Master Your Memory Ebook

OXFORD CENTRE FOR THE MIND: MASTER YOUR MEMORY
Master Your Memory

The Oxford Centre for the Mind
Memory Training Course
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Master Your Memory

The Oxford Centre for the Mind
Memory Training Course

Psychological and scientific techniques to help you
remember everything that you need to know.

Gary Lorrison

Oxford Mind Publishing
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THE OXFORD CENTRE FOR THE MIND LIMITED
#123,
94, London Road
Headington
Oxford OX3 9FN

email: info@oxfordmind.co.uk
web: www.oxfordmind.co.uk

Copyright ©2013 Gary Lorrison
All rights reserved. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means – electronic,
mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other – except for brief
quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written consent of
the publisher.

Oxford Mind Publishing is a division of the Oxford Centre for the Mind
Limited.
ISBN-13: 978-1490491714
ISBN-10: 149491716
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Acknowledgements

§

I would like to thank Leroy Robinson, Lucy Eldred and Marilyn
Lorrison for their ideas, comments and suggestions in helping to bring
this book to fruition.
I could not have written it without the feedback and enthusiastic input
from everyone who has ever attended one of our courses.

It is to them that this book is dedicated.

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About the author

Having studied law at Cambridge, Gary Lorrison started off his career
working in London as a solicitor but quickly
saw the light and left the legal profession to
develop his interest in the mind. He quickly
earned two degrees in philosophy but found
himself focusing on how one could use the
techniques of philosophy, psychology and
science to run one's mind more effectively.
Since 2003, he has been actively involved in
running personal development training programmes to help people
improve their mental performance. He has a special interest in memory
training and other ways of helping people absorb information as well as
the techniques of logical, critical and analytical thinking and the limits
of human rationality.
In his spare time he enjoys walking in the countryside, takes a keen
interest in music playing a number of instruments and is an occasional
skydiver.
He lives on a farm near Oxford with four dogs, three cats, three ducks,
six geese, about five hundred sheep and the occasional human being.
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Testimonials

Testimonials for our memory training seminars: -
"Excellent - best course I have been on in ages - thought

provoking and insightful"
"Great workshop. Coach created a very relaxing, easy and open
atmosphere. Coach was helpful and had a very pleasant way of
interacting with us"

"I am very happy I came to this workshop. It was good value for
money and provided very useful skills that I know will help my
studies"

"It's a great course - I would recommend you go on it"

"Good fun and value for money"

"Do it! - Very interesting and a good approach to de-stressing
about work levels etc."

"It really works, especially the visualisation techniques"

For information on all of the courses run by the Oxford Centre for the
Mind please visit our website:
www.oxfordmind.co.uk
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Contents

1. Introduction 9
2. Types of Memory 25
3. Your Memory 39
4. The Power of Association 58
5. Developing Sensory Memory 75
6. Creating New Memories 106
7. Memory Systems 123
8. Forgetting 156
9. Factors Affecting Memory 176
10. Applying Memory Principles 193
11. Ongoing Practice and Improving Performance 217 
12. Appendix: Memory Challenges 231

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ONE

INTRODUCTION

Aim
The aim of this course is to help you to train, develop and improve your
memory. When you have completed it you should be able to remember
the kinds of things that people often struggle with: names and faces,
facts and lists, step-by-step procedures, speeches, sequences of
numbers; as well as being able to perform tasks beyond the abilities of
most people, such as memorising all the countries of the world or being
able to construct a mental journal so that you know what you do every
day from now on.
You won't be able to remember everything that happens to you and you
probably won't be able to remember things that you have previously
forgotten. That isn't how memory works. But with practice you will be
able to remember those specific things that you want and need to
remember. And you will be able to ensure that you don't forget those
things that you don't want to forget in future.

This is Intended to be a Practical Course
This isn’t a text book on the nature or philosophy of memory or on the
structure of the brain, important though these things are. This is a
course specifically designed to help you remember more of those things
that you want to remember. To do so effectively it is important to work
with, rather than against, your brain, so a little knowledge of how the
brain works is necessary, but we won't be going into great detail.
Please work through this book in order. Each chapter is designed to
build on the knowledge you will have acquired in previous chapters.
Some of the exercises we ask you to do might seem a little unusual at
first but we will always explain why it is necessary to do them and they
are all based on what we know about memory from research in
neuroscience or psychology, or from studying people with outstanding
memories.
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If you can, try to do a little memory training each day, rather than leave
a lot of time between sessions. Towards the end of the course we will
say some more about how to practise effectively so that you can
constantly improve your ability to remember and maintain that
improvement.
Always try to work in an environment where you can be relaxed and not
be disturbed.
If you have a partner, family member or friend who is also interested in
learning how they can use their memory more effectively, you might
find it useful to work with them. Not only will you be able to discuss
the ideas contained in this course book, but you may be able to
introduce an element of gentle competition. You may find that that
helps you improve more quickly.
Do the various exercises in the book as they come up. Each is designed
to focus on a specific aspect of memory training. There are also quizzes
at the end of each chapter to ensure that you have understood
everything. If you answer any of the questions wrongly, please go back
through the chapter and make sure you understand why you have gone
wrong.

