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T h e M e m o r y K e y
<http://www.memory-key.com>

Your resource for information about memory and memory improvement

April 2008

<http://www.memory-key.com/newsletters/issue_120.htm> ========================================

THIS MONTH ON MEMORY-KEY.COM:

MEMORY PRACTICES

FEATURED ARTICLES

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NEW: The original Memory Key is now available as an e-book!
Check it out at: http://www.memory-key.com/shop/memkey_ebook.htm.
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Check out the e-book on "Effective notetaking" at:
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and the e-book on "Remembering intentions" at:
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NEW: Sequel to Secrets available!
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MEMORY PRACTICES

While writing has commonly been regarded as the enemy of memory — (the god Thoth was apparently warned that “this discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners' souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves”) — it’s also been argued, with some merit, that it was the introduction of writing that created the idea of word-for-word memorization. But though we have this awe of the memory capabilities of pre-literate societies, the sagas and songs and genealogies that were passed on were probably not memorized word for word. Indeed, most oral societies aren’t even aware of what a word is (and if that sounds odd, remember that spacing between words is a relatively recent phenomenon even in European tradition, and in fact when we speak, our words come out in a continuous stream. The pauses are between phrases and sentences, or even longer chunks, not words.) In an oral society what is important is gist. Studies of the memorization of sagas, ballads, etc, indicate that various schema — for gist (meaning), for poetics, rhythm, imagery, and music — all combine to give the impression of verbatim recall, but the more-or-less accurate product is the result of the constraints these schema lay on the words.

This is not to detract from the achievement! It is still an admirable memory feat. But the lesson, that what is important to remember is intelligently selected information, is one worth remembering. Despite the ambitions of those who aspire to be “memory champions”, verbatim recall is not, for the most part, a particularly useful or desirable skill.

Writing is a two-sided coin. It enables us to record everything, word for word if we want to, and while this is marvellous, it’s also dangerous. It gives us the idea that word for word accuracy is desirable; it overwhelms us with far more information than we need; it makes us feel we don’t need to remember anything ‘because it’s written down’, while simultaneously making it much harder to find, because so much is written down. Writing hasn’t replaced memory; it is both an adjunct to memory and one of the biggest demands on memory.

But because we’re inclined to think written texts do away with the need for memory — and then go frantic when we don’t know where to find information we need, or don’t have access to it when we want it, or most importantly, can’t remember enough of what we’re supposed to know to put it all together in our head — because of all that, we can learn something from the methods our pre-literate ancestors used to help them remember. Because, in the absence of a written language capable of including every little detail, they developed methods that were essentially very efficient retrieval cue systems.

Here’s some examples of the sort of mnemonic aids I’m talking of.

Among Native American tribes, the Aribaras of the Missouri River encoded their complex cosmology and beliefs in a sheaf of 34 sticks. The Pimas of Arizona used long “calendar sticks” to help them recall their history. The Iroquois had canes carved with pictographs and fitted with tiny birchwood pegs, whose arrangement contained mnemonic cues. Most famously, and more widespread, was the use of wampum belts, in which the arrangement and pattern of colored shell beads contained information about historical events and archival and contractual records.

On a more personal note, Yakima girls started in childhood to wind “string balls” containing small objects and knots to commemorate experiences. Plains Indians warriors developed the habit, as feuding became more common, of portraying their battle exploits with drawings on clothes or tipi covers.

Marshall Islanders used stick charts to help them remember navigation between islands. Attached to a rectangular frame, sticks showed currents and wave characteristics and tiny cowry shells lashed between them represented islands. But they didn’t actually take these with them in their canoes; they relied on their visual memory of the chart.

In a similar vein, in medieval Europe, portraits were also used as memory aids. It is notable, to our minds, that it was not considered necessary for portraits in these and earlier times to accurately depict the people they were supposedly portraying. This emphasizes that their function was to provide a retrieval cue for stories and facts about the person, rather than anything else.

These are all, in their way, a type of writing, but in a far more compressed code than the method we use — and that compression, that need to reduce and reduce and reduce, is critical. In fact, that is the nature of most mnemonic schemes: they force us to reduce an unwieldy mass of information into smaller and smaller bits and provide a set of retrieval cues to guide our recall of those smallest bits. If you’ve done it right, recall of those highly compressed bits will unfold like an origami rose.

