Question

MUST BE IN YOUR OWN WORDS- PLEASE DON'T COPY AND PRINT FROM INTERNET, IM INTERESTED IN YOUR OPINION

In The Mind of a Mnemonist, Russian psychologist A. R. Luria described the feats of a newspaper reporter who could recall incredible amounts of information following a brief and seemingly effortless examination of the to-be-remembered material. The reporter relied heavily on images, primarily visual, but also cutaneous, olfactory, and gustatory sensations. He apparently had what we call a photographic or eidetic memory. Would it be helpful to remember everything?

Answer 1

Sometimes even when you do not suffer from any disorders related to memory, retrieving information from the long-term memory can be quite a task. However, before information enters the long-term memory, it needs to be rehearsed well in the short-term memory for it to be able to transfer to the long-term memory and store it safely. There are umpteen strategies that could help in encoding and storing information for later use. The following are a few Mnemonics:

1. Memory Pegs: This method includes learning series of words that correspond with numbers from 1-10. Example: One-Bun, Two-Shoe, Three-Free and etecetra.

2. Method of Loci: As the name suggests, an individual needs to imagine a location in mind, or a familiar route. For instance, the blueprint of your house. If you need to go grocery shopping, and have prepared a mental list, you can associate the grocery items like chicken, onions, eggs, bananas to different parts of your house. You might imagine your backyard with chickens squealing, eggs splattered on your doors, banana peel on the street and onions which make you teary eyed. When you are at the store and cannot remember your list, you take a mental walk and recollect the items that were noted for purchase.

3. Stories you tell yourself: If you have a list of unrelated items and you need to drop into different stores to pick them up, you are most likely to not remember them. In order to make it easier for you to retrieve it from our memory, the best way is to tell yourself a related story which includes all the items that you need to buy from different stores.

4. Chunking: Sometimes it maybe next to impossible to remember numbers even for a shorter duration in our short-term memory. The best way to remember numbers is by chunking them into seven different units. A human mind is capable of storing information between four to seven units at one time. It is easier to remember if you break down larger chunks into smaller units. For example, this technique could be used in remembering phone numbers.

Information needs to be rehearsed before it is stored. Even if it is eidetic memory, the information needs to be rehearsed, else it is impossible to remember and retrieve information.