The Benefits of Training Your Memory
The benefits of training your memory should be obvious. Who would
not want to have a better memory than they do now? Wouldn't you like
to be able to remember everything that has ever happened to you
throughout your whole life from your childhood up to the present day?
Wouldn't it be great if you could remember every single fact that you
have ever come across, whether in books, newspapers, lectures or on
TV? Wouldn't that be amazing?
Well, possibly in theory. But in practice, it seems perhaps not. We all
forget, and often we forget rather too much for our own liking. But
oddly enough it seems that forgetting is an important part of the process
of consolidating our memories.
For example, imagine you play the piano, and you want to play a
particular piece of music from memory. If you had instant access in
your mind to every single time you had learned or played that piece in
the past, it would actually interfere with your ability to play it in the
present. What you want instead is to know it in a more abstract sense.
This process of abstraction, which involves forgetting some of the
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specifics of each event, is actually an important part of learning and

remembering at a deeper level.
Solomon Shereshevsky, known simply as 'S' (1886-1958) was a Russian
journalist whose astounding memory was recorded by
neuropsychologist Alexander Luria in his book, 'The Mind of a
Mnemonist'. In essence, S could remember everything that had ever
happened to him. As a journalist, he never took notes of meetings
because he was able to recall verbatim everything that he heard in them.
Under test conditions, he could easily remember both forwards and
backwards a sequence of seventy random words and he was still able to
remember the same sequence sixteen years later, as well as being able
to remember where and when he had originally learned it.
Naturally and without training, he used the techniques that we will be
looking at throughout this course. But despite his amazing abilities, he
was only of average intelligence. His inability to forget meant that he
had difficulties dealing with abstract information and also with
generalising from specific instances. If he saw a dog on two consecutive
days, the first day, say, head on, the second day in profile, he would
have difficulty in appreciating the fact that it was the same dog. So, it
seems that in order to make the kind of abstractions necessary to
navigate through life, a process of forgetting may be necessary.
Having said that, some psychologists theorise that everything that
happens to us is stored at a deeper unconscious level in our memories,
but that we only gain access to it under certain conditions, such as deep
hypnosis or following electrical stimulation of certain parts of the brain.
Under those conditions, people have been able to regain memories that
had previously been lost to them and in the case of electrical
stimulation, experience them as if they were actually reliving them.
However, it is a matter of debate as to what extent memories recalled
this way are accurate. In many cases, checking the accuracy is difficult
if not impossible as there is no objective way of determining what
actually happened.
Also, it has also been shown (we will demonstrate this later in Chapter
3) that false memories can be planted in people's subconscious. For
example, under test conditions, people have been persuaded that they
have taken hot-air balloon rides or attended amusement parks as
children when they had not in fact done so. And during the 1980s and
1990s there were a number of cases of alleged child abuse that were
later documented as being instances of false memory syndrome.
Unfortunately, our memories can trick us very easily.
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The English philosopher John Locke (1632-1704) suggested that our

memories are fundamental to our sense of personal identity. Certainly,
people who lose some or all of their memories lead severely diminished
lives.
Retrograde amnesia can erase a large proportion of a life so a sufferer
may be able to remember normally up to a certain point in their life and
then nothing, or very little, after that. Some heartbreaking accounts of
this can be read in The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat by
neurologist Oliver Sacks. This type of amnesia can be brought on by
brain injury but many cases are caused by excessive alcohol
consumption over extended periods of time.
Anterograde amnesia prevents the formation of new memories, meaning
that someone suffering from this can only remember the last few
minutes of their life before the memory starts to fade. The film
Memento provides a graphic account of what this can be like.
At a less extreme level, many of us who have consumed alcohol to
excess will have experienced the confusion of not remembering what
we did the previous night. Here, it seems that we forget in order to
protect ourselves from the embarrassment of knowing what it was that
we got up to the night before!
However, despite all this forgetting, there are things that you can do that
will help you improve your memory and help you to maximise the
amount of information that you can recall.
From a personal point of view you can learn to remember more or less
anything provided that you make the effort, from the names and faces of
the people that you meet, to remembering whatever facts you need to
know, to creating a stronger sense of identity by remembering more
episodes from your life.
In the work environment, developing a stronger memory will enable
you to remember meetings and appointments, learn speeches, learn facts
relevant to the business, the names of your colleagues and clients and
important procedures more effectively.
Having a good memory is clearly important in the educational
environment. In recent years the emphasis has perhaps moved away
from knowledge of facts towards creativity and critical thinking.
However, all of these, including developing your memory, are vitally
important. It is impossible to think critically without having access to
facts. Facts are vital. It is impossible to speak another language without
knowing the vocabulary of the language. A scientist is unlikely to be
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taken seriously if he or she isn't familiar with the fundamentals of their

area of expertise.
Knowledge in all of these areas is vital. Of course, these days a huge
amount of knowledge is immediately accessible to us via the internet.
However, much of what is out there is of dubious quality, so having
faith in your own memory for facts will give you added confidence.
A useful analogy is this: it is possible to do arithmetic more quickly
with a calculator than by doing mental arithmetic; however, without
some background knowledge it is very easy to get a wrong answer -
perhaps you enter 1,000 into the calculator when you mean to enter 100
- and as a result you get an answer that is totally implausible, perhaps
ten times bigger than it should be.
If you only ever rely on the calculator, you would have no means of
knowing whether the answer you get is in the right ball park, other than
by repeating the procedure. And assuming you get a different answer
the second time around, because this time you enter the numbers
correctly, you would have to do yet a third calculation to check which
of the first two is correct.
By having confidence in one's own skills at arithmetic it is much easier
to spot these kinds of mistakes. When you rely entirely on a calculator,
you cannot be sure if you have got an accurate answer or not.
The same applies to having access to a mental bank of facts about
whatever subject is of interest to you. When talking to someone else
about your area of interest you will be in a position to judge whether
what they are saying is plausible or makes sense. So taking some time
to train your memory is a very worthwhile investment.
Furthermore, if you are interested in maintaining high quality mental
performance throughout your whole life into old age, it is important to
keep your mind active. By doing so, you can build up a mental reserve,
so that any deterioration due to age is masked by digging into that
reserve - analogous to building up a savings account at your bank and
then drawing down from it when you need to. Consciously using your
memory and deciding to remember new things will contribute to
building up your mental reserve.

