4. Memory Aids

Learning by Example

Is it better to learn a series of new words by simply learning the definition - or by example?

A rather amusing study done by K. E. Nitsch, working with researcher John Bransford at the Vanderbilt University in Tennessee, throws light on the question.

Nitsch taught his subjects some made-up words with reasonably wide potential application e.g.

MINGE - to gang up on a person or thing
CRINCH - to make someone angry by doing something inappropriate..
RELL - to rescue someone from a dangerous or problematic situation.

The question was - how well were the meanings of the words learned (by example versus by rote) and how widely could the subjects subsequently apply the new vocabulary?

The results clearly are of interest to language teaching.

The first result was very clear. The group who learned through example learned much better than those who merely recited the definitions.

The second result was obvious but significant. The narrower the context of the example, the less flexibility the student had to use the meaning in other situations. So if you teach by example - you should make the example a fairly general one.

Chunking

George Miller from Harvard University, in an influential paper entitled `The Magical Number Seven: Plus or Minus Two' pointed out that the immediate memory span was limited in the number of items it can hold.

He found that whether people were given lists of numbers or words, they could not correctly recall lists of more than about seven items. Now this is not surprising because it fits in with the fact that you are unlikely to sub-vocalise more than 7 items in less than 10 seconds, which is the approximate span of the short term memory store.

Miller's contribution, however, was to point out that it was the number of items that was the limiting factor - not the information contained in those items. Now, clearly, if there was only one word per item you would only remember seven words. But if each item contained quite a lot of information - or "chunks" of information as Miller termed it, - then you could increase memorisation. More information could be packed into larger chunks but not more chunks.

Chunking is, in fact, a natural process. Given a string of numbers to remember, say 4 9 3 8 6 2 7 1 2 1 you would probably reproduce it as 493-862-7121. Indeed the reason why telephone numbers are basically 7 digits in alI countries, throughout the world, is that the Magic Seven is a universal phenomenon.

You will also find, that if you recite the alphabet from A-Z, you do not do so as a continuous stream, but in Chunks. Try it!

If the chunk can be rhythmical so much the better. Rhythm and rhyme are undoubted aids to memory.

Rhythm and Rhyme

A reason why monks frequently chant their prayers is because the rhythm and the rhyme are powerful mnemonics. A mnemonic being simply an aid to memory.

Another common example of the power of rhyming and rhythm is the rule -

"Thirty days has September April, June and November."

It's chunked, it rhymes and it has rhythm. So it's well remembered.

We shall be discussing the role of music and memory in detail in Chapter 7, but most parents will be only too familiar with the ability of their younger children to remember the words of a pop song even on limited exposure, but be singularly un-impressive when it comes to a list of history dates or french verbs. The pop song is normally chunked with rhythm and rhyme, the dates are not.

Moreover the music of the pop song provides a sound and emotional association with the words - and the more associations the better encoded (remembered) is the material.

Motivation

The example of the teenager and the pop song has another significance - for there is another obvious force at work. A force that, in fact, ties together many of the points already made. We all find it much easier to succeed if we are motivated. Teenagers are motivated to `learn' a pop song. In fact, they don't so much learn it, as absorb it indirectly. It's enjoyable and stress free. Pre-school children also learn much indirectly and it is no accident that their environment is much the same as that of a teenager absorbing a pop song.

Another virtuous circle we have found in the practice of Accelerated Learning is motivation. Since the expectation of success is high and because the pupil does indeed find learning easy and effective, the encouragement and motivation to continue fuels another round of learn/enjoy/succeed.

Children learn their own language amazingly quickly, partly because they are unconsciously using the learning principles we have rediscovered in creating Accelerated Learning, and partly because they are highly motivated to do so. It is the only way they can get what they want!

If you are motivated, if you are interested in a subject, you focus attention and that creates a climate for good learning.

It does no harm to introduce a bit of artificial motivation. Set yourself a target and, when that learning stage or task is achieved, reward yourself, in a specific manner. Buy yourself some new clothes, for example or perfume or a tie or go to a show or a meal out. The item doesn't matter - the motivation and reward does.

What about Repetition?

