Mnemonics in College/University

General Memory Chat
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Hey guys!

I’m sure you may have forgotten but I was a London medical student who was fairly active on these forums last year. I had just read Dominic O Brien’s book on mnemonics and began my second year as a med student, eager to implement these techniques and hopefully ease some memorising burdens. I hope to share with you now what I found over 1 year of trying to implement these techniques in what is regarded as the second hardest year in my 6 year medical course. I have been fairly successful with hard work and conventional methods but after seeing mnemonists I was convinced that I could achieve much more. Below is my one and a half year journey into mnemonics and the method of loci.

As suggested by many, including Cicero’s wise words in “Rhetorica ad Herennnium” (which Joshua Foer recommends in “Moonwalking with Einstein”), I focused on the memorisation of ideas and not the words themselves. It was particularly frustrating to find that for complex ideas like medicine which utilised complex terminology, I was compelled to muster up huge amounts of creativity to even convert things into an image. What was even more discouraging subsequently was that even the most memorable images were easily forgettable. It became a chore to memorise even simple concepts which I found I could remember more easily through “brute force”(understanding, repeating, and writing it out). Eventually I ended up resorting to “dirty mnemonics” (using initials of terms to form a witty phrase) and conventional methods rather than the method of loci to pass my exams.

Some part of me hopes that the “masters” like Dominic O Brien, Foer, and Ed Cooke have it right. Which student would not like to ease their memorising burden? Maybe I am overcomplicating images, or perhaps I need to make my images “exceptionally beautiful” or “exceptionally ugly” as Cicero suggested. However as a medical student trained to critically analyse evidence, I fear that a new flaw in this technique reveals itself. Perhaps this method is designed for simplistic ideas. I see no accomplished mnemonist who has successfully applied his techniques to the most difficult subjects in life - nobody in the public sphere at least. Whilst memorising cards using the PAO system is an impressive feat requiring skill and effort, it has little real world application and I feel that more needs to be done in the public to show how these techniques can be applied to memorising some of the hardest concepts in science.

I’d love to hear about any similar experiences or your experiences with mnemonics in college or university!

Alf

1 Like
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Don’t you think that for the past god knows how many decades (centuries?) medical students have been using mnemonics successfully? Just because you haven’t talked to any doctor who has used them doesn’t mean those doctors don’t exist.

If you say that you have met students/doctors who use mnemonics successfully, then how do you arrive at the conclusion that the method is designed only for “simplistic ideas”?

If you had read any history of mnemonics (Yates, Carruthers), you’d see name after name of persons (going back centuries) using it for law, mathematics, history, etc… Peter of Ravenna used it to memorize points of law, surely as complicated as medicine!

(Now, what was that you were saying about “simplistic ideas”?)

I have personally met doctors and lawyers who used mnemonics in school to great benefit.

(Now, what was that you were saying about “simplistic ideas”?)

If you search on line, you’ll find book after book dedicated to medical and legal mnemonics.

You say, “I see no accomplished mnemonist who has successfully applied his techniques to the most difficult subjects in life - nobody in the public sphere at least.”

Well, (a) how much research did you do? and (b) your phrase “accomplished mnemonist” seems to indicate a “professional” mnemonist, a person who isn’t likely to be, at the same time, a medical student/doctor/lawyer. Being a professional mnemonist would take up too much time and leave no time to the practice of medicine or law.

And really, what does that mean, “public sphere”? If you don’t/can’t find someone on the internet, someone in the “public sphere”, who is an “accomplished mnemonist”, then there can be nobody? That’s your logic?

What you don’t seem to understand is that there are an awful lot of people using mnemonics to a great extent in all kinds of fields and doing it quietly, feeling no need to publicize the way they go about their work.

I think that what’s really going on here is that, not being as successful as you thought you should be, you then blame the “method”.

The method is only as good as you make it. Don’t blame the method just because you failed at it.

The various mnemonic methods can be applied to anything (no exceptions) you want to remember. (Don’t bother challenging me: I don’t work that way.)

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It’s a good point made by Careless there Alf.

If you were exceptionally good at something, would you go around advertising all the details of your system to everyone in your field ? Surely others would copy you and then, you would not be seen as ‘the best’ for very long. It’s a competitive World and even though in our field, everyone is happy to share their ideas, it’s far from the same as other fields. People love to be revered and, in some cases, to be hailed as a genius. The competition will not likely break someone’s career in this field but, it can most certainly make it. If you have this in a job, you are most likely going to be reluctant to ‘unlearn’ something. What would your colleagues think ? Maybe they will think you have ‘lost it’.