Memory Potential
So what is your memory capable of? Ever since the invention of writing
there are records of people that have trained their memories to very high
levels and performed outstanding feats of memory. One of the first
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instances, quite possibly apocryphal, is that of the Greek lyric poet

Simonides. He was reputedly attending a banquet when he was
summoned outside to receive a message. At the very moment that he
went outside, the banqueting hall collapsed crushing everyone inside
beyond recognition. However, using the so-called method of loci by
linking the people inside to where they had been sitting, he was able to
recall the names of everyone that had been killed.
Perhaps more impressive, according to Pliny the Elder, King Cyrus
knew the name of everyone in his 100,000 strong army and Lucius
Scipio could name every single Roman citizen in the empire, while
Themistocles was able to name every one of the twenty thousand
citizens of Athens.
Devotees of religion have performed amazing feats of memory, often
involving the memorisation of their Holy Book. Muslims who have
committed the whole Qur'an to memory are known as Hafiz, while
Brahmin have learned the entire Rig Vega consisting of 153,826 words
(about 500 pages). Shass Polack Jews were able to not only recite the
whole twelve volume Talmud, but know the location of each word on
the page.
Chess master Paul Morphy (1837-1884) was able to recall every game
he had ever played, including blindfolded games, and he was able to
write down the moves many years later.
Italian Cardinal Caspar Mezzonfanti (1774-1849) was a famed linguist
and polyglot who learnt approximately forty different languages
speaking all of them all fluently
More recently in the field of numbers many people have attempted to
learn the digital expansion of pi. Pi is the ratio of the circumference of
any circle to its diameter. The first few digits are 3.1415926535 and
they continue on forever, never repeating and never forming any pattern
that could aid with memorisation. In 2005, Chao Lu of China
memorised pi to 67,890 decimal places and in 2006 this was surpassed
by Akira Haraguchi of Japan reaching 100,000 decimal places.
These days competitions for the mind are run around the world on a
regular basis. One challenge is to memorise a shuffled pack of cards as
quickly as possible. At the time of writing, the record for one pack of
cards is just under 22 seconds, held by German Simon Reinhard.
Another challenge is to remember as many shuffled packs as possible.
The record stands at 59 packs, about 3,000 cards, and is held by
Canadian David Farrow. Many of the people who possess these kinds of
skills have been banned from casinos around the world because their
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memory skills have made them formidable card-counters. There is,

then, at least one financial motive for improving one's memory!
Unfortunately, the people who perform these kinds of feats are often
featured on magic shows and so the whole area of memory development
has taken on the aura of being some kind of trick. This is unfortunate
because these techniques were developed in the classical world as ways
of improving the mind. We hope that by following the techniques set
out in this book you can help reclaim this tradition of mental
development.
Because of the nature of memory competitions it is often the case that
lists or other items that can be put into some kind of order are used as
memory tests. However, the same techniques can be applied to virtually
anything that you might want to recall. The reason for this is that the
brain operates not on lists but on concepts, and it is by clearly
identifying the concepts that you wish to memorise that you can learn
whatever it is that you wish to learn.

What Will You Remember?
You won't remember everything. People who have trained their
memories forget in much the same way as everyone else. This is
because there is a distinction between attentive and non-attentive
memory (which we will discuss later).
Once you have completed this course, if you decide you want to
remember something specific you will be able to. However, much of
your life is not spent trying to remember - it is just spent simply living.
So will you be able to remember the normal things that happen to you
throughout your life more easily? In truth, the evidence is equivocal.
There is some anecdotal evidence from people who have trained their
memories that they seem to find themselves remembering more of their
lives, but there is a lack of quality evidence to back up the claim. That
doesn't mean it's false (if you are interested in learning about how to
assess the quality of evidence, see our courses on Analytical Thinking)
but it doesn't support the claim that training your memory to learn
specific items has a more general effect on your memory.
There may be other factors at play, however. Perhaps having trained
your memory you spend more time thinking about remembering things
and make a conscious decision to remember more of your life than
untrained people. Or perhaps having learned to concentrate and pay
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greater attention to your surroundings, you will start to remember more

as a result of being in a more effective and attentive state of mind.
Whatever the truth, you may well find that having trained your memory
you become more interested in what it is that you remember and what
you don't.

Who Can Benefit from Training Their Memory?
Assuming you have no medical impairment or brain injury, you should
be able to benefit from training your brain and your memory in the
manner we set out in this course. Studies have shown that both children
and the elderly both can make gains from training. For older people
there is some evidence that visual skills decline with age but not verbal
skills. However, any decline can be offset by experience and
knowledge.
Of course some people will be better than others, some will work harder
than others and some will be naturally more talented than others. That
applies to every human activity and memory training is no exception.
You do not need to be a genius to reach a very high level of memory
performance. Many of the people who have won or finished high up in
international memory competitions or broken world records have
started off with very average memories and unexceptional school
records. They have simply trained themselves to a high standard. If they
can, then so can you.