For all those people who have been brought up to equate learning with endless and boring repetition, we have some good news. You were right - repetition is not an effective way to learn!

Repetition by itself has little value unless it is accompanied by involvement.

U.S. psychologists M.J. Adams and R.S. Nickerson reporting in "Cognitive Psychology" in 1979, asked subjects to remember and draw the features of a common American coin; a coin people would expect to handle several times a day or thousands of times over a 10 year period.

The memory for the actual detail was appalling.

Equally appalling were the results of a study conducted by Dr. Alan Baddeley and Debra Dekerian at the Applied Psychology Unit in Cambridge. The B.B.C. was in the middle of a campaign to announce it was changing its wavelengths. Each subject had probably heard the announcement on her/his radio several hundred times. Yet correct recall was little better than guessing.

The reason why mere repetition is ineffective is not hard to guess. Firstly, without strong motivation and unless the repetition is accompanied by strong encoding, it just goes "in one ear and out the other". Secondly, the repetition itself cancels out a feature of strong encoding - the power of the unusual or outstanding to attract attention and thereby create memory.

Which brings us to the truly artificial memory aids - mnemonics 

Mnemonics - The Greeks did have a word for it!

The word mnemonics is derived from the Greek "MNEME" meaning to remember and a mnemonic is anything that helps you remember better.

Many such systems exist. The first, historically, seems to have been devised by the Greek poet Simonides, following a tragedy. Simonides was, according to Cicero, attending a victory banquet. He was called away in the middle of the festivities, just before the floor of the banqueting hall collapsed, killing and mutilating the guests and rendering many of the bodies unrecognisable. Simonides was recalled and asked to help in the identification. He found he could do so by remembering where each had sat.

From this gruesome experience he evolved the idea of visualising places in detail, in order to then remember a list of things. In clarifying the method, Cicero explained that you would first visualise a series of places about the house. (The Latin for place is `locus' from which we get our word location).

Thus the places might be rooms in the house. Then you would visualise the objects to be remembered, placed in each room - ideally in a comical or unusual position. When the list had to be remembered, you would merely go through the places and `see' the items in sequence.

The system was frequently used by the Romans to remember the sequence of points in a speech - hence the common phrase "In the first place" and "In the second place".

The Greeks, too, used the system and from their word `topos' meaning place, we have derived the English "topic".

Since the nineteenth century a whole series of Mnemonic devices have been devised, and indeed marketed for sale. Most rely on the peg word system. This, too, uses visual imagery.

Peg words

This memory system is interesting for its insight into the role of visual association.

The idea allows you to remember a list of unrelated items in correct sequence. The first step is to create the `pegs'. These have to be committed to memory by sub vocalising. Because the objects rhyme with the numbers they are easy to memorise.

one = bun
two = shoe
three = tree
four = door
five = hive
six = sticks
seven = heaven
eight = plate
nine = wine
ten = hen

Having memorised the peg words, the next step is to relate visually the items-to-be-remembered with the correct peg word.

Supposing the second item on your list is a car. The instruction is to form a strong visual image of the car and the shoe and get that image to interact as strongly as possible. For instance, a Rolls Royce car might be parked right on top of a giant canvas shoe.

The third item to remember might be a clock. You might visualise a fruit tree growing alarm clocks instead of fruit. As you walked along you bumped your head on the alarm clock and it started to ring. This is a good interactive image because it brings in several senses. Experts in the mnemonic system stress that the more outstanding you make the image the better. It should be unusual, bizarre (remember Von Restorff?) humorous. Additionally since the mental image is entirely a private affair, you will find vulgar or sexual images make strong associations! That is because they involve the maximum number of senses.

Most readers will be familiar with the peg word memory system so we will not belabour the point. However, the principle behind the system is of the utmost importance. It involves creating a highly visual association between two ideas, or words or objects. The more interactive the association the better.

There are three key words in this definition of strong memory. Visual, Association and Interactive. They each bear examination.

Visual Memory

Visual images are remembered far better than words. "One picture is worth a thousand words".