There are many people who are clearly experts but, never mention that they use techniques. For example, in recent months, Ed Milliband (UK Shadow Prime Minister), David Cameron (UK Prime Minister) and the new Pope have all made large speeches from memory. People are so used to seeing such people give public speeches that they don’t notice it or look to see if there is some autocue. The previous Chinese Premier is also known for it as was Tony Blair and Bill Clinton. It’s quite common with politicians as, they are frequently on the television and, often they are not near an autocue and they aren’t holding a sheet or listening to an advisers’ whisper yet, they throw out countless numbers, names and facts of technical details of different fields of expertise and related to their own field. Many of the top quiz people on television in the UK clearly do it but, they never mention it. The clues are there though. They just keep quiet because they want to stay the best.

There are medical people and, as has already been pointed out, it is more important to them to concentrate on their career. It is after-all, the main reason mnemonics are used in the first place. To make something you want to learn easier, for a purpose. If someone has the purpose of being a medical doctor or anything else, being seen as one of the best in the world is probably not on their agenda. Filling their share portfolio or job security will be much higher on the agenda.

Most of the top mnemonists reach a level where, they understand and accept that they are capable of perhaps winning a National Champion title or World Championship but, the work needed would take considerable time. If I was a surgeon and you, as my patient, found out that I spend 4 or more hours a day training for a memory competition as health services of any country complain there aren’t enough trained doctors or people in the industry to catch up on operations, would you think of that waiting list you are on for an urgent operation and perhaps my priorities were a little skewed ?

The same is true in many fields, a lawyer may have no time to take on your case. Really, they may have time and don’t want to work 24/7 but, telling that to a person awaiting a life saving operation or and innocent man awaiting a prison sentence would seem futile. Everyone will see ‘their’ life and problems as of paramount importance.

Regarding this statement about the focus on ideas. It’s open to interpretation. One interpretation could be that, if you get really, really good at memorising, you have the confidence to do what you want. If mnemonics themselves ‘are the idea’ then, you could, if you wanted, memorize all the medical things you choose. If you make yourself good enough, you will not have any fear of memorising over you important medical lists of information to learn something new as you can simple skim over past things to refresh them.

It’s very common for people to learn mnemonics for a subject or purpose and when the mnemonist has learned a system, they then progress to memorizing various things relating to their field. They develop a fear of memorising over the ‘important’ information. This prevents ideas because they will feel they have run out of storage space and have not memorised the existing material well enough to memorise over it.

That’s the difference between the top people and everyone else. The top people will do exactly that. They know they can do it again and if anything is forgotten, it wasn’t memorised properly in the first place so, the act or re-doing it will create fresh ideas.

I come across this problem a lot. It’s one of my main concerns when teaching people. I do exactly what you suggested though. What you attribute to Cicero, I constantly have to bring to people’s minds as they come up with endless lists of things they plan to learn and do. Always I have to kick them back in to touch to remind them that it is the system they use that must be mastered before any subject.

Compare it to someone you mentioned, Dominic O’Brien. Lets think for a moment what Dominic has done ‘while’ he was training to become World Memory Champion repeatedly.

Memorized Trivial Pursuit questions and answers.
Memorized a day by day chronological encyclopaedia or the 20th century.

For such large amounts of information, Dominic would most likely have filled all his locations. With a full set of journeys, he would have to memorize over these things repeatedly to stand any chance of winning the competition.

These things can be broken up over time periods and it is something mnemonists do but, the best of them aren’t afraid to over-write their memories. Memories can easily be replaced. They can be replaced in a much shorter time and the images that are not so good, get extra work. That extra work is what leads to ideas.

People don’t have to become a Grandmaster or memorize a dictionary, they just know how much they can memorise in a set amount of time. when I say they know, I mean they are certain and have confidence that, within a given time period, they can learn what is needed.

You could, if you wished, train to around Grandmaster level. You could then, or before then, calculate how long it would take you to memorise the Monthly Index of Medical Specialities. Such a book will, as you know, change monthly but, by the time you are ready to do it, you will most likely have a fear. You will have to memorise over those lists of the past. Those lists too will be important such as the bones of the body and other important anatomical facts that may be deemed essential to you.