How Long Does it Take to Improve Your Memory?
There is no precise answer to this question. The mere knowledge of the
various memory techniques will enable you to remember more
effectively should you wish to do so. But as with any skill to really
improve takes practice and the amount of research on this is very
limited so at present no one can say for certain.
It is interesting and a little disappointing to note that if we were
discussing improving your appearance by going to the gym, we would
have a much better idea of how long it would take and what you would
need to do. It shows that our concerns as a species are often with the
superficialities of how we look, rather than the more substantive issues
of developing our intellectual skills.
However, we do know that if you want to improve your ability to
memorise, it will take practice and the best way to practise is to do it
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frequently. This way your mental muscle will be consistently stimulated

and will constantly improve. We will say more about practice towards
the end of this course.
If you are interested in what you may be capable of, Joshua Foer in his
book Moonwalking with Einstein, recounts how he trained his memory
one hour a day for a year and at the end of that year became the US
memory champion. Prior to that he had had no memory training at all
and had what he considered to be an 'average' memory.

Some Common Misconceptions about Memory

Memory is a thing
Sherlock Holmes, on being told by Watson that the earth orbited the
sun, said that having found out, he would do his best to forget it. He
regarded his memory as an attic where everything was neatly filed away
and he was worried that by becoming aware of that fact, something
important to his work would be displaced and forgotten.
In fact, the amount that can be stored in memory has been estimated as
virtually limitless. And memory does not work like a box with
particular items stored in it. When you remember something, a
sequence of neurons - brain cells - is activated along what is called a
neural pathway. In other words, remembering is a process that occurs in
your brain. It is something you do, rather than something you have. And
because it is something that you do, if it is not working for you, you can
find ways of doing it differently.

There is a secret to having a good memory
A second misconception associated with memory is that there is some
kind of secret trick. Often on TV people will see magicians performing
what appear to be astounding feats of memory, but often these will
simply be tricks. And unfortunately the process of developing and
improving one's memory has become associated with conjuring and
trickery, which is a shame because in reality it has a long and
honourable history going back to Ancient Greece; a history that we have
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ironically forgotten with the advent of external ways of storing our

memories, most notably the invention of writing.

There is an easy way to memorise
You may think that once you have trained your memory you will be
able to look at a book and store it immediately in your memory, like a
photograph. However, there is no evidence that such a thing as a
photographic memory actually exists. By using the techniques we will
be outlining in this course, you will be able to memorise things more
easily as you will be working in sync with your brain. However, it will
still take time and effort, just less than at present.

A trained memory never forgets
This is not true. In fact, as we showed above when discussing the case
of journalist S, forgetting is an important part of the abstraction process
involved in consolidating your memories. It is possible for you to
remember those things you want to for as long as you want, but it does
require repeated input. Neural pathways will tend to fade over time. To
ensure that they do not, most - not all - will require repeated
stimulation.
Of course, some memories do remain with us for our whole lives. Often
they will be huge events, such as births, deaths and marriages, first
kisses and so on. Memories with strong emotions attached are generally
stronger, more powerful and last longer than others. However, we also
all have other memories that stay with us for life that are unimportant
and trivial. This is due to the associations that those particular memories
may have and it is impossible to know in advance which memories will
be the ones that stick naturally.

We only use a small percentage of our brains.
This is a common myth. Headlines or sales pitches frequently repeat the
line that we only use five per cent of our brain or only reach ten per cent
of our mental potential.
There is no evidence to support this. Our brains have many different
parts and each of them has different functions associated with them. In
addition to storing memories, our brains process sensory information
from the outside world, keeps our hearts beating, lets us know when we
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are hungry, distribute hormones around the body and any number of
other things. Many different parts of our brains are active at any one
time, and our brain remains active even when we are asleep.
The brain requires more energy than any other organ and uses twenty-
five per cent of the oxygen we breathe in. It would be a huge waste
from the point of view of natural selection to devote such a large
amount of energy to building an organ of which we were only using
five per cent.
The other phrase often heard is that we only reach ten per cent (or some
other arbitrary amount) of our mental potential.
Of course, it is true that we can improve our mental functioning – that is
the purpose of this course - but to suggest that we currently only reach
ten per cent has no evidence to support it. It would mean that if we did
fully utilise our brains, we would see an increase in performance of
1000%, which seems unlikely.
This claim confuses mental functioning with potential impact. A much
smaller increase in mental performance could lead to a huge change in
your impact in the world. For example, if you currently have an IQ of
100, and you somehow increased it by 30%, you would now be in the
genius category (an IQ of 130 is generally regarded as a genius IQ). An
increase of 100%, giving you an IQ of 200 would put you among the
world's cleverest people.
If you compare this to physical performance, the differences between
the average person and those at the very top can be marginal. Most
young, healthy, fit people can run the 100m sprint in 12 to 15 seconds.
A 30% increase in speed would mean that they were Olympic champion
standard.
So even if you manage only a relatively small increase in your mental
performance, this can still make a very large difference to the results
you see in your life.
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Quiz 

1. Should you
(a) read through this book in order?
(b) dip in and out at random? 

2. Should you
(a) leave long intervals between each memory training
session?
(b) do a little bit of memory training every day? 

3. Is it always bad to forget some of the things that you have done
in the past? Yes / No. Explain your answer. 

4. It is impossible to memorise a book word for word. True /
False? 

5. No one can memorise a random number more than a thousand
digits long. True / False? 

6. Training your memory can have financial advantages. True /
False? 

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7. Cardinal Mezzofanti learnt to speak how many languages

fluently?
(a) 4
(b) 10
(c) 40
(d) 100 

8. Who can benefit from training their memory?
(a) children;
(b) adults below 65;
(c) elderly people above 65;
(d) all of the above. 

