Memory Class #4
Oct. 7th, 2008 08:38 amLast night's memory class was largely focused on numbers, continuing a handful of exercises were used to internalize the numbers-phonetics table to which we were introduced in last week's class.
And we had a test!
A single-page description of a house for sale was distributed. After a few minutes to read it through and memorize the details, we were asked 15 questions about details contained therein. I scored 14 out of 15, missing one of the easiest items: the name of the town in which the house is located. On the good side, I got every question about the layout of the property & house and all numbers related to rooms, room size, price and telephone numbers.
The last hour of the class was dedicated to building a method for memorizing a deck of cards. Cards are ordered by suit: clubs, hearts, spades and diamonds. This particular suit order alternates black & red suits and --we are assured by Prof
caller_dayle-- is a standard order used by magicians and card sharks world-wide.
Anyway, take the first letter of each suit (which is a conveniently unique value), then a phoneme from our internalized numbers table to select a word which is viscerally memorable. For example, we use the "c" from "clubs" and the sound we associate with the number 4, "r," giving us the obvious word "car." The image of a car --perhaps your favourite previous car, your current car, your fantasy car, whatever is memorable-- is now associated with the card "4 of clubs."
We mapped out the entire deck this way, 52 unique images for 52 cards and each set of images customized uniquely to be meaningful to the person in question.
To specifically memorize which cards have been viewed at a particular instant, one recalls the image associated with the card then visualize the image being destroyed in some horrific way, using the emotional connection to enforce the memorization process. For example, in my memory image inventory, the card "3 of hearts" is an image of a ham; to memorize the card once I see it being drawn by the dealer, I envision the ham being ravaged by a pack of hungry wolves.
This will all take practice. I haven't picked up a deck of cards in decades so I'm not sure it will have practical value but I'm in this for the mental discipline & training rather than improving my skills as a wanna-be card shark.
And we had a test!
A single-page description of a house for sale was distributed. After a few minutes to read it through and memorize the details, we were asked 15 questions about details contained therein. I scored 14 out of 15, missing one of the easiest items: the name of the town in which the house is located. On the good side, I got every question about the layout of the property & house and all numbers related to rooms, room size, price and telephone numbers.
The last hour of the class was dedicated to building a method for memorizing a deck of cards. Cards are ordered by suit: clubs, hearts, spades and diamonds. This particular suit order alternates black & red suits and --we are assured by Prof
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
Anyway, take the first letter of each suit (which is a conveniently unique value), then a phoneme from our internalized numbers table to select a word which is viscerally memorable. For example, we use the "c" from "clubs" and the sound we associate with the number 4, "r," giving us the obvious word "car." The image of a car --perhaps your favourite previous car, your current car, your fantasy car, whatever is memorable-- is now associated with the card "4 of clubs."
We mapped out the entire deck this way, 52 unique images for 52 cards and each set of images customized uniquely to be meaningful to the person in question.
To specifically memorize which cards have been viewed at a particular instant, one recalls the image associated with the card then visualize the image being destroyed in some horrific way, using the emotional connection to enforce the memorization process. For example, in my memory image inventory, the card "3 of hearts" is an image of a ham; to memorize the card once I see it being drawn by the dealer, I envision the ham being ravaged by a pack of hungry wolves.
This will all take practice. I haven't picked up a deck of cards in decades so I'm not sure it will have practical value but I'm in this for the mental discipline & training rather than improving my skills as a wanna-be card shark.