When something is in people’s heads, they tend to treat it as a limb. It cannot be removed. People don’t want to do it as if it is amputating some part of them but, unlike amputation, information in the brain can be replaced if it isn’t memorised permanently or properly. People don’t always care about what they memorised permanently or properly. It’s the things they know or fear isn’t memorised properly that concerns them. Where they fear that a visit to the mental location where the information is stored is the only way to save face publicly or personally.

The same sort of thing happens in competitions just as it does in careers. People reach a plateau. They hit a glass ceiling and cannot get to where they want to be. It may be as simple as a deck of cards and they just can’t get beyond a certain point. They fear failure or fear the idea of changing their system. They feel the system they use is good because they can remember the information so, understandably, they will feel reluctant to change it and try a different way. A way that, to them, risks over-writing all that hard work or the past. They feel they have mastered a system because they know it but, in reality, it is not mastered. If it known, not mastered.

All subjects can be mastered using mnemonics but, mastering mnemonics in the first place will help to build that self confidence. The solution therefore is to beat the fear. Memorising over everything deemed of paramount importance will do that. Soon, all mental locations would be full of other things. The majority of past memorisations will remain. Some will not. These will raise concerns and bring an individuals attention to what is important to them. A new way of memorising those things that were difficult the first time around can be looked into. Ideas will flourish and one day, that light-bulb moment will happen.

I’m not suggesting you rush off and memorise the MIMS, quite the opposite. Using something like that for practice is great but, knowing how to memorise a variety of materials with enough confidence to ‘erase’ all you have learned in the past is not something to be feared, rather it is something to be embraced. Then, you will be surprised at how good your long term memory really is. It will teach you the difference between what works best and what doesn’t because there will be an awful lot of material that you cannot erase. No matter how hard you try, you’re stuck with it for life or, at least, until brain cell death happens.

The fear of judgement by others can be debilitating but, not so debilitating as that of your judgement of yourself.

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Careless, first of all I’d just like to comment about HOW RUDE YOU ARE. For a person to pose a question and then be vilified to such an extent is appalling. Just out of interest what degree do you have or you are studying for? While it may be true that I may not have succeeded, criticising the method because I have not succeeded is perfectly valid. All I did was pose a perfectly rational question with regards to whether these things work for complicated science. The fact is THAT IS HOW SCIENTISTS FUNCTION. YOU LOOK AT A THEORY AND THEN YOU TEST IT FOR YOURSELF. Then you report whether it worked or not as a means of RE-EVALUATING WHETHER YOUR METHOD WORKED. I’d highly recommend a book like this to you :http://www.amazon.co.uk/Introduction-Logic-Scientific-Method/dp/1931541914. You would probably counter with the fact that I have not carried out a randomised controlled trial (the gold standard) but the principle behind my evaluation is the same: you question the method, try it out, and evaluate your results in light of the method.

If you read my statement carefully, I SPECIFICALLY SAID THAT I MAY BE WRONG: “Maybe I am overcomplicating images, or perhaps I need to make my images “exceptionally beautiful” or “exceptionally ugly” as Cicero suggested”. I do not have the arrogance to presume that my results are generalisable. It was merely a suggestion for greater thought.

Furthermore, instead of alleging that either Ed Miliband or Cameron use these techniques, show me your evidence. Give me a link - an article or a webpage that states that any successful scientist has used these. If you have any help, suggestions, or advice then by all means link me to more material that SPECIFICALLY DEALS WITH MY PROBLEM of MEDICINE. Please do not link me to more of the same books like “the art of memory” which do not address the specific issues I am having. By all means, I would be ecstatic if this method actually worked for me.

Oh and Careless? What is in the public sphere, such as research published in journals, is regarded as evidence. It is not evidence to say that “some people might be out there practising it but they don’t want to share their secret to the world”. You may have talked to doctors but that is not evidence.

I’d like to add quickly that you may be confusing “dirty mnemonics” (i.e. witty phrases with the first letters representing some other concept you would like to learn) with the method of loci, which is what my article is about. There are plenty of doctors who use “dirty mnemonics” including myself. I do not dispute that - I explicity said that in my statement as well.

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The comments regarding Ed Milliband etc, were mine. I commented after careless. What I said was, some people never talk about how they do things but, after many years of studying the subject I can see it. They give away clues. Lack of an autocue is just one. Others include eye movements which show that they are accessing something recently memorize. Sometimes people like comedians or television presenters will fire of a list in perfect order. They usually do it really fast with a big list in a short time. Things like this tend to grab my attention. Recently i noticed Jimmy Carr firing off lots of short jokes and Stephen Fry doing something similar on QI. occasionally, they do make it public knowledge but, they like the attention they get and if it is seen as easy, it would not be so impressive to the public. Much like magic, it loses it’s edge for many people once it is understood. I would still love it though.