9. A trained memory never forgets. True / False? 

10. We only use ten per cent of our brain's potential. True / False?
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Answers 

1. Should you
(a) read through this book in order?
(b) dip in and out at random?
Answer: (a) read through this book in order. 

2. Should you
(a) leave long intervals between each memory training
session?
(b) do a little bit of memory training every day?
Answer: (b) do a little bit of memory training every day. 

3. Is it always bad to forget some of the things that you have done
in the past? Yes / No. Explain your answer.
No, because a process of abstraction is required to learn things
at a deep level. 

4. It is impossible to memorise a book word for word.  
True / False?
False. Devotees of various religions have memorised their
entire Holy Book. 

5. No one can memorise a random number more than a thousand
digits long. True / False?
False. Akira Haraguchi has memorised pi to 100,000 decimal
places. 

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6. Training your memory can have financial advantages.  

True / False? 
 
True. If nothing else, you can use memory skills to win at
cards! 

7. Cardinal Mezzofanti learnt to speak how many languages
fluently?
(a) 4;
(b) 10;
(c) 40;
(d) 100.
Answer: ( c) 40.  

8. Who can benefit from training their memory?
(a) children;
(b) adults below 65;
(c) elderly people above 65;
(d) all of the above.
Answer: (d) all of the above. 

9. A trained memory never forgets.  
True / False?
False. People with trained memories forget in much the same
way as untrained people. 

10. We only use ten per cent of our brain's potential.  
True / False?
False. There is no evidence to show how much of our brain's
potential we use.
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TWO

TYPES OF MEMORY

There are a number of distinctions that we can make when discussing
memory. We are going to examine three.
1. How memory varies with time.
2. Different areas of human activity and how memory relates to
them.
3. How memory varies depending on whether or not we are
paying attention.

Short-Term Memory
The first distinction is with respect to time. You are probably familiar
with the terms short-term memory and long-term memory.
Short-term memory, also known as working memory, is the information
that the brain can hold in the immediate present. It is what we are
thinking about right now. It seems to exist to construct a stable picture
of the world we see around us and to maintain a stable narrative in
situations where one is required, such as when reading a book, watching
a film or performing a mental calculation.
Short-term memory lasts for about half a minute, and is limited to a
relatively small amount of information – generally about seven distinct
items.
To investigate your short-term memory, we are going ask you to
remember various sequences of numbers. Have a pen and paper handy.
Say each sequence out loud at about one digit per second (or even
better, have someone read it out loud to you) and try to remember it.
Don't look at it more than once.
The first sequence is: -
9487381
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One you have looked at it, cover it up so that you can't see it and write it
down. The chances are that you were able to remember this sequence.
Most people can as the sequence is only seven digits long. Most people
can remember one sequence of about seven digits with ease. Some
people maybe one or two digits more, some maybe one or two digits
less. Now try the following one.
The second sequence is: -
03708636794
This sequence, at eleven digits long, is a little more difficult for most
people on one exposure. If you can remember it you probably have a
naturally strong short-term memory. Now move onto the third sequence.
The third sequence is: -
8779404587112368
Most people will fail with this one because at sixteen digits long it
overloads short-term memory. If you can remember it, you either have a
particularly strong short-term memory or you might be using some kind
of memory technique similar to the ones we teach in this course.
Having tried to remember this third sequence of sixteen digits, can you
still remember the first sequence? What about the second? Probably not.
If you are asked to remember two sequences of numbers one
immediately after the other, the first one may well be displaced by the
second or alternatively you may be so focused on remembering the first
that you fail to remember the second. Short-term memory is easily
disrupted.
Now try to remember the following sequence.
The fourth sequence is: -
191 4191 819 39194 5
This sequence is sixteen digits long in groups of various sizes. This is
beyond the length that most people can comfortably remember and you
may well have failed to remember it. However, look what happens if the
same numbers are printed in a slightly different way.
1914 1918 1939 1945
Printed this way, they are easy to remember and virtually everyone
remembers them. Here is a sequence of 31 digits. Try to remember this
one.
The fifth sequence is: -
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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
And of course everyone remembers this one, but this sequence is much
longer than some of the ones you may have struggled with. So what is
going on? Why do some sequences overwhelm short-term memory and
others not?
The answer is that when remembering a sequence of numbers, our
memory is not limited to seven individual digits, but to seven items – or
chunks - of information. What constitutes a chunk, however, will vary
depending on the context.
The initial random sequences were difficult to remember because each
number was unrelated to the next one. Each digit was therefore a chunk
on its own
By contrast, with the final sequence (31 digits long remember) you only
have to remember three items of information
1. the sequence consists of natural counting numbers;
2. it starts with the number 1;
3. it ends with the number 20.
You were probably surprised when, having seen the sequence, you were
told that it was thirty-one digits long because your initial reaction was
that there were only twenty numbers. But, of course, the last eleven of
those numbers from ten to twenty were each two digits long.
Now having had a little rest, which of the sequences can you still
remember? More likely than not it is the last two, as these are both rich
in associations. These associations can be with external facts - such as
the dates of the two world wars - or with each other - as with the first
twenty counting numbers.
So more information can be stored in short-term memory if it is
meaningful and rich in associations. It will also be stored for longer. We
will look at this in much more detail throughout this course.

