Question

Is there anyone who wants to discuss memory techniques with me? (I'm complete newb and in need of help)

Answer 1

I have read Kenneth L. Higbee's "Your Memory: How It Works and How to Improve It" Joshua Foer "Moonwalking with Einstein" and Rhetorica Ad Herennium regarding memory sections. And some online literature about the construction of memory.

Answer 2

But I still have difficulty regarding the transfer to real world applications, especially regarding to school studies

Answer 3

There are many different theories about how memory works, and many of them are at least partially correct. As far as school studies go, I think one of the most important things is making personal associations between ideas. When my friends and I were studying for our psychology exam we knew it would be difficult to memorize the dozens of researchers and the specifics of their work, so we tried to come up with images and other "memory cues" that would help us recall the information. For example, Raymond Cattell worked on basic personality dimensions as well as crystallized and fluid intelligence. So we drew a picture of a cat with crystal eyes - "crystal eyes" sounds like "crystallized", the cat reminds us of his name "Cattell", and cats also have very interesting personalities :)

Answer 4

I am sorry for my late reply. That is amazing. Is there a tried and true method to help finding suitable substitute words (or sentences)? I have problems in finding either semantic or sound substitute. Also in memorizing numbers using Major System I just have problem changing arbitrary set of consonants (like tknmtmmrfl for 1723133485) as a sentence or series of nouns. (It seems I'm just not good with manipulating these. Or I'm just not creative enough) How do you practice that kind of skill?

Answer 5

Oops, my turn to apologize for the late reply... I'm not aware of a method like what you described, you just need to find something that works for yourself. Like I said, one of the more important things for memory isn't stuffing your brain full of facts as much as making connections and associations between those facts, so that you're better able to recall them in the future. I haven't tried memorizing numbers with a consonant system like what you described, but I have read about a similar method in the book "Secrets of Mental Math" by Arthur Benjamin and Michael Shermer. The book shows how by assigning phonetic sounds like "m" to 3 and "n" to 2, the number 32 can become something like "MooN" or "MaN" - so there is some room for variation, especially if you only use consonants for numbers. I've never really had a need to learn such a system so I never bothered learning to do this, although I suppose it is something I should do someday.