Scientific American in May 1970 published an amazing account of an experiment conducted by Ralph Haber of the University of Rochester N.Y. Subjects were shown a series of 2,500 photographs. One every 10 seconds. Seven hours of viewing!
At the end of the session, spread over three days, the subjects were shown almost 300 pairs of photographs. One photo they had seen, the other was from a similar set of pictures, but was new.
They recognised between 85%-95% of the original pictures correctly.

In a further test subjects were presented with 600 pictures and tested immediately. They scored 98% correct! A later Canadian study conducted by R.S. Nickerson showed correct recall for vivid image pictures to be 99% correct!
For all intents and purposes visual memory can be perfect. It's a fact the advertising industry has known for years and we have incorporated it into our learning system.

Association

The brain is not like a sponge absorbing information until it eventually becomes saturated. It is a vast network of complex interconnections. Memory works in the same way.

Every new fact or concept you learn adds to and links up with the existing network. So when you encode something new, it not only forms a link to the existing network, it also provides yet another hook onto which still more associations can be hung or connected. So the more you learn and remember, the greater is your capacity for future learning and remembering.

Think back to an important joyous (or even traumatic) event in your life. You will certainly remember at least some of your surroundings at the time, or a physical sensation that went with the experience. Most people remember where they were when they heard that John Kennedy or Elvis Presley had died. Memory involves associations. If you want to create strong memory, create strong associations.

In 1972 H.R. Lindsay and D.A. Norman introduced a fascinating concept in a book called "Human Information Processing". They called it a 'Semantic Network' and it was a pictorial representation of how memory works.

From a central idea, the brain does not process thoughts in a straight line logical sequence (the left brain might, but the whole brain does not).

Instead, it brings in ideas at a tangent as connections are sparked and associations triggered. The process can be illustrated as follows:
Let us start with a simple central idea or word ........ `Table'. The following sequence of ideas/words came to the author in the space of just thirty seconds from being given the concept of `Table'.

The sequence was -

Table / Chair / Legs / Girl / Dress / Arms / Touch / Fingers / Spread

Freud would doubtless have been delighted with my sequence, since he first developed and regularly used the method of free association to uncover underlying sexual themes and his patients thoughts. I clearly lost no time in connecting the concept of a table and chair, via legs, to a girl. No wonder the prudish Victorians often put skirts on their tables!

The way in which this sequence of ideas or words actually developed, can be pictorialised as follows. It is a reasonable approximation of how the brain and memory typically work, forming associations and connections, some verbal, some visual, and some with both visual and action associations. Direct sensory associations - here both visual and kinaesthetic (i.e. concerned with touch), follow each other like scenes in a dream.

Now without going through the entire thought process, (or revealing too much of the inner workings of the authors mind!) the thirty second sequence was:

1. Table - immediately associated with chair.
2. Chair - has legs
3. A Girl - has legs
4. A Girl often wears a dress
5. Mental picture of girl characteristically with arms held aloft as she puts on (or takes off) a dress.
6. The arms were a strong feature of the mental picture.
7. Arms are generally smooth and pleasant to touch
8. Touch involves fingers
9. Mental picture of fingers spread open
10. Link back to girl whose arms were spread aloft.

In just 30 seconds there were some five mental images generated and nine separate words were triggered from the original, fairly neutral word 'Table'.

If Lindsay and Norman were the first to suggest that pictorial associative networks set down ideas in the way that memory actually works, Tony Buzan has been the person most closely identified with the popularising of them as 'Mind Maps'.

We have developed even further the concept of visualising information in the same way that the brain does. We have developed what we call "Memory Maps". These act not simply as a way of revising information when it has already been learnt but as a way of creating memory (i.e. learning) in the first place. If information can be presented in a visual and connected form, (as was the sequence above from chair to spread), then we clearly have a device that not only incorporates visualisation, but actually and accurately reproduces the way in which the brain works. The information is pre-digested in the form the memory can most easily assimilate.

You will learn much more of the power of memory maps later in this book.

The Importance of Interaction

Visual images we know to be strong. But imagery can itself be strengthened if it is made to be interactive. Psychologist Gordon Bower reported on a test in which subjects were given 12 pairs of words and 8 seconds in which to learn them. Only 33% of the repeated pairs were remembered but when the subject was told to create a visual association between the pairs, the correct recall of the pairs shot up to 80%.

