Memory is a very important operation of the human mind. Having a good memory is something that can be taught and it is not a talent as many people believe. Following an easy and simple methodology nearly anyone is able to sky rocket their memory capacity to a very high level.
There are many different mnemonic strategies that can help to develop a super memory. The following article present some very simple but powerful and well known methods.
Several people face every day in their lives troubles with their memory. Memory is a very important brain function that influences life quality generally. It is very annoying when you are in the middle of an important examination and you forget what you had studied for so many hours the previous days. In some cases it not only annoying but also destructive. Good or bad, memory is the mind’s property responsible for the evolution of our species. How to advance memory is a question that all we should care about.
The great news are that fortunately there are plenty of mnemonic techniques that can help us really improve memory competence. The majority of these memory techniques require the visualization skill of the individual. This is because mental imagery leave much more powerful impression in the human memory than just expressions and sentences. It is also scientifically proved that images are remembered more easily than language, especially if the images have something unique, weird or unusual. This is the first rule that many memory techniques are based on.
You can also try to verify this fact easily now. Try to remember what you did a casual morning the previous month. Can you? Nearly any common human being cannot remember unless that the selected morning had a unique and unusual experience. For example, a meeting with a very old friend that you haven’t seen for many years adds something different and unique to this morning and so you can clearly remember it.
The other truth that you can also confirm is that the human brain cannot understand the difference between a mental experience from a real one. Do this short test at this point. Close your eyes and think with as many details you can, a lemon. Notice its rough skin, zoom in and zoom out, smell it. Next imagine that you hold the lemon and you slice it in the middle. Notice its juice, smell it again. Finally, take the lemon and bite it strongly and sense all of its juice in your mouth. If you’ve done it correctly your mouth must be filled with saliva currently. Although this was a mental experience, your brain did not recognize the difference and reacted to the lemon bite with the saliva production.
Several memory strategies take advantage of these two functions of the human brain. In fact they require from the individual to envision the objects that have to be remembered and link them with mental images that will work as hooks. Some mnemonic techniques that operate like that are the following:
- The linking method or Chaining System: Mostly used to memorize short lists of items. This method produces a series of mental images that are linked with the objects that you want to remember. Every mental picture may contain a minimum of two objects. Thinking the images one after the other may form a strange or unreal story.
- The Peg system: Ordered lists of items can be remembered easily with the peg system. The peg system requires the creation of a peg list which is a number-word combination. The words sound like the numbers as you speak them. A peg list can be also created by using the alphabet or by using words that in fact have a similar shape with the number. These are two renowned variations of the peg system. The individual have to create and learn the pegs. After that he can connect the peg words with every list he desires.
- Method of loci or Roman room: You can recall easily long lists with this method. This mnemonic technique looks like the linking method but here the hooks are the places of a very recognizable structure, like your house. You visualize that you move from location to location into the house and in each different place you can find the objects of the list. As a rule these visualizations are created with exaggeration for making the experience unique and unusual. This helps with the memory.
- The Major System or Phonetic Number system: It is used to remember long numbers. This is a complicated memory method with limitless potential. It actually gives a meaning to numbers. There’s a table that must be memorized well before using the method. This table includes the numbers 0-9 and associates every number to a consonant letter. Having the vowels to use them freely, you can form meaningful words that correspond to a long number. It can be used in combination with the previous strategies.
These mnemonic techniques are very effective and common. Actually there are hundreds of such techniques and variations that can help you expand your memory. It is sad that on many states these techniques are not taught in educational institutions.
We have grown up using an obsolete and ineffective learning method that demands a lot more time and effort from student’s perspective. Unfortunately, this traditional and ineffective linear way of learning is still the dominating system.
Well, never is late to expand mind’s capabilities.
Source: ArticlesFactory.com
