Hi. Pao system ive seen is useful to memorize numbers. But is useful to memorize books or study? Anyone knows?
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The whole idea of PAO is that you have a pre-defined list of images that represent numbers. This works because you’re turning something abstract (numbers) into something tangible and visualizable. Also, there are only 10 one-digit numbers, or 100 two-digits, or 1000 three-digits. This makes assigning and learning consistent imagery actually attainable.
To memorize text, you won’t really be following that substitution formula. A language is composed of hundreds of thousands of words. Most of those words, nouns and verbs at least, are self-imaging, so it doesn’t make sense to try to create many alternate representations. In order to use a “PAO” for text, you’d need to associate a specific person, action, and object for every word in a language, which would be practically speaking, impossible.
How would you create a person, action, and object substitution sequence for the words in the sentence “Slap me silly, Giovanni!”? It doesn’t make sense to make the effort to do that when the sentence itself provides a working visual already.
For memorizing text or non-numerical information, the popular techniques are image/word substitution for unfamiliar words, with story linking, that encodes scenes that represent chunks of information. How much info per scene depends on the type of information and how granular the important pieces need to be. These scenes would then be placed at sequential loci along an organized path, the memory palace technique.
The idea of verbatim text memorization is kicked around a lot on the forum. While it’s possible to encode every single word accurately, there are very few situations where you’d actually need to do this and it doesn’t translate to understanding or practical utility of the information. Memorization is not the same as understanding.
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I almost completely agree with TheHumanTim.
However, if you take a look at the tutorials/topics on how to memorize books, you’ll see that depending on your strategy, you may also need to memorize the structure of the book, which are usually divided into chapters numbers so PAO, pegs, etc can help you
For example:
1. Subject X
—1.1. Group X
------1.1.1. detail X
------1.1.2. detail X
—1.2. Group X
------1.2.1 detail X
2. Subject Y
—2.1. Group Y
------2.1.1. detail Y
------2.1.2. detail Y
I recommend to search for memorizing books strategies here. Speacilly this Memorize a professional book - #2 by SilvioB that could help you.
In other words, I think haveing a PAO list (or an equivalent system) is worth and could help you in some aspects of memorizing contents of books.
You should give a look at How to remember more from books I read too. TheHumanTim gave some good tips on how to memorize books there.
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Good point!
@TheHumanTim response given is 100% on the money, The PAO system was not developed to recall detailed texts. The PAO system is fit-for-purpose in being able however to speedily recall huge tracts of number sequences or even the order of playing cards that have each been individually encoded, as each playing card carries a unique Persons/Actions and Objects as pre-conceivably devised. PAO could also be used to recall 18 binary digits as chunks at each locus easily, by grouping the binary digits into 6 groups of 3 binary digits a piece. A search on the search engine will take you down various paths where explanations are given as to how to accomplish this. PAO is not useful in trying to remember huge trances of text however and was never devised in the first place with that in mind?
Well…It may have not been developed for that, but it definitely is possible to use a PAO system for 3 letter memorization.
I myself plan on building one, as my pair-letter system pretty much went down the drain.
Some use cases: Remembering passwords, codes and other short-text credentials. Remembering difficult-to-visualize words. Remembering full important sentences.
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I agree,l @Jint3x
I’m playing with a 26 x 3 element PAO system where I have:
- A-Z persons: Ariel to Zorro (all cartoon/comic characters.
- A-Z tools (for actions): Axe to Ziptie
- A-Z objects: anchor to mini Zen garden.
For two letters it is an image of the person and object.
E.g. BF is bugs bunny interacting with a flowerpot.
For three letters it is an image of the person using the tool on the object in some way
E.g. NRM is Ned Flanders using a razor on metronome. (Or some interaction between those three like him staring at a metronome with a razorblade for the ticking indicator).
This wasn’t designed for memorizing texts - I’m actually busy with keyboard shortcuts and layouts, but I’m considering trying to use this for memorizing outlines of texts, short verbatim texts and maybe to combine this with the first letter of each word of text to memorise lines of text idea.
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If the book is so old they didn’t use spaces yet, pao would be as good as anything to memorize it verbatim.
You could add three symbols for a space as well…
E.g.: Buzz Lightyear, a level (because of the space in the bubble 
) and a small rocket.
But some other convention would probably be better because spaces are very frequent on long texts.
Well, the PAO system is great for remembering numbers or lists but if you want to really learn a book or study something, its not that helpful. For that its better to takes notes, review or practice.
It can be used; I’ve used it to memorize certain points in class and then present them. But memorizing verbatim is much harder, that’s undeniable. You need to be very well-trained for it to be easy. You’d be using memory palaces, instead of training to memorize long numbers, you’d be training to memorize lists of words. To memorize more in less time, you have to train.
PAO can be used with characters, like in a play, to represent the content of a text, or to make marks or indexes to know where you placed certain information. When there’s too much information, it’s good to have mental indexes.
01 Arithmetic → Robert Downey Jr. → Uses an abacus to count while walking on a tightrope (the rope represents the number line).
You can associate specific themes with the character as if it were a movie, to remember specific topics within the text. For example, real numbers encompass natural numbers (counting from 1), integers (including negative numbers and the neutral zero), etc.
Taking these two simple examples, you can say that character 01 finds a tree and makes marks to count. For integers, he climbs the tree and, among apples pecked by birds, finds a whole one. Upon picking it up, he falls and dies (0 represents death, and the negative is also included, since an image can represent two or more terms).
You can continue as you wish. In some cases, you will have to use more than one method. If it’s history, you will need to memorize dates or chronologies, and that’s a different topic altogether.
02 Algebra → Robert de Niro
03 Geometry and Trigonometry → Rachel Weisz
04 Analytic Geometry → Aaron Eckhart
05 Differential Calculus → Ray Liotta
06 Integral Calculus → Arnold Schwarzenegger
Memorizing verbatim is possible, but I don’t usually use it unless it’s absolutely necessary, such as for history, poetry, philosophy, quotes, etc.
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Interesting. You can create stories with the characters. I don’t use it but I will see how to do it.
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