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Records Smashed at (Human) Memory Championship
Pika the Mad writes "Wired News has a neat story about the recent U.S.A. National Memory Championship.'The finalists competed in three brand-new recall events that forced them to remember and recite aloud random words, personality characteristics of guests at a fictional tea party and the order of cards in two decks of playing cards, parroting answers in front of a crowd of onlookers, photographers and video cameras.'
The winner claims that in the world finals he'll be competing against people who can memorize an entire deck of cards in 30 seconds."
One of the memory techniques I've seen used before for learning a set of random objects was to place them in a common thing, such as going to work in the morning. This also has the advantage of being able to recall in sequence. For example, say the first four random items were an alarm clock, a banana, a mouse (squeeky type, not computer type), and a spoon, you might remember something like:
'I woke up to my Alarm Clock, which also had a banana on top, which was weird. Sitting up in my bed, I saw a mouse hanging from the end of my bed. I grabbed a spoon to try remove it...'
Obviously depending on how much you have to remember and what you have to remember the amout of extra story can be shortend to nearly the key items, but as long as you can remember the story in whole, there's little to stop you from realling out a list of items.
When I had my dyslexia test done, one of the tests there was to listen to a set of numbers, and wait 10 seconds, then repeate them. I then also had to do it again in reverse with a diffrent set of numbers; the number of digits getting longer with each try. The way I managed to do well in it was to see the numbers in front of me, as if they were neon signs, and then make them dissapear when I had said them. This also allowed me to read them off in any order. Normally the sweetspot for recall is 7, plus or minus two items. I managed to make it to 11 digits in order, 9 in reverse, which is fairly good.
I would wager that people who learn sequences of things would have techniques similar to this.
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"Thirty days hath..."
I never learned the rhyme. What I learned was
1. Make a fist and look at the back of your hand.
2. Start with the knuckly on the left. That's elevated, so January has 31 days.
3. The gap between the first and second knuckles is recessed, so Feb. does not.
4. Continue like this until your last knuckle. Then start over again on the left. (July and August both have 31.)
Today's "Slate" has a link to an older article about that.
It was, in fact, written by the guy who won it, so he may know
what he's talking about.
http://www.slate.com/id/2114925/
2*3*3*3*3*11*251
One that I learned from a memory-enhancement tape was cool...you can memorize any sequence of numbers and attach that memory to any object (for instance, you could memorize everyone you know's address, birthday and phone number, with a little work) - simply by using a list you devise of words that fit numbers. For instance, if your list is "One - bun, two - glue, three - tree" and you need to remember that Joe's birthday is 1/23, you would imagine Joe eating a bun, which was filled with glue, and getting stuck to a tree.
The concept is that visual memory is more permanent than verbal memory, especially when the image is striking or weird (they tell you to be as freaky as you can with the images you concoct). Having tried this for several things, I can say that it works great - I don't have an especially good memory, but I can remember a grocery list, serial number, or what-have-you pretty reliably with this trick.
BTW, a good fictional treatment of the "original" Greek concept of the mnemonic device is in the book (book, not movie) Hannibal. His exceptional memory, like that of many savants, is tied to a very large, cohesive visual-image archive "in his head" - in his case, a mansion where every object represents something that he wanted to remember. That's a known thing that many people with very impressive memories do.
-PD
"If we don't change direction soon, we'll end up where we're going." - Prof. Irwin Corey
He finds analytical problems difficult because his vivid memories get in the way. He also appears to be scattered but this is an illusion: he's merely more aware of the moment than a normal person is.
He became a lawyer, where his memory and vivid visualization skills sometimes help.
His story is very interesting, and more than a little sad. After performing for years as a mnemonist, he became unable to distinguish between recent conversations and those which happened long ago -- but which he still recalled perfectly. Desperately trying to forget the never-ending lists of words, he wrote them down on paper which he then burned. He ended up in an asylum.
It doesn't sound like much fun to me.
Maybe because the world's problems can't be solved by memorizing playing cards. Just because they're good at rote memorization does not necessarily make them better at anything else. They'd probably have a slightly easier time in medical school but other than that I don't see what you would have them do.
My memory is definately not photographic as in faces and landscapes, but is excellent at text, numbers and things that can be broken down as such, for example an UI or a roadmap. School was trivial with a memory like that. For example in programming it is excellent to remember the base libs, the classes, members and workflow of the project I'm working on. At work (no, I don't program for a living) I recall where what documents are related, and where I put them. You wouldn't believe the overhead many people have just in keeping track of that. In short, it might not be an end-all, you're probably not going to be a bright genius that solves world problem, but it makes the average day a lot easier. That's at least my experience.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings