Brain Bites

 Believe it or not

You can be a memory champion

Om Baniya

Have you ever seen or heard about people who can effortlessly remember huge list of words or numbers? Have you read elsewhere the stories of memory champions like Tony Buzan, Hary Lorayne, Dominic O’Brien, Rajan Mahadevan and Christiane Stenger and even ancient poet Simonides and and the great Russian mnemonist, Solomon Veniaminovich Shereshevsky, better known as Russian S,  who have phenomenal memory? And, would you want to be a memory champion like them? Believe it or not, you can be a memory champion, too!!!. But the first thing you need to do is to come up with a memory system, called mnemonics that helps you remember any things.

Perhaps S was the most famous mnemonist (Mnemonist is a person who demonstrates extraordinarily keen memory ability, usually based on using special techniques for memory enhancement.) of the 20^th century. In the book, The Mind of a Mnemonist, Russian Neuropsychologist Dr. A.R. Luria states that one day S appeared in his Lab and asked to have his memory tested. Dr. Luria tested him. He discovered that the man’s memory appeared to have virtually no limits. S could retrieve extremely long strings of words, regardless of how much time had passed since the words had been presented to him. Dr. Luria studied him for 30 years. He found that even when S’s retention was measured 15 or 16 years after a session in which S had learned words, S still could retrieve the words. S eventually became a professional entertainer. He dazzled audiences with his ability to recall whatever was asked of him.  

What was S’s trick? How did he remember so much? Apparently, he relied heavily on the mnemonic of visual imagery. He simply converted material that he needed to remember into visual images. For example, he reported that when asked to remember the world red, he would visualize a red apple. Number called up images. For example; 1 was a pen. The number 2 was a Duck. The number 5 was a hook, and so on. 

This is an example of mnemonics. The term  ‘mnemonics’, which refers to the art of improving memory, derives from the name Mnemosyne, the Greek goddess of memory, mnemonics are the strategies for placing information into an organized context in order to remember it. A mnemonic is merely a coding system, a filing cabinet for the brain. Ancient Greeks developed Mnemonics. In ancient world, a trained memory was an immense asset, particularly in public life. There were no convenient devices for taking notes, and early Greek orator delivered long speeches with great accuracy because they learned the speeches using Mnemonics systems.

 

Generally mnemonics can be divided into the two groups, verbal mnemonics and visual mnemonics.

Verbal Mnemonics: Verbal mnemonics helps you remember information by encoding it using words. Some popular types of verbal mnemonics are mentioned below.

Acrostic Method: Acrostics are phrases (or poems) in which the first letter of each word (or line) functions as a cue to help you recall information to be remembered. For example, Run Off You Great Big Invisible Vampire. For remembering the colours of Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet.

Acronym Method: Acronym is a method in which the first letter is used from a group of words to form a new word. For example, NPA, Nepalese Psychological Association, CD-ROM, Compact Disk-Read Only Memory.

Story Method: Another useful way to remember a list of words is to create a story that includes the words in the appropriate order.

Rhymes Method: Another verbal mnemonic that people often rely on is a rhyming­­—you’re probably repeated, ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star’ thousands of times. Perhaps you also remember the number of days in each month with the old standby, thirty days hath September…Rhyming something to remember it is an old and useful trick.

Visual mnemonics:

            Visual mnemonics is based on visual imagery. It is more powerful than verbal mnemonics. Some popular forms of visual mnemonics are described below shortly.

The liked Method:

The Linked or Chained Method is one of the simplest forms of verbal mnemonics yet it is very flexible and effective. The terms are used interchangeably and refer to the same system. This method works especially well with an ordered sequence of arbitrary items as unrelated words. For example, you have to remember four items: Frog, chair and Cigarette. Imagine the gigantic frog sitting on a chair, or a large frog being used a chair. Chair smoking a huge cigarette. Once you have memorized the items in this way, you can easily recall them in order by simply taking your mental walk again. The method clearly works and is a favourite among people who perform memory feats professionally.

 

The key word Method: 

The key word Method is also useful for learning words in other language. Suppose that you had to learn that Spanish word ‘Pato’ means duck. The key word method has two steps. The first is to find a part of the other word that sound like an English word. Since pato is pronounced, roughly, pot could serve as the key word. The next step is to form an image that connects the key word and the English equivalent—for example, a giant duck. In a test on translating from English to Spanish, this would be reversed—duck would remind you pot, which would remind you pato.

 

The peg Method: 

The Peg Method or Hook Method is one of the most useful visual mnemonics. Like all mnemonics devices the Peg System uses visual imagery to provide a hook or peg from which to hang or associate memories. There are different forms of Peg Systems. Some of them are: The number Shape system, The Number Rhyme System, The Roman Room System, Vedic Peg System and The Alphabet System. The Alphabet System is the most powerful and useful Peg system of mnemonics.

The techniques mentioned above take some effort and practice to use, but research suggests that the effort may be worthwhile. So, with the constant practice of mnemonics you’ll soon be able to memorize long list of words, numbers, even more complicated or abstract ones and you can be a memory champion, too!!! (Dr Baniya is a Psychotherapist and a Certified CogMed Coach)