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."

Comments

Mnemonic Devices

[eldavojohn]

So, when I was younger, we were encouraged to use mnemonic devices (such as "My Very Educated Mother Just Showed Us Nine Planets"). But I've also heard from critics of the process that they just provide more clutter in the scheme of memorizing things.

I guess I've always thought of them as indexes for remembering things. You're storing more information but the keys are easier for you to remember and they hold within them something meaningful about the data.

Oddly, though, often the most bizarre mnemonic devices work the best as the Wikipedia article states:

A curious characteristic of many memory systems is that mnemonic devices work despite being (or possibly because of being) illogical, arbitrary, and artistically flawed. "Roy" is a legitimate first name, but there is no actual surname "Biv" and of course the middle initial "G" is arbitrary. Why is "Roy G. Biv" easy to remember? Medical students never forget the arbitrary nationalities of the Finn and German. Any two of the three months ending in -ember would fit just as euphoniously as September and November in "Thirty days hath...", yet most people can remember the rhyme correctly for a lifetime after having heard it once, and are never troubled by doubts as to which two of the -ember months have thirty days. A bizarre arbitrary association may stick in the mind better than a logical one.

For an article with a little more information, check out the NYTimes coverage.

Unfortunately, the Wired article only gives us one line sentences from the contestants like:

"It really helps us a lot in school," she [Erin Luley] said.

"(Media presence) makes it more nerve-wracking," said finalist Chester Santos from San Francisco.

"I really did not expect to win," Foer said. "I thought maybe I'd crack the top five."

Wired, that is pure journalistic gold. Perhaps you'd like to rail them with another question like, "What do you like to do for fun with your friends?"

I'm sure it helps you in school, what I want to know is how in the hell do you do that? Does anyone on Slashdot know if people who win these competitions actually use mnemonic devices or are they just gifted savants?

Re:Mnemonic Devices

[NeoThermic]

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.

NeoThermic

Re:Mnemonic Devices

[hey!]

Well, that's what happens when you design a computer has a three bit working memory address bus on one hand, but on the other has literally billions of switches dedicated to pattern matching and special purpose retrieval functions.

Re:Mnemonic Devices

[vondo]

"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.)

Re:Mnemonic Devices

[mdf356]

There is an article in this month's Discover about it. It doesn't appear to be online.

For the cards, for example, each card is associated with three things: a subject, a verb, and a direct object, I believe. You memorize a deck of cards by getting 3 cards at a time, and combining the subject for the first, verb of the second, and direct object of the third into a triplet. The actions and objects don't need to make senes; they just need to be memorable to you.

The order of the triplets is then memorized by contructing a mental path down which one walks and encouters each triplet in order.

Similar techniques work for memorizing digits of pi or memorizing strings of random numbers.

People who are good at one type of memory (deck of cards, say) aren't necessarily good at another type, indicating this is training and not innate talent. Some of the champs spend up to 30 minutes every day practicing memory tricks.

Cheers, Matt

Re:Mnemonic Devices

[Quirk]

I post a link to the book below everytime the subject comes up on /. Luria's treatment of the subject matter is a good overview and shows the potential downside to such gifts. I met one woman who gift was equal to those described in the article. She had no training and simply had the gift. I have an above average memory that serves me well but I find the majority of people become bored when I start to itemize particulars. My parents and sibling smile indulgently at me then carry on a conversation roundly ignoring my detailing.

I've studied various mnemonic methods. The ancient greeks used an empty stadium as a mnemonic device then would 'seat' items to be remembered in the stadium seats.

Luria, A. R. (Aleksandr Romanovich) The Mind of a Mnemonist: A Little Book about a Vast Memory

Re:Mnemonic Devices

[pUr3d0xYk]

Everyone who makes money off of it says that the skill can be learned. There are people who have it naturally (including one guy I've read about who lacks the ability to forget anything--which really makes his life hell); but I have known people who got very impressive results simply from mnemonic tricks.

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

Re:Mnemonic Devices

[PetiePooo]

It's thirty days hath september, april, june, and november.

No, no. Its, "Thirty days hath September. All the rest I can't remember."

Re:Mnemonic Devices

[Dachannien]

And you've got knuckles left over, so in the event that Thirteenember and Fourteenuary are ever added to the calendar, you're still good to go.

A deck of cards? That's it?

[brian0918]

Sure, they can memorize a deck of cards, but can they learn the lyrics to It's the End of the World as We Know it?

that's nice

[Loconut1389]

but when are the mammary championships?

Isn't this just...

[Billosaur]

...a competition for people with eidetid memory? It seems if you have a so-called photographic memory, then most of these feats would be child's play, I would think. There are some autisitc individuals who would find some of this trivial. It seems like fun and all that, but how about harnessing all that brain power to solving the world's problems instead of memorizing playing cards.

Re:Isn't this just...

[ROBOKATZ]

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.

Re:Isn't this just...

[bw_bur]

Remembering things incredibly well doesn't imply high intelligence, or an ability to solve all the world's problems. After following your link, I carried on and read the article about S.V. Shereshevskii, who apparently had truly astounding recall -- he could remember speeches, complicated formulae, poems in a foreign language, and many other things, all very quickly and for years afterwards -- but an entirely ordinary level of intelligence.

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.

Re:Isn't this just...

[Kjella]

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.

Re:1 Deck in 30 Seconds?!

[PFI_Optix]

On long stuff like that, I tend to use the "Simon" method (I just made that up, no idea what it would really be called).

Look at the first card, say the name in your head. Look at the second, say the first and second. For every card, repeat the whole series. You develop a rythm and it almost becomes a song in your head. I tired and just got to 18 cards in 30 seconds that way.

I don't know if I could memorize an entire deck of cards in one sitting, though. If I could look through it for two or three minutes, wait an hour or two, then come back to it, I could probably look through it for another minute or two and recite it.

Damn

[r00k123]

The championship was THIS weekend?

Damn. I meant to tape that.

How to Win the Memory Championship

[Urban Garlic]

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/

A deck of cards in 30 seconds...

[fireman sam]

Pfft, I can do that.

Oh, you mean the order of the cards... On second thought.