Using Chunk Size to Improve Short-Term Memory
If you are interested in a particular subject, the more you study it in
detail, the better your short-term memory of it will be. You will have
more mental associations, both internal and external.
Take Mozart for example. He was reputedly able to hear a tune one time
only, and then play it back perfectly. Or perhaps even better than
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perfectly - there is a scene in the film Amadeus where on one hearing of

a tune on a harpsichord, he was not only able to play it back himself
more fluently than the person he had heard playing it, he was able to
improvise variations on the tune as well.
Whether or not that actually happened is open to debate. However, what
is not in dispute is that he was a musical prodigy and a genius. One
reason for his abilities is that he was very familiar with the short
sequences of melodies, scales, chords and intervals which are the
building blocks of any tune and he was able to build up more complex
sequences from these. In other words he was hugely familiar with the
basic building blocks of his subject.
If you have ever learned a musical instrument, you may have started off
playing just one note at a time. But as you became more adept, you
gradually built up what you were able to play into larger chunk sizes -
sequences of notes, melodies and chords. This is exactly the same
process.
Another example of chunk size increasing with familiarity is reading.
When you initially learn to read you start off reading individual letters,
one at a time. For example, C – A - T, and then you build these letters
up into the word, in this case cat. However, once you are a fluent reader
you just see the word cat and are not really aware of the individual
letters at all.

So to sum up short-term memory, your natural chunk size will rise by
finding connections and associations between the items you need to
remember. One way of doing this is to become as deeply embedded in
your subject or area of interest as you possibly can. By doing so you
will naturally be creating ever more associations for your brain to latch
on to. It is important that these associations are meaningful. An expert
chess player will be able to recall the pattern of pieces on a board very
easily, but only if the pattern makes sense. If pieces are placed
randomly, they will find them just as difficult to recall as an amateur.
You can also increase your ability to remember sequences by deliberate
practice, attempting to memorise sequences that are longer than the
ones that you are currently comfortable with. Try this with sequences of
numbers, letters and words and try to continually increase the length of
these sequences, applying the techniques we will outline throughout the
rest of this course.

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Long-Term Memory
Clearly if you want to remember something in the long term it needs to
be transferred from short-term memory to long-term memory.
Usually when we are exposed to new information, we forget most of it
quite quickly and then the amount forgotten tails off more slowly. For
example, in one study a group of subjects was asked to look at a
collection of nonsense syllables. Half of these were forgotten after
twenty minutes and two-thirds after two days. A month later, the
number recalled had fallen a little but not significantly further.
Students of Spanish were recorded as forgetting sixty per cent of the
words they learned within three years, but only forgot a further five per
cent over the following fifty years.
The following diagram shows how recall falls off over time if there is
no further intervention.

Recall is high initially but drops off rapidly before levelling out.

However, with memory training and by applying certain general
principles of good memory, you can take steps to counteract the drop in
recall.
In contrast with short-term memory, the amount of information that can
be stored in long-term memory is virtually unlimited, so it will never be
the case that your long-term memory will be overloaded with too much
information.

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Areas of Human Activity

In addition to distinguishing memories by looking at the time over
which we remember things, we can also distinguish between different
subject areas that memory is used for.
At certain points in human history the nature and function of the brain
was believed to be quite different to what we now know. The Egyptians
removed the brain from corpses prior to mummification because the
heart was believed to be the centre of the intellect. Aristotle also
believed that that the heart was where intelligence resided and that the
brain was merely a device to cool the blood.
We now know better and over the last hundred years or so,
neuroscientists have identified certain areas of the brain as having
certain functions. For example, the left hemisphere of the cerebral
cortex is associated with processing language, lists and sequences,
while the right hemisphere processes vision and music. Over time, the
areas of the brain associated with specific functions have been narrowed
down. The left frontal lobe has an area in front of the ear known as
Broca's area which is strongly associated with language processing.
Damage to this area of the brain impairs a person's ability to use
language.
Certain areas of the brain are associated with memory: the hippocampus
is larger in London taxi drivers than in the general population. The
hippocampus is associated with spatial memory and is enlarged due to
the requirement of cab drivers to undertake training known as The
Knowledge, which involves learning 468 routes including 5,500 roads
and a whole host of landmarks throughout London.
In this course we are not overly concerned with the relationship
between brain structure and memory since we are primarily concerned
with how to use your memory more effectively. Rather than focus on
areas of the brain, it is useful to think about the types of things that we
need to remember. Amongst those areas that have been identified are: -

Episodic Memory
This is the memory for what has happened to you during your life:
going to school and university, holidays, your first job, your first kiss,
etc.. There are steps you can take to improve this area of your memory
but these steps are more likely to be effective from this point onwards
rather than helping you to remember lost episodes in your life. Having
learned the techniques in this course, you will be able to ensure that you
remember what happens to you each day from now on if you want to.
!29
You can even learn to associate events with the day of the week and the
date so you will have an accurate mental journal.
There are steps you can take to remember events from long ago in your
life, including things that you might have forgotten. However, without
an external method of checking, ensuring the accuracy of these
memories can be difficult.

Factual Memory
This, as its name suggests, is memory for facts: the capital of France is
Paris, the Battle of Waterloo took place in 1815 in what is now
Belgium, and so on. If you are in education this is the main area that
you will be using while studying and it is probably one of the primary
areas that people are interested in improving because improving one's
memory for facts is extremely useful.