I wouldn’t get too stressed out about Careless, he seems to like a wind up.

What I do suggest is lots of mnemonic training in the same way as competitors do for competitions. So, for example, by setting aside and hour per day to train this specific subject. The thing about mnemonics is that all systems work. Mastering numerous systems allows the top performers to adjust to certain circumstances, especially where those circumstances are unexpected.

Dirty mnemonics, as you refer to them work perfectly well and are used by most mental athletes. They, more than most, have a particular interest in remembering things. It does not matter so much which methods are used, as long as they work. There would be little point in memorizing the spelling letter for letter of the colours of the rainbow in order for example so, the standard short-cut would be used just as you have done.

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Fair point about the fact that you notice signs that people may be using method of loci. I can see why people like Jimmy Carr would want to attribute that to natural talent. I reckon that if there is something fatally wrong with my method of loci technique ( i.e. the way I form images or the weakness with which I link successive loci) then it would be better spotted by another practised mnemonist. I remember Joshua Foer going through the same frustration at the start when he tried to memorise poems, stating that he actually found it easier to memorise it the old fashioned way. But Joshua Foer was quickly corrected by Ed Cooke whenever he went wrong. I’m not saying that we should spoon feed each other, but I guess I may be looking for guidance in the form of a club. I’m trying to see if anyone would be interested in forming one in London.

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Yes, I remember reading such a post in the past few days. There are a few memory athletes that live near the area. Tom Groves is a Grandmaster from London and James Ponder lives not so far away in Colchester.

I’m not implying there is anything wrong with your system. The systems in general work. What I mean is that by practising in what most people consider an extreme way, it will help you a lot since, what you seem to want to memorize sound like a vast amount of information. Dominic’s system obviously works as he would not have been able to do the things he has done. Other systems work as well for their users.

I wrote some articles about the method of loci that may be of help to you. If you go on my profile you will find links to them since, it sounds like the use of this is the thing that is concerning you. Feel free to fire away if anything is not clear enough or detailed enough though.

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I think at this point it would be best to give you an example. I had to learn to memorise the branches of the Brachial plexus - where each branch travels, what muscles it supplies, and even its 3D relation in space to other aspects of the arm or shoulder. In order to remember the “medial cutaneous nerve” for example, I thought MCN= Monsters Canoodling Nudists. I thought to myself," What can be more memorable or weird than this?". It turns out that in this example, like others, I simply just forgot the image, the phrase, and even which loci it was stored at. Do the images have to have some logic in them? A vague memory of O’Brien’s book pops up where he says that the images must make sense for them to be there. I had placed “monsters canoodling nudists” right next to the grocery store, which admittedly makes no sense whatsoever.

Is it worth me getting the hang of making images out of something simpler? Should I start with cards where images have been made for me and practise making associations so that I can get the hang of method of loci or should I continue what I have been doing?

Also, with regards to the London group, I visited your facebook page on the Welsh Memory Championships. I’m very interested to know about how that got started.

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They don’t ‘have’ to be logical but, it does help if you need to work something out in future. Using random locations as a one off using the method of loci does seem to make it easy to lose as well sometimes.

Imagine it like this: You have 20 locations in a journey using the method of loci. Equate that journey to each line on a piece or paper. 20 locations are easy to see on the piece of paper because you can simply look at it. but, turn that paper so that it is side on and it will be virtually impossible to see any writing at all. It’s as if there is no information at all.

A fence could provide a similar comparison. A fence may have 20 posts but, if those posts are in a straight line, you will only see one as all other posts are behind that posts.

In a similar way, a very short list using the method of loci is difficult to find in the brain. I think of it as one of these pictures of dendrites you see a lot of lately. If each dendrite connecting the brain cell is the journey between Loci where you have stored the information and the dendrite itself like is likened to a string you hold onto as you walk from Loci to Loci or Brain Cell to Brain Cell/place to place. The location where you have stored the information (Brain Cell/Nucleus) and you have memorized is a large list, so it is much easier to spot. The long chain of connections s easier to spot a like a fence if you are facing it, rather than side on. In my analogy, the connections between the brain cells (Dendrites) are merely like road signs alerting to you that information. Saying, it is over in this direction. Like a caver may use string to find their way out of the cave.