When the association specifically involved a direct interaction between the images, then the recall went up even further. Thus suppose the pair of words were Dolphin and Flower. An acceptable visual image would be a giant daisy floating beside the dolphin. But that brings in no direct connection. A better image would be a smiling dolphin blowing a stream of highly coloured flowers out of the blow hole on its head. This image has got interaction and movement and colour. The more detailed and developed the image the better.

Tests have shown that a sharp, interactive image can improve recall of word pairs by 300% compared with simple rote learning.
All this is not to imply that visual imagery is the only way of creating powerful associations and thus enduring memory. Indeed the associations involved in music (lovers often have a special song), smells (that never-to-be-forgotten whiff of perfume), and touch, can be just as powerful. But imaging by visualisation is a practical device that we can all use with no external aids. It just requires the power of our imagination.

Memory Men

Throughout history there have been people who have astonished their fellows with their apparently superhuman feats of memory. There was:

* Mehmed Ali Halici, a Turk, who in a 1967 recording, accurately quoted over 6,500 verses of the Koran in 6 hours.

* The late Professor Aitkin of Edinburgh University who could correctly remember the first 1000 decimal places of the value of pi. It was noticeable that he `chunked' the figures rhythmically. His achievement is now somewhat overshadowed by Hideaki Tomoyori of Japan who has memorised the first 10,000 places of pi!

* The Indian Brahmin who gives selected students special training to develop their memory. The Rig Veda is the oldest recorded work in Indo-European literature. It contains 10,550 verses and a total of 153,826 words. It is only one of four Vedas. There are students who have committed the entire sacred text to memory, in case the ancient scriptures should be destroyed.

* The Yogi Shaa, who lived in Bombay, could repeat 1,000 phrases from memory after one hearing or reading. He could reportedly memorise any poem, in any language, after hearing it just once.

* Maori Chief Kaumatara of New Zealand who recited the entire history of his tribe over 45 generations and 1,000 years to a reporter. It took three days!

* Cardinal Mezzofani, who could speak over 60 languages, most of them fluently.

All the above, and many more, demonstrate the skill of hypermnesia or super-memory. They share it with those people who have "photographic" memories. People who can recall entire pages of text and mentally run down the page until they `see' the information they want.

The psychological term for this ability is eidetic memory. Significantly, because it seems to be a right brain capability, it occurs much more frequently in children, but decreases fairly quickly after the age of 10. There is evidence that our educational attitude, with its emphasis on logic and `hard' facts, rather than frivolous images, may have educated eidetic memory out of us. Researcher E.R. Jaensch discovered that, in schools who encouraged sensory activities, a much higher proportion of children retained the clearly desirable gift of eidetic memory.

The question is, are people with hypermnesia evolutionary freaks or do they simply possess advance techniques of recall? Perhaps we are all capable of total recall?

There is some circumstantial evidence that we can.

Do we all have Photographic Memory?

At McGill University in Montreal, the now famous Wilder Penfield experiments took place between 1936-1960. A neurosurgeon, Dr. Penfield had several occasions when delicate brain surgery had to be conducted with a local anaesthetic and the patient, therefore, remained conscious. This gave the opportunity to insert minute electrodes into exposed parts of the cortex, and, by stimulating very small areas with tiny electric impulses, to note the patients' response.

When areas of the motor cortex were stimulated, the patient would predictably show a reflex response - a twitch of a muscle or even the jerk of a limb. Smells, sounds and other physical reactions could be stimulated.

The surprise was that when the temporal cortex (above the ears) was probed, very specific memories were elicited - "as if a movie film suddenly started to roll in my head". Many, indeed most, of these memories were of apparently long forgotten and quite trivial events. A man reported seeing a comparatively unimportant friend he had not thought of, or contacted, since childhood. A woman described hearing her mother call her into the kitchen - a minor incident 30 years previously. Interestingly, even if precisely the same spot was stimulated more than once, the same memory was not evoked, so memory seemed not to be permanently stored in a particular spot in the brain.

These discoveries are echoed by people who have cheated death and who report that their lives flashed before them. They are reinforced by recent work with hypnotised subjects. Under hypnosis patients can recall events in much more vivid detail than they were ever conscious of assimilating in the first place.