Semantic Memory
This is memory associated with things and their meanings. Picture an
animal – large, the size of a van - and grey, with very big floppy ears,
tusks and a trunk. What animal are you thinking of?
If you are thinking of an elephant you are using semantic memory. At a
more sophisticated level semantic memory is concerned with the
understanding of concepts and so related to advanced mental
functioning.

Sensory Memory
This is the memory for information derived directly from the senses,
such as other people’s faces, musical passages, the smell of a rose or the
taste of ice cream. Sensory memory is very important because it
overlaps with other areas of memory. For example, when you recall
episodes from your past, you might find yourself picturing what
happened. In other words you see a mental representation of the scene.
This can happen across all the senses. The most important one is the
visual sense and a large proportion of the brain's processing power is
devoted to visual processing. Abstract memories tend to be remembered
in a more auditory way: that is, we hear internally or talk to ourselves
about what it is that we want to recall.

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Procedural or Skills Memory

Skills can be divided into two categories. Firstly, there are physical
skills: being able to juggle a ball, to play the piano, to drive and to
change a tyre. In addition, there are mental skills: for example, knowing
how to perform a particular mathematical operation to solve a problem
and get the result you want.
Physical skills are associated with an area of the brain known as the
motor cortex which is distinct from the cerebral cortex that controls
higher level thinking. This is why we struggle with physical skills when
we think about them too much. One way to put someone off their game
in, say, tennis is to ask them to really think about how they do what they
do while they are playing. This will cause a clash between the two
different areas of the brain, inhibiting performance.

Prospective Memory
Prospective memory is, as its name suggests, memory looking forward:
the memory for upcoming events. A person with a good prospective
memory will remember people's birthdays, meetings and appointments.
As with the other kinds of memory, it is possible to improve this aspect
of your memory although the application of the techniques is slightly
different. We will explain this later in the course after we have covered
the basic aspects of memory development.
The field of memory study, as with all aspects of psychology and
neuroscience, is in its relative infancy and some of the categories are
still being determined, so in your reading you may come across other
categories. However, the memory techniques we are going to outline
will be applicable in most circumstances.

Attention and Memory
A third distinction is made between explicit and implicit memory. This
is the distinction between remembering a specific piano lesson (explicit)
and knowing how to play the piano (implicit). However, of greater use
to us will be a similar distinction, that is the distinction between
attentive memory and non-attentive memory.
Attentive memory is what you use when you are specifically trying to
remember something, whether it's a book, a lecture, foreign vocabulary,
an appointment or a shopping list. If you set yourself the task of
actually remembering, then you are using attentive memory.
!31
All other times, when you are not deliberately trying to remember
something, you are using non-attentive memory. This is an important
distinction because in order to ensure that you remember something you
must pay attention to it.
If you don't, then you might remember it, but it is also possible that you
might not. Most of us have at some point put our keys down somewhere
and then forgotten where they were. The problem in this case is usually
a problem of attention. When we put them down we are not really
thinking about what we are doing, our minds are elsewhere. Since we
are not paying attention we don't give ourselves the chance to remember
where they are. If we do pay attention when we put the keys down, for
example, by saying out loud, "I have put my keys on the shelf next to the
door in the living room," then our chances of remembering their
location are much improved.
If we are not paying attention, this in itself does not preclude us from
remembering, but the reliability of what we remember can be suspect.
Studies have been done in which a group of test subjects have been
presented with situations such as staged robberies. Without being
specifically primed to remember, the accounts of what happened given
by the subjects will vary greatly from person to person. This is not
because of any inherent dishonesty but simply because in the absence of
concentrated directed attention, our brains will fill in the gaps in our
memory and construct a narrative that makes sense to us. But it might
not be a true narrative.
So, one factor that will help with improving your memory is to develop
the ability to concentrate, to keep your mind on what you are doing and
to really pay attention. We will look at this in greater detail later on.
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Quiz

1. About how many items of information can normally be stored
in short-term memory
(a) 3;
(b) 7;
(c) 15;
(d) 31.

2. How long does short-term memory last for?

(a) 3 seconds;
(b) 30 seconds;
(c) 3 minutes;
(d) 30 minutes.

3. How is it possible that sometimes we remember longer
sequences of numbers? 

4. Is drop off in recall constant over time? 

5. Which area of memory would help you know that JFK was
assassinated in Dallas?

6. Which area of memory would you be using when packing a
parachute? 

7. Which area of memory would help you to ensure that you met
your date at the right location on Valentine's Day? 

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8. If you can see an image of your parents in your mind's eye,

what area of memory are you using? 

9. If you want to remember something does it really matter if you
are paying attention? 

10. Can you remember something if you are not paying attention?
!34
Answers
1. About how many items of information can normally be stored
in short-term memory
(a) 3;
(b) 7;
(c) 15;
(d) 31.
Answer: (b) 7.

2. How long does short-term memory last for?

(a) 3 seconds;
(b) 30 seconds;
(c) 3 minutes;
(d) 30 minutes.
Answer: (b) 30 seconds.

3. How is it possible that sometimes we remember longer
sequences of numbers?
By increasing chunk size and noticing associations. 

4. Is drop off in recall constant over time?
No. Most information is forgotten early on and then it begins to
level off. 

5. Which area of memory would help you know that JFK was
assassinated in Dallas?
Factual memory.

!35
6. Which area of memory would you be using when packing a

parachute?
Skills memory. 

7. Which area of memory would help you to ensure that you met
your date at the right location on Valentine's Day?
Prospective memory. 

