on association, location and imagination.

When I was in high school I decided to learn the Greek alphabet "off by heart" and was able to recite "Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta.... through to Omega". More recently I learnt the upper case and lower case Greek letters. Considering these letters are used in mathematics I thought it is useful to know the names and shapes of these letters.

I taught myself the Katakana and Hiragana Japanese syllabaries by rote learning and it was a long, painful process. When my older daughter learnt Japanese at school she had a book that taught these characters using visual mnemonics. If only I had this book when I first started. Hiragana and Katakana are just the beginning to reading Japanese. There are thousands of Kanji characters to learn and I continue to be amazed that Japanese school children learn to read and write these characters.

We remember a lot of material as a result of hearing it repeatedly. For example, songs and their lyrics, especially the National Anthem. Many pieces of information get imprinted in our memory as "trivia" - information that has no practical purpose or relevance in our lives, but extremely valuable in Trivia contests and Pub Quiz nights.

A useful way of revising material learnt by rote-learning is to use flash cards. These are cards with the question written on one side and the answer on another. I regularly use flash cards (3 x 5 inch index cards) or software to do the job. The advantage of using the computer is that the program remembers which cards you got correct, which cards should be shown in the near future as well as shuffling the cards.

Therefore rote learning is a memory technique that sometimes has to be used, but more advanced memory techniques should be used once the foundation knowledge is established.

Please tell me about your rote learning experiences in the comments below then read more on Rote Learning at Wikipedia

Remembering titles of Harry Potter books

2009-07-09T05:12:00.000-07:00

I was having coffee with a friend this week and we were trying to recall the titles of all the Harry Potter books. I could remember the first three but the remaining titles became a blur. So I decided to memorise the titles and demonstrate how this is done with a simple story based on Association and Imagination.

The important thing to remember is that the information is known to me. I have read the books and know the titles, but I don't remember the sequence. My little story that helps me remember the sequence is a mnemonic.

First of all, the titles of the books are:

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallow

Each book begins with "Harry Potter and the..." so I just need to remember the second part of the title. Here is my story which I created by imagining the action and linking things together:

Harry Potter carries the PHILOSOPHERS STONE down into the CHAMBER OF SECRETS. The door slams loudly and he realises he is now a PRISONER OF AZKABAN. He turns his wand into a cigarette lighter and lights the
GOBLET OF FIRE. The flames rush up and a GOLDEN PHOENIX appears holding an ORDER pad (like a waiter). As the phoenix bursts into flames, HALF of its BLOOD pours onto the floor to form a DEATHLY HALLOWED puddle.

So what do you think of that story? Read it out loud as if you were entertaining a child. Can you recall the book titles in sequence? Think of some lists you would like to remember. I'm going to remember the films of Stanley Kubrick.

ALI - The three foundations of memory

2009-07-09T04:49:00.001-07:00

The three foundations of memory are Association, Location and Imagination. Dominic O'Brien in his "Quantum Memory Power" CD memory course suggests the acronym of ALI (as in Muhammed Ali) to remember these three words.

Association - An association is a mental link between two disparate items. Memory techniques require us to force associations between items that usually have no connection. This is where the fun and creativity of memory are required, and is a skill you need to practice regularly.

Location - Items to be remembered need to be stored in a place set aside in your mind. There are many ways to do this, but the oldest method is to use your memory of a physical locations, such as the rooms in your house. More abstract locations are pegs such as numbers and I will write more about the number-rhyme, number-shape, and major systems in later articles.

Imagination - effective memory requires us to convert the information we are trying to remember into something that can be experienced in a number of different ways and stimulating the senses. For example, remembering "apple" requires you to imagine the appearance and colour of the apple, the taste as you take you a bite, and so on. Using the Imagination we can go further and imagine the object interacting with what we are associating it with, maybe exaggerating its size or shape. Giving life and movement to inanimate objects will help create a stronger impression.

What is memory?

2009-07-08T04:50:00.000-07:00

Memory is our ability to store, retain and recall information.

This is the basis of a large part of our education and our daily life. We rememember how to tie our shoe laces, how to get dressed. We remember our own name and that of others. As we live each day, we remember information, feelings and experiences.

I work in the software industry, so when I apply my information processing view of the world, I see memory as consisting of three stages:

1. Encoding the information - receiving and processing the information
2. Storing the information - creating a permanent record of the information in my long term memory, usually by associating it with something I already know.
3. Retrieval or Recall of the information - accessing the information in response to some cue or request.

I am going to write about all three aspects of memory in my blog, but the major focus will be ways to store the information. Often our "bad memory" problems can be caused by not getting the information to begin with. Consider the situation of being introduced to someone. You are so busy worrying what you are going to say, that you don't hear the introduction. Later you realise you don't know the person's name because you never got it to begin with!

The are three broad types of memory:

Sensory memory occurs less than on second after an item is perceived. However the information is forgotten almnost as quickly as it is received/

Short-term memory allows recall for a short period of time without rehearsal. Rehearsal is when we repeat the information to create a stronger impression. George Miller's work at Bell Laboraties showed that the short term memory is about 7 items. Think about how you remember a telephone number or a person's address. The capacitiy of short-term memory can be increased through a process of chunking, for example grouping telephone numbers in chunks of 3 digits.

Long-term memory can store large quantities of information for potentially unlimited durations. The long-term memory is encoded in the connections in our neurons. Mew memories are associated with older memories as a result of more neuron connections. That's why you can remember things better if you have multiple ways to associate the new information. There will be more ways to "file" the information.

Memory techniques are primarily aimed at improving the Long-Term memory system.

More information at Wikipedia in the article on Memory

What do I need to remember?

2009-07-08T03:45:00.000-07:00

In the 21st century with the abundance of iPhones, Blackberries, laptop computers, mobile phones as well as beautiful Moleskine notebooks, you would think our memory skills are no longer required. There are many situations in life when we need to use our mental ability and not to rely on external storage systems.

Names and Faces - Dealing with people is part of life - personal and business. When we meet people we need to be able to remember their name to use during the conversation and when we see them again. I meet so many people who say "I'm hopeless with remembering names!". I will show you how to master this important skill.

Vocabulary - The ability to understand and use words in conversation as well as recognising words when we read is the foundation of education. The more words we know, the better.

Security information - Our bank cards have a PIN (Personal Identification Number) and we are required to memorise the number and not write it down. How do you remember the numbers of several cards? Building access codes, Internet banking, etc.

Your passport number - Imagine you are travelling overseas and all your valuables are stolen including your paper notebook with your important details. You contact your embassy and you able to tell them your passport number because you have memorised it.

Speeches and Presentations - Delivering a speech from memory is an important skill. I am a member of a Toastmasters club and always deliver my speeches from memory. I don't actually memorise every word, but remember keywords and how the parts of the speech are linked. Usually I memorise the opening and closing sentences word-for-word as this gives great impact. I will blog later about speeches and talks.

Jokes and Stories - The Internet (email in particular) has killed the oral tradition of telling jokes. Revive the lost skill of oral storytelling and commit humour to memory then retell the story with your personal touch.

General Knowledge - I am currently working on the task of remembering all the countries and capitals of the world. This information gives me the framework for understanding current affairs and world events. Have you ever heard an unfamiliar country name in a news report and didn't know where it was? Could you visualise each country as the Olympic athlete teams march on to the arena with their flags? Once you have a framework of world knowledge in your memory, then you can associate more information.