In a fascinating series of experiments a women was regressed under hypnosis to age eight. Then she was asked to draw a picture and write a short story describing that picture.

The picture, story, and handwriting were all obviously those of a little girl. What was so remarkable, however, was that the girl's mother was able to produce an identical picture and story written in the identical style of handwriting by the same woman when she actually was an eight year old girl. The recall had been perfect after 20 years.

Other examples of recall under hypnosis are well enough known. It is quite possible to tell the number of stairs in your office or the number of panes in your lounge windows - even though you have never consciously counted them.

Police have asked accident witnesses to volunteer to give evidence under hypnosis. In the normal, conscious, state they were able to give only limited detail. Under hypnosis precise detail of colours, direction and people were recalled.

At the time these details had been subconsciously and subliminally registered, but under the right circumstances the
brain can recall, not just the events on which the conscious mind was focused but the peripheral sounds and sights registered only in the subconscious mind.

A particularly impressive set of experiments has been undertaken at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Using a technique developed with the Bell Laboratories, subjects were exposed to pairs of Random Dot stereogram slides. Each individual slide contained a series of dots with no apparent meaning, but when they were superimposed one on top of the other, they combined to form letters, numbers or symbols.

The researchers first exposed one of the stereogram slides to the left eye. Then, later, the other stereogram was shown to the right eye. The time interval was progressively extended to as long as three days. In order to create the image, subjects had to hold in their memory the dots and their positions, so as to then later match this pattern to that of the second slide. The task required the subconscious memorisation of thousands of tiny dots.

These eidetic image stereograms could be successfully recognised by over half the respondents. Typically subjects needed about ten seconds to create the correct image. This is about the same time as the conscious mind needs to perceive subliminally embedded words in advertisements. The more relaxed the subject, the better the memory recall. However, as Professor Wilson Bryan Key points out in his excellent book, `Subliminal Seduction', which describes the role of the subliminal in advertising, "the perception of subliminal stimuli at the subconscious level appears to be virtually instantaneous and total" (our emphasis).

Professor Key continues: "An individual who wants to utilise a greater part of his brain-stored information, must simply learn how to move information from the unconscious into the conscious level of cognition".

There is no known relationship between photographic memory and intelligence. The sort of regressive hypnosis we have discussed, indicates that almost anyone can recall eidetic images from any stage in their life, but that these are normally available to the subconscious and not conscious mind.

In this case the key to using the natural capacity of the brain must be to "circumvent the conscious control systems that we erect during our formal schooling and allow the greater subconscious capacities to be used".

"It is quite possible", (Professor Key again), "that the education processes of the West may be in effect, limiting man's intelligence by forcing him to repress greater and greater amounts of what he actually perceives. The implications to mankind are enormous, if individuals have innate neurological abilities vastly beyond their apparent conscious levels".

All this is of great significance in creating an ideal presentation for fast easy learning. The impression is being clearly formed amongst today's' psychologists that the brain, as Chris Evans put it "has near infinite storage capacity". Nothing is truly forgotten. The problem seems to be not one of creating memory. We all have the basis of photographic memory. The problem is one of recall. The key may be in the cumbersome word Synaesthesia.

S - The Mind of a Mnemonist

If you read any text book on memory, you will certainly come across the Russian psychologist, Professor Luria. For 30 years Luria studied a most remarkable man by the name of SOLOMON VENIAMINOVICH SHERESHEVSKII, known (thankfully) as "S"., Luria published the findings of his study in a book "The Mind of a Mnemonist". "S", who was a journalist, was first sent to Luria by the editor of his paper who noticed that he never took notes - yet could repeat everything word for word.

In test after test of increasing complexity "S" showed perfect recall. In tests using long lists of nonsense syllables of confusing similarity - (e.g. MA.VA.NA.SA) - "S" would score perfectly, and again scored perfect recall when tested some 8 years later! Instructively "S" would also recall the environment of the test, the clothes Luria was wearing, the sort of day it was, etc.

The secret was his incredible capacity for visualisation and synaethesia. Synaethesia is the ability to express a memory, generated in one sense, in terms of another. Sounds expressed as colours for example.