I would tend not to use the method of loci unless there are ten or more items in the list. So, even if I had a list of five words, it would save space in terms of locations to memorize two words per location but, I would still prefer to use ten locations. This way, I can easily ‘feel’ for the string or ‘look’ for the fence. In reality I would be neither feeling or looking. Longer lists tend to be easier to find and navigate.

On common method is to number all locations. Dominic O’Brien numbers every 5th location.

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Here is a page where I go into some detail about the method of loci. On the page you will notice that Grandmaster of memory, Boris Konrad does it differently to me but, this does not mean what he does is wrong or that I am wrong. It was Boris that knocked Dominic O’Brien out of the top ten in the world rankings so, he obviously knows what he is doing.

Feel free to add to it and pose questions: https://artofmemory.com/forums/the-efficiency-of-different-card-memorization-systems-758.html#comment-11984

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Yes, it would be worth you getting used to it using existing things. Cards may not be the best for you but, it certainly can’t do any harm as, cards also contain numbers.

Being logical as Dominic has said, doesn’t strictly have to mean logical. Being logical to you is what is important. You may well connect a canoodling monster with something where another person cannot see the connection. It doesn not matter as long as it makes sense to you.

Ideally, where you want to be is, in a position where you can memorize something and either work it out by personal logic using connections that will only mean anything to you or, by being able to work out using logic in the normal sense by actually being able to work out what the information means. What I mean by this is perhaps easier to explain using something already familiar to you. The Dominic System is already familiar to you so, you can logically work out a sequence of number that you have already memorized but, you may have a friend who lives in house number 87 and they may represent your number. It may have no other connection to the person and mean nothing but, to you, it is obvious.

The same sort of system can be constructed using letters as you have already done with the Dominic system. You can make it with single letters. Instead of having a two digit system like Dominic’s, you can make it 3. You may have two objects or, use the action itself as a letter.

Lets say A

A - Andrew Lloyd-Webber could be the person
A - Apple could be the object

You can have him eating the apple. Eating does not begin with the letter A but, it does not matter. As long as the only character you have eating is Andrew then, you will fast learn to associate this with the letter A.

So it would go like this:

A - Andrew.
A - Eating.
A - Apple.

That will allow you to memorise 3 letters per location. This sort of thing will come in handy if you have technical terms as you do in medicine but, where it helps is when those technical terms are new and unfamiliar. Maybe you already know the majority of the word and can already turn that into an image but, there is a slight change of spelling, as happens in chemistry. This will allow you to identify which prefix or suffix you want. You can do it for any part of the word where the majority of the word is already familiar.

Usually, long words are easier to break up into pictures than are small words. If need be, you can memorise the spelling of the word letter for letter. It may take 13 locations perhaps but, it the word is completely alien or foreign, at least it will become less alien.

In normal life, we tend to split up words. The way we do this is known to most people and it’s a bit of a habit. For instance, electroencephalograph. You obviously know what this means but, to someone that doesn’t the first thing they are likely to do is split it up into simpler parts. This habit has become very ingrained in all of us and, like any habit, it’s hard to break.

Electro
Encephalo
Graph

This is all well and good with a word like this where it can be broken down into familiar parts but, if it cannot, as with some words to someone who knows not Latin, French or Greek terms or medical suffixes and such it would present a problem. They will attempt to break it up in the same way, only to be face with three new items which still make no sense.

A competitor may decide to remove a letter here perhaps. Electron instead or electroen. Normally, we would never say a word like this as we are taught from an early age to break words up in a certain way, into syllables. But, sometimes, it is easier to use a letter more than once. A letter may appear at the end of the first syllable but, we may use it for that and also add that same letter to the next syllable simple to make a word. Even though it does not exist in the word it does not matter. As long as it helps to turn the word into something we can turn into a picture.

Take the word sphygmomanometer. Complicated sounding yet, everyone has seen one and knows what it is. Most of the word seems simple enough and it could be pictured as Mo blowing into a U shaped tube (Manometer) but, that first bit may pose a problem. Now we have a picture of Mo blowing his manometer we can add to it but, we only have to think of 5 letters. We could think of the Sphynx and a pig (because pig gives us the sound of the word as well as the last letter we were looking for) or, we could have Spiderman (first letter) jamming the top of the manometer with figs.

If you already know the word and know the spelling then the vast majority of the time, all you need is a trigger. That trigger may be arrived at letter by letter or, by a picture, or by a sound. Things that sound similar are great in the same way as images. Songs and nursery rhymes are usually easy to remember.