But there’s another approach to memory, and these too are exemplified in traditional strategies. One such is cosmological stories, which are designed to make it easier to remember star patterns and movements, and the meaning of them (for example, the re-appearance of the Pleiades heralds the rainy season for the Khoikhoi; according to the Namaquas, if Canopus is seen in May with a very intense light, the frost will be very hard). This approach is the opposite of systematic reduction for memorability —this is elaboration to improve the memorability of the essential information.

This charming strategy may similarly be considered an example of elaboration to enhance memorability: In medieval Germany or France, a young Jewish boy might have begun his formal education with a ceremony designed to give him the desired attitude towards studying in a very memorable way. He was wrapped in a coat or prayer shawl and carried to his teacher. Seated on the teacher’s lap, he was shown a tablet on which the Hebrew alphabet was written. The teacher reads the letters forwards, backwards, then in paired combinations, encouraging the child to repeat them. Then he smears honey over the tablet and tells the boy to lick it off. Cakes on which biblical verses have been written are bought in, then shelled eggs similarly inscribed. The teacher reads them, the boy imitates him, then eats the food. The child is then asked to recite an incantation adjuring the prince of forgetfulness to go far away and not block the boy’s heart / mind. The child then eats fruit, nuts, and other treats, then is taken to the river where the teacher tells him that his study of the Torah, like the rushing water, will never end. [1]

I hope that these examples may encourage you to be broadminded, and perhaps lateral-minded!, in your selection of memory strategies. Remember the essence of making things memorable — reduction or elaboration — and that an effective strategy is one that works for you.

I’m also looking for examples of personal, familial, and traditional memory strategies (such as those I’ve mentioned here), so if you have or know of any such, I’d love to hear from you! 

1. Fine, L. (ed.) 2001. Judaism in practice: From the Middle Ages through the Early Modern Period.

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FEATURED ARTICLES

I thought, given how much is on my website, it might be a good idea to start featuring an old article every month. And just to add some interest, I’ll feature someone else’s article at the same time! This month, I have chosen my article on tip-of-the-tongue experiences, and an article from the Scientific American Mind Matters blog (which I think is great), on thinking with the body.

Here’s the summary of the TOT article:

• In a tip-of-the-tongue experience, you typically know quite a lot of information about the target word without being able to remember the word itself.
• Remembering often occurs sometime later, when you have stopped searching for the word.
• Often a similar sounding word seems to block your recall, but these probably don't cause your difficulty in remembering.
• TOTs probably occur because of there is a weak connection between the meaning and the sound of a word.
• Connections are weak when they haven't been used frequently or recently
• Aging may also weaken connections.
• TOTs do occur more frequently as we age.
• In general, this increase in TOTs with age is seen in poorer recall of names (proper names and names of things). Abstract words do not become harder to recall with age.
• Keeping your experience of language diverse (e.g., playing scrabble, doing crosswords) may help reduce TOTs.

And here’s the link: http://www.memory-key.com/EverydayMemory/TOT.htm

Do note that there are two related articles (check the “Related Topics” on the top left), and if you’re interested in other memory failures, check out the relevant index at http://www.memory-key.com/Improvement/problems.htm

“Embodied cognition” by Art Glenberg talks about the latest research into how your body’s movements affect the way you think and perceive. I find this approach particularly interesting partly because the theory that our body affects our cognition takes us away from the oh-so-common metaphor of the brain as a computer, and also because Maria Montessori recognized the importance of this, and as many of you will know, I am a big fan of Montessori education. And for a third reason: Paul Ekman. Who isn’t mentioned in the article, but he’s the man who made face-reading famous, demonstrating that we can be made to feel the emotions signified by specific facial expressions simply by making those expressions.

You can read the article at http://science-community.sciam.com/blog-entry/Mind-Matters/Thinking-Body/400000391

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The Memory Key website is named after my book "The Memory Key", a
practical user-friendly handbook designed to help people achieve
genuine, long-lasting memory improvement.

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