When "S" was given a tone with a pitch of 2000 cycles per second he commented -

"It looks something like fireworks with a pink-red hue. The strip of colour feels rough and unpleasant, and it has an ugly taste - rather like that of a briny pickle. You could hurt your hand on it."

Multi-sensory imagery indeed! Whenever information was presented to "S" he encoded it in a very elaborate manner with rich associative images. The result was vivid and highly interactive imagery.

In "The Brain Book", Peter Russell quoting from Luria gives a remarkable example of how "S" remembered a complex and meaningless formula.

"S" used the following imagery:

Neiman (N) came out and jabbed at the ground with his cane (.).

He looked up at a tall tree, which resembled the square root sign (V), and thought to himself.. "No wonder the tree has withered and begun to expose its roots. After all, it is here that 1 built these two houses" (d2). Once again he poked with his cane (). Then he said: "The houses are old, l'll have to get rid of them (x). The sale will bring far more money." He had originally invested 85, 000 in them (85). Then I see the roof of the house detached (________ ), while down below on the street I see a man playing the Termenvox (vx). He's standing near a mailbox, and on the corner there is a large stone (), which had been put there to keep carts from crushing up against the houses. Here, then, is the square, over there the large tree (V) with three jackdaws on it (V3). I simply put the figures 276 here, and a square box containing cigarettes in the "square" (2) . . . etc.

Luria recounts how "S" was able to remember this mathematical formula in precise detail by telling the same story over 15 years later.

Of especial interest is the fact that "S" could use the same powers of visualisation or imagination to banish pain. He was able to visualise the pain as an actual shape and colour. The, when he had a `tangible' image of it in his mind, he would imagine this imaginary pain slowly easing out of his body. The real pain went with it.

In the same way he could make himself warmer by picturing himself in a hot place, or cooler by imaging himself in the Artic. But always the image was very specific and detailed and the feelings were vivid.

What is true of creating memory is of course true of learning.

Now examples like this may tempt you to think that imagination of this order is unique. It is certainly extraordinary but our imaginations can be trained to a higher expertise.

So the more sensory channels you can learn in, the better you will learn. Start perhaps with a visual image then link it with sounds, feelings and if possible even tastes and smells. The more the associations, the more the mental hooks on which to hang your new knowledge, and the more retrieval clues you have for fast recall when you want it.

Let's look further at the power of imagination because it is a key to Accelerated Learning. Before we do you may like to test your own powers of imagery.

Rate your power of imagery

The ability to imagine is of great importance. The following test helps you rate yourself. Just read the instruction, close your eyes and summon up the item as clearly as you can. Then use the scale to rate the clarity of the image. Note that we use the word `image', not in a confined sense of visual image, but in the sense of conjuring up an impression that can be of smell, taste, sounds and touch, as well as sight.

Rating Scale

If the image is Very Clear you record 4 points If the image is Clear you record 3 points
If the image is Fairly Clear - record 2 points If the image is Unclear you record 1 point
If the image is Non-existent - record 0 points

When you have tried all the instructions add up the points and check with the rating scale at the end.

1. See yourself throwing a ball
2. Imagine yourself smelling some lavender
3. Picture the house you grew up in
4. Picture a close relative standing in front of you
5. Picture a friend looking worried
6. Imagine a black forest gateaux
7. Picture the eyes of a close friend
8. Imagine the first few bars of your favourite song
9. Imagine the feeling of the hot sun on your skin 10. Imagine the texture of coarse sandpaper
11. Picture a kettle boiling
12. Imagine a cold wind when its raining
13. Picture yourself riding a bicycle up a steep slope 14. Hear a factory siren
15. Picture a South Sea island
16. Picture the room in which you work 17. Imagine the smell of new mown hay 18. Feel yourself picking up a heavy object 19. Feel the warmth of a hot bath
20. Picture a favourite article of clothing

Rating Score

If you scored 60 or more, your power to image is very good

If you scored 31-59 your power to image is good and can be improved even further by imagery techniques.

If you scored 30 or less you will obtain great benefit and pleasure from the imagery training we describe later.