Still, we can look at more ways to break the word up. Sp could be someone called spike or the cartoon dog. That leaves us hygmo. Hygienic GM food perhaps. it’s not so memorable but, the point is that, it’s outside the normal syllable way of breaking up words that we are used to. Hygienic Mo from the Simpson’s could be Mo-pping the floor of his pub.

There’s Ann-O-Meter. A Morman (I added an r). A Mormon may raise your blood pressure at your door. As long as I know the R is not meant to be there, I don’t care. As long as the trigger works to remind me of what I want to remember. If detail is needed, then revert to memorizing letter by letter. If there is a lot of new information, as in medicine, the list of suffixes can be memorized as a list of say 100 Locations using the method of loci. You are likely to use these suffixes so often that you will not need to refer to you mental list in a pretty short time.

Trying as many ways as you can, even with one word like this will make it harder t forget than it is to remember. You will have made lots of associations. You may not need to use the method of loci if you do this anyway because you spent time doing it and you would have forced yourself to think.

Having basic systems is always best because, you can fall back on them. A single digit equivalent of the Dominic system may not sound good to you but, if you knew nothing of mnemonics, you could soon memorise a random 100 digit sequence after you have learned it. Granted, it would be boring since a single digit system has only 10 number from 0-9 but, the alphabet only has 26 letters and do we get bored with that ? No, we find different ways to make it less boring after we get fed up of it. But, when we do get fed up of it, it means we know it. We know it so well that we can use it to remember anything. All because it is FAMILIAR. You notice Dominic using the word association a lot. if you can associate something, thus making it familiar to you then, it’s likely to be memorable.

By making a simple system of letters or numbers, then, by memorizing it using locations, we make it familiar. That familiarity will help us with things that are not familiar. Just like those long technical words above.

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Hi Alf,

The techniques discussed on this forum, work. There is no question in my mind that they don’t.
You can question them as much as you want, though this will never give you the confidence you need to make this work and it might stall or at least hinder your progress.

All systems are based on associations. In order to absorb new knowledge, one needs to create new associations.
They need to be wild, vivid, and the more the better.
This is very different from championship training, where you need to have recall within minutes.
In championship training, one association is generally enough, in real life you need a lot of them.

I have read the previous posts and I am wondering why this is not working for you.
In your example of the Medial Cutaneous Nerve, you never mention that you linked this nerve to the arm or to the skin. Why?
You linked the term to Monsters Canoodling Nudists, but there is no mention of embedding this term into you knowledge of the arm and/or the other nerves.

Here is how I would memorize the term.
First, the term itself gives all information away. Medial tells location. There is Medial, Lateral, and Posterior. Since this term deals with location, it is easy to link stuff from btw.
The 2nd part of the term, cutaneous, means it leads to the skin.
Of course it helps a lot if you know a bit of Latin.
You have explained where the nerve starts (in the brachial plexus) and through the term itself you know where it ends.

Memorizing this as em>Monsters Canoodling Nudists might give you a false sense of feeling that you get it.
But failing to embed this into your other medical knowledge gets you nowhere.
Btw, I am not saying that you do not embed new knowledge into old. But since you do not mention it, I am trying to see if that is where your weakness is.

After learning this stuff, ask yourself questions. Ask for example, how many nerves lead to the skin and what their names are. Use spaced repetition, maybe software like Anki to help you.
See yourself go from the brain to the skin and name all nerves. If you fail to name one, you know where your knowledge is weak. See the roots, then the trunks, then the divisions, then the cords, etc.

Some think that one uses either conventional learning or mnemonics. I say, use both.

Hope that helps!

Btw.: Dai, great explanation!

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Hello, Alf.

I read some interesting posts before about using Art of Memory in College… I could remember some of Yan’s contributions.

Moreover, what I would like to highlight in this context is that you don’t need to re-encode ALL information in visual form. So in my opinion, you could make things a little simpler like trying to mind map complex subject and then use mnemonics for key points that will trigger the information you already know.

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Thanks. I suddenly had to rush off twice early on in the conversation. Normally I would have re-read what I had written. I misunderstood something I think. Sorry about that Alf.

I feel speed is important. The reason I feel this way is that I feel that when a person gets good, they can choose to do something complicated and do it with confidence. This, I think is of particular importance in technical subjects.

