(Note: If this thread is better off in a different forum, please move it.) Anyone have any potent memorization techniques to share? And no, not silly little limmericks or anagrams like PEMDAS -- real methods that can be used to memorize any old generic stuff you'd like. I'll start with three that I use almost routinely with excellent success: 1) Visual chaining: Say you want to link two things together mentally, so that when you see one, you can remember the other. For example, let's say you had two things, like "ostrich" and "bowtie." You would make a silly picture in your head of those two things interacting -- a giant personified ostrich with an enormous red bowtie. The wackier, the gorier, the better. This method can easily be used to link a number of things in order, like, say, the planets (sure, the planets are not hard to remember in order anyway, but it's a good way to practice the technique). 2) Number pegs: Associate the following numerals with the following sounds: 0: s, z 1: t, th, d 2: n 3: m 4: r 5: l 6: ch, j, hard g 7: k, hard c 8: f, v 9: p, b Now use those sounds to make words out of numbers. Use those words to make images, and relate those images to the thing being memorized with visual chaining. For example, element number 82 is lead. How do I remember this? Because 8 (f) 2 (n) makes the word fin. Since I'm an avid scuba diver, this word is meaningful to me. I simply think about a set of huge, heavy, lead fins, and how I would look as I sank to the bottom with them. The image is important, because the strength of the image determines how easy it will be to recover the thing being memorized. Here's another: element 45 is rhodium. 4 (r) 5 (l) makes the word rail. Think about a guardrail on a highway... a road... rhodium. This technique works extremely well for me. I have had the entire periodic table memorized for something like three years now. I never have to "refresh" the memory, and it takes only a second or two to recover any element I'd like. (By the way, for single digit numbers, I use pictures directly... for example, 9 is a balloon on the end of a string.) 3) Locus memory: I don't use this one much, but some people swear by it. This technique requires quite a bit of refreshing for me, but maybe it would get better if I used it more. Pick a location you're familiar with -- your school, your library, your grandmother's house, whatever. Imagine walking through each room, and seeing something different in each room -- either an object, or an action being performed. The things, of course, can be visually linked to the things you're remembering. As you mentally walk through the structure, you get reminded of each bit in turn. Just remember a path through the structure, and you remember the things in order. You can generalize this significantly, and use made-up places. Or even go a step further, and forego using places altogether. You can use the pieces of a familiar object, and visually link things to each part of the object. I have used this one to memorize the proper-named stars in some constellations/asterisms. For example, the big dipper is in Ursula Major, the great bear. So, I naturally use a bear as my locus. The bear has a head, a neck, front legs, and so on, and I can link the star names to each part of the body. So let's start: The mouth of the bear is first. Alpha Ursa Majoris is called "Dubhe," which, well, sounds like "doobie." So let's imagine our bear with a nice doobie in his mouth, smoking away. You can personify the bear all you'd like. The eye of the bear is next. Beta Ursa Majoris is called "Merak." "Mir" means "to see" in spanish, so it's an obvious connection. This goes on all the way down to the bear's tail, Eta Ursa Majoris, or "Alkaid." Well, "Alkaid" sounds like "Al Quaeda," and it's a funny image to imagine a bear beating up Osama Bin Laden with only it's tail... at least to me. Anyone else have any cool techniques? If you want, I can post the list of number pegs that I use, too. - Warren
That sounds interesting, chroot. I could certainly use some help in this area. Please do expand on the practice.
What would you like me to expand on? If you'd like, you can come up with something you'd like to memorize, and I'll see if I can help you come up with a bullet-proof technique for it... - Warren
i had Latin in high school, and had to memorize 200 words Latin-Dutch every week. what i did, was keeping the 1st thing i would associate that Latin word with in mind, and combining that with the Dutch translation of the Latin word, making a picture or a sentence. example: marum means "apple". now marum looks like mare, which means "sea" or "ocean". what i would remember, was someone holding an apple with the sea in the background. another example: lego means "to read". the word lego reminds me of the toys i used to play with, so i'd imagine a reading little lego doll. works for me!
Methods for affixing short term memory to long term. One of the things I really have problems with is absentmindedness. Setting some thing down and 2 minutes later, for the life of me, I can not remember what I did with it. It has been a problem I have had throughout my life. I have probably lost weeks of my life just looking for misplaced items. (if all the time was totaled up I spend looking.)
associate an item you regularly lose with a finger of your hand. now every time you're looking at this finger, try to remember the location of the item associated with that finger. use the left hand for 5 items you always lose (keys etc), and the right for variable items, such as those papers you had to take to work. example: left thumb is for keys left index finger is for wallet etc!
Tools, writing implements, keys, wallet, shoes, socks, you name it. It leaves my hands and the gremlins run off with them!
how can you lose your socks?? sorry, but i don't believe these gremlins are after your damp socks.. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! no seriously, look at your feet and try to remember where you were the last time that you were wearing your socks & shoes. that'll leave some fingers Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! try it, but you have to keep on trying to get the best results! association works that way. good luck, and let me know if it works for you!
I always try association. The sillier something is the more likely you are to remember it. For instance in government class we had to memorize the names of some elected officials and their office. Well there were 2 guys named richard something. One was a chairman and the other was a vice chairman (or something, I can't remember, ironic isn't it?). Anyways, I called one Big Dick and the other one Little Dick. Stuff like that helps alot.
