I recently committed to learning a mnemonic peg system in an effort to improve my memory. I’ve learned a few things from the experience.
Mnemonic peg systems are almost perfectly arbitrary so they provide a decent case study for how you form memories in the absence of any governing structure or natural chunking. It’s an “IQ-proof” task.
In the past I have systematically overestimated my ability to retain information after a single exposure and simultaneously underestimated my ability to retain information after training. Specifically, in a single training session I will see a particular pairing and think to myself, “Okay, I’ve got it,” and then manage to forget it a couple of hours later. However, after a few days of repeated exposure, it eventually sinks in to the extent that I can recall it instantly. Forcing yourself to memorize unstructured/arbitrary associations concretely shows you both how bad you are at retaining information by default and how amazingly good you can get at retaining and retrieving information if you just keep at it.
I have also realized the importance of “sitting with the mistake”. If I fail to recall an association on a given flashcard, or come up with the wrong association, I will sit with that card for 30 seconds or so, visualizing in as much detail as possible all the connections implicit in the association, before moving on to the next card. In the past, with previous attempts to use flashcards, I would simply see the right answer, think “Oops,” and move on. Using flashcards without explicitly focusing on your errors is like trying to train an artificial neural network while skipping the propagation of the error signal.
I suspect a lot of “smart” people get through life avoiding the slog of rote memorization as much as possible. I personally managed to get through school without ever really memorizing the multiplication tables because I could always mentally calculate small numbers “well enough”. It has been very instructive to force myself to memorize something essentially arbitrary.
Mnemonic peg systems are almost perfectly arbitrary so they provide a decent case study for how you form memories in the absence of any governing structure or natural chunking. It’s an “IQ-proof” task.
I don’t think it’s useful to try to adopt mnemonic pegs without any chunking. I personally started having pegs from 0 to 9 and 00 to 99. I filled them with images of woman that I put into 11 categories with 10 people and sorted every pile by the alphabet.
After thinking about it I realized that the system I’m using doesn’t have zero structure, but it has less than, say, multiplication tables.
I use the phonetic two digit Person-Action-Object system. So 23 for example corresponds to “Nemo nomming (a) gnome.” (n=2 and m=3). 48 is “Raph raving (at a) ref.” (r=4, f/v=8). 56 is “Luigi leashing a leach.” (5=l, 6=sh/j/ch). This allows you to chunk 234856 as the vivid image “Nemo raving at a leach.”
I’m still not quick enough with the system to say whether it’s really useful. Part of the purpose of the exercise is to force myself to memorize something difficult just for the sake of getting a sense of what it is to memorize something, since I’ve avoided that activity for my entire life.
At the moment I do have people and soon I will have cards for all from 0 to 99. I don’t yet have actions or objects. How did you come up with lists for actions and objects?
I recently committed to learning a mnemonic peg system in an effort to improve my memory. I’ve learned a few things from the experience.
Mnemonic peg systems are almost perfectly arbitrary so they provide a decent case study for how you form memories in the absence of any governing structure or natural chunking. It’s an “IQ-proof” task.
In the past I have systematically overestimated my ability to retain information after a single exposure and simultaneously underestimated my ability to retain information after training. Specifically, in a single training session I will see a particular pairing and think to myself, “Okay, I’ve got it,” and then manage to forget it a couple of hours later. However, after a few days of repeated exposure, it eventually sinks in to the extent that I can recall it instantly. Forcing yourself to memorize unstructured/arbitrary associations concretely shows you both how bad you are at retaining information by default and how amazingly good you can get at retaining and retrieving information if you just keep at it.
I have also realized the importance of “sitting with the mistake”. If I fail to recall an association on a given flashcard, or come up with the wrong association, I will sit with that card for 30 seconds or so, visualizing in as much detail as possible all the connections implicit in the association, before moving on to the next card. In the past, with previous attempts to use flashcards, I would simply see the right answer, think “Oops,” and move on. Using flashcards without explicitly focusing on your errors is like trying to train an artificial neural network while skipping the propagation of the error signal.
I suspect a lot of “smart” people get through life avoiding the slog of rote memorization as much as possible. I personally managed to get through school without ever really memorizing the multiplication tables because I could always mentally calculate small numbers “well enough”. It has been very instructive to force myself to memorize something essentially arbitrary.
I don’t think it’s useful to try to adopt mnemonic pegs without any chunking. I personally started having pegs from 0 to 9 and 00 to 99. I filled them with images of woman that I put into 11 categories with 10 people and sorted every pile by the alphabet.
After thinking about it I realized that the system I’m using doesn’t have zero structure, but it has less than, say, multiplication tables.
I use the phonetic two digit Person-Action-Object system. So 23 for example corresponds to “Nemo nomming (a) gnome.” (n=2 and m=3). 48 is “Raph raving (at a) ref.” (r=4, f/v=8). 56 is “Luigi leashing a leach.” (5=l, 6=sh/j/ch). This allows you to chunk 234856 as the vivid image “Nemo raving at a leach.”
I’m still not quick enough with the system to say whether it’s really useful. Part of the purpose of the exercise is to force myself to memorize something difficult just for the sake of getting a sense of what it is to memorize something, since I’ve avoided that activity for my entire life.
At the moment I do have people and soon I will have cards for all from 0 to 99. I don’t yet have actions or objects. How did you come up with lists for actions and objects?
I started with this list and customized it with names that had meaning for me.
This page ( http://mt.artofmemory.com/wiki/Person-Action-Object_(PAO)_System ) has a lot of links that could give you other ideas.