The phrase ‘technical subject’ to me means, difficulty in understanding concepts and sequences of information. Not difficulty in memorizing. The actual act of memorizing I don’t associate with technical. This is the reason I memorized the atomic numbers of the periodic table years ago. Not because I needed to but, because the words were technical and complicated sounding. At the time, I didn’t even know what the atomic numbers represented. After, it became obvious. My attention to and mention of an element after, drew my attention. This made me learn more by default.

What I feel is important is that, if the mnemonic system is well structured, it makes little difference what the subject is. Look at World Memory Champion Johannes Mallow and Grandmaster Boris Konrad as an example. They are both studying to become Doctors of Neuroscience. Knowing their results and consistency, I can’t help but have a certain expectation of them when it comes to something like exams.

Speed to me means, they should be able to take a subject, memorize ANYTHING and do it to a known schedule. Boris works at the Max Planck institute and Johannes teaches what some would call gifted children.

The results in their exams to me, would reflect their level of interest in the subject so, if neither of them gained the title of Doctor/Neuroscientist, I would think they are not so interested in the subject as they thought they were before they started studying it. I would not interpret it as an inability to understand. Even though though I do not suggest that to memorize is to understand because it isn’t.

However, The ability to memorize information fast, reflects accuracy as well. Accuracy is more likely where there is understanding. Memory competitions are our scientific way of measuring the efficiency of the human brain. When both of them gained their titles, they made mistakes. Ben makes them, Dominic makes them and you will make them. If they can do 100 things in an hour, with a % error rate, in two hours, they should be able to perfect it. Mathematically. This may not be the case though. Not for large amounts of information.

Minimal time can be wasted. An assessment of the information to be memorised can only really be undertaken with some understanding. If a person knows nothing of the subject of physics, their best course is to work it out logically. It will contain words an numbers. Systems and training for those are why will be unlikely to ever be removed from memory competitions. No matter what language, alphabet or character system is used.

Maybe you would learn physics for a while, gain some understanding of the general subject and notice a pattern emerges. Things other than letters and numbers turn up. The most common thing to turn up in any subject is a word. It makes sense to practice this the most but, most words are easy to visualize so, it pretty easy for a trained mnemonist at a competition because a known percentage of words will always be abstract for this reason. Next most commonly used in any subject are numbers. Being abstract and very common in everyday life, these are trained the most.

Abstract images and binary numbers training serves as a constant reminder that there is always a way to make something easy to learn fast. Binary numbers shows how to make a boring subject less boring by making it efficient to memorize at the same time. Abstract images show that things that are abstract can be turned into things that are not abstract.

In physics you would learn about electricity so, you will soon notice the use of letters of the Greek alphabet being used as symbols on a regular basis. There are only eighteen letters in the alphabet so, it would make sense to make up a deck of playing cards containing these letters, train with them as you would numbers or decks of cards in a competition, and bingo. Most of the electrical references to Lambda , Ohm, etc., are standardised you will be able to learn fast when faced with a formulae or series of steps or processes, thus freeing up time to spend understanding the subject. Memorise the order of the colour codes, order of the planets and any respective numbers or whatever is required. Maths symbols would be of use in many fields so a mathematical symbol system would be hand for anyone with an interest in maths.

If you use something or are likely to use something frequently, it worth spending more time on sharpening your axe before you chop down the tree.

Ben Pridmore and Andy Bell are prime examples of this. Both will freely admit to you that they hardly trained for memory competitions in recent years by comparison to the amount they did when they were are their peak. They have still competed though. They may not have spent hardly anytime ‘studying’ menmonics by practicing but, their results have suddenly dropped off in percentage terms. Their memories stayed good and efficient. People that like mental maths find memory very handy, they have a competitions to measure their efficiency too.

So, when Ben or Andi Bell walk into the memory World’s version of an exam, do they fail because they haven’t ‘studied’ or ‘trained’ ? No, they are quite happy and still do exceptionally well.

Like studying for a degree in any subject, when you know your subject (mnemonics being the subject here) well enough, you will always know it if you are interested enough to pay attention to it now and again. Your efficiency will drop off slightly from your peak of course but, you will be comfortable and less stressed. Unprepared people are stressed more than prepared people. A health benefit i’m sure the medical establishment appreciates.

So, until you train to the same level as Ben, no matter how much you might want to watch cartoons, he will get to watch more cartoons than you. The mnemonist has more time if you put this in context of University. A University may give you four years. It is timed based upon past their experience.

For this reason, I think names and faces will never leave the memory competitions. Always something that comes up in any subject is the people that have made discoveries and inventions or something related to the subject so, it serves a good purpose.

Having the same event in a competition, like marathon numbers and speed numbers, makes people aware that, If a competitor can memorize a deck in one minute, it does not follow that the same competitor can memorize sixty decks in sixty minutes. The more information to be memorised implies the use of more locations or time spent creating and learning more efficient systems. The use of more locations must mean that some locations are more familiar than others and are therefore less efficient. They can be trained but, there will be a limit to locations at any given time. Getting used to measuring this by competing or just by timing yourself will give you a good understanding of your own efficiency in learning. Most people that have read a memory book have not competed, they have used the book for a subject. It’s something most of us believe should be taught in schools globally. People that feel stupid or useless perhaps, will see that they are not and gain the confidence to do whatever they want in life. This is what it’s all about.

Probably, the most common thing a mnemonist gets asked after they have taught the process to someone completely new, is the question, why don’t they teach this at school ? Every country needs a lot of people to do repetitive production line style jobs, maybe the governments of the World fear losing this, but a boring easy job mentally can be an opportunity to train memory. An opportunity to review something previously memorised or, for a competition competitor, an opportunity to mentally walk through journeys. This is very relaxing as i’m sure you know.

What good is understanding without memory ? If you have no memory of medicine, then it will be of little use to you that you understood once but, have forgotten the facts, figures, risks and so on. You may have a general feeling of understanding in some philosophical or moral way but, I believe, the best way to understanding any subject is to know how to learn in the first place.

Dominic O’Brien has a quote that I like and I like to think it reflects my point. He said teach the teachers how to teach the students, how to learn, how to learn.

15

Daris raises a good point. That you don’t have to memorize everything. If I said to you O.J. Simpson, the name alone would remind you of perhaps some sequences from his movies, or things you’ve seen on the news. Probably, you’ve never memorised anything about him but, once the trigger was pulled, the information came flooding to mind.

16

Hey Dai,

Thanks for the wealth of information that you have given me. The sad truth is that for my medical exams, although I do not have to memorise absolutely everything, the level of knowledge required is pretty close. Many exam questions test random bits of facts derived from a singe line in a lecture - hence the reason I am looking towards the method of loci to help improve my efficiency. Otherwise my natural memory alone would suffice.

17

I am not sure how much I can add to the discussion but as a student (not medicine thought) I have some experience with using mnemonics for abstract concepts. Although, I almost never use the loci method but rather rely on some kind of link/story method. One common theme is to associate a concept with its meaning. Which normally means that I convert the concept into an image and links that with the meaning or story depending on what I think will be most memorable. However, you will find that it is difficult to make connections that are strong enough without repeting them and so I strongly advise you to use this in combination with a flash card program (for instance ANKI which has been mentioned earlier and which I myself use a lot). If I had to choose I would in fact choose ANKI over mnemonic devices because as anyone using spaced repetition programs knows, many facts can be memorized without mnemonic devices if you just repeat at the correct intervals (which is the whole point of spaced repetition).

Also, a problem that you mention is that some concepts may be difficult to convert to an image. The best advice I can give you is probably to try out all the ideas you can think of and you will probably learn what kind of images tend to stick to your mind best.

18

Hey Alf,
I’m also a second year medical student trying to utilize the strategies here to assist me in studying. I understand exactly what you are saying. As for my experience, it is quite challenging and just coming up with images can take considerable energy and time, especially for some subjects. I find that I often have to combine images and link them to a story in order to fit in the information. I’m having moderate success, but sometimes I’m not sure if its actually more efficient then traditional brute force studying. I do find it much easier to review information, especially without the study material, letting me review when I’m walking or just on the bus. I’m still very new to this and slowly working on finding what works and how to be efficient.

But I did know a student a year above me that told me he used the method of loci and possibly other techniques to great success. He was first in his class, and over a whole year missed only one or two questions, which is ridiculous considering our rigorous program. So keep trying and find out what works. Good luck.

19

i think the key is to believe in the technique and keep practising and changing strategy. it took me 1 whole year to just read about the technique with at least 10 different books and try it on non medical stuff. then I tested it for 1 semester of medical school, and I almost gave up, it was pretty exhausting. however, in my second semester, I used this technique to the fullest, and it helped me in my pharmacology. I can differentiate which side effects, MOA, to which drugs. If im disciplined enough, I might have memorized all the dose. but, well, thats one of the reason I learn this technique, to have some time to relax. but still, we need to keep looking for a better, faster linking process.