8. If you can see an image of your parents in your mind's eye,
what area of memory are you using?
Sensory memory. 

9. If you want to remember something does it really matter if you
are paying attention?
Most definitely! 

10. Can you remember something if you are not paying attention
Yes, but you may be an unreliable witness.
!36
THREE

YOUR MEMORY

Many of the people who attend our courses state that they have poor
memories. However, it is more likely that certain aspects of their
memory are stronger and some are weaker. Perhaps they are good at
remembering facts concerning their job, hobby, or football team but are
poor at recalling someone's name when seeing their face. Being human
they tend to notice the weaker aspects and come to the conclusion that
they have a poor memory.
The following exercise is designed to explore the qualitative difference
between different memories. It is designed to show that the way in
which we recall well-remembered memories and poorly-remembered
memories is structurally different.

The Internal Structure of Memory
You should set aside about twenty minutes for this exercise. Ensure that
you are able to do it in a relaxed environment where you are unlikely to
be disturbed. If you are doing it with a partner, you might like to have
them talk you through it and then you can repeat the process with them.

1. Identify a memory from your past that you think you know
very well. It can be anything at all as long as it is a positive
happy memory, as we are going to spend some time exploring
it.
2. Sit down and relax. Close your eyes and take a few deep
breaths..
3. Gradually allow yourself to experience this memory. Step into
it so that you experience the situation as if you were there. See
what you would have seen; hear what you would have heard;
feel what you would have felt. Observe yourself as you do this.
!37
As you get deeper and deeper into the state notice as much
detail as you can. Take as much time as you need to experience
the memory fully but make sure that you take at least five
minutes. When you have done so, gradually return your
attention to the outside world and then ask yourself the
following questions – or if you are working with a partner, get
them to ask you and have them make a note of the answers. 
 
If you were able to recall any visual aspects of the memory ask
yourself the following questions: where in your visual field was
the memory located? Was it directly in front of you, or off to
one side or the other? Or was it high or low in your visual
field? Did it fill the whole of your visual field or did it only fill
part of it? If so, was there a noticeable boundary? Was it a
moving image or was it still? Or was it a series of still images?
Were the images close or far away? Were they in colour or
monochrome? Were they bright or dim? Were they sharp or
blurry? Did you experience the scene as if through your own
eyes or were you watching it from a third party perspective? 
 
If you were able to recall the auditory aspects of the scene, ask
yourself the following questions: - What kind of sounds did
you hear? Were there voices? Did you hear your own voice?
Were there ambient sounds associated with the scene? Were
they loud or quiet? Were they clear or unclear, distinct or
indistinct? Were they located on the left, on the right or
centrally in your head? Were they rhythmic? Were they smooth
or staccato? 
If you were able to recall any physical sensations concerned
with the scene ask yourself the following questions? What kind
of feeling was it? How intense was it? Where in your body was
it located? Was it sharp or not? Did it come and go quickly or
did it extend over time? Was there any feeling of heat or cold?
Did you notice any feeling of tension in your body? If so,
where was it located? 
 
Were there any tastes or smells associated with the memory?
What were they? How intense were they? 
 
What emotions did you feel while experiencing the memory?
How strong were these emotions? Did they make you think of
anything else? Did you associate these emotions with a
particular person? How long did it take for these emotions to
!38
arise? Did they come on quickly or did they take some time?
Was there a physical sensation associated with these emotions?
4. If you are working with a partner they can ask you these
questions while you are still sitting quietly with your eyes shut.
If not, you will have to answer them yourself after you have
finished. In addition to recording the answers to these
questions, make a detailed note of the memory itself and
anything else that occurs to you, such as any other memories
that come to mind.
5. Now think of a second memory. This time it should be
something that you can't remember very well but you would
like to remember better. Again, it should be a positive
experience. Repeat steps two to four.
6. When you have completed this part of the exercise, notice what
was different about the two experiences. How was your visual
experience different? How was your auditory experience
different? How did you feel different? Go through the answer
to each question and make a note of the difference in each case. 

The purpose of this exercise is to show you that memories have an
internal structure. You see, hear, feel, taste and smell certain things
when you experience a memory and the quality of those sensations will
vary from case to case. Well-remembered memories might have one
structure whereas poorly-remembered memories might have a
completely different internal structure.
Don't worry if you find this a little difficult to do first time around. We
are making use of your sensory imagination and this is a skill that
requires a little practice to master. We will revisit this in much more
detail later on.
You may like to repeat this exercise, this time using different memory
areas. For example, if you are good with facts, but not so good at names
and faces you could do it firstly exploring how you remember facts, and
then secondly, how you remember names and faces.
Later on in this course we will show you how you can take the structure
of well-remembered memories and apply that structure to poorly-
remembered ones, helping you to remember the poorly-remembered
ones more clearly. However, at this stage we are simply exploring your
memories. The aim is to demonstrate to you that different memories
!39
have different structural qualities. In due course, we are going to show

you how to construct memories that are easily recalled.

Remembering Lists
We are now going to move on to a memory test. Similar tests are used
by psychologists to study how and what people recall when using
attentive memory. We are going to use this test to assess the kinds of
things that you remember, what you remember more easily and why, as
well as what you might struggle with and why. We are going to look at
the differences between the two and what you can do to ensure that you
remember what you want.
This test involves remembering a list of words. Before you start you
will need a timer, notepad and pen. Make sure that you are in a place
where you won't be disturbed for the duration of the exercise, which
should take about 20 minutes in total.
The first part of the test involves looking at a list of words and trying to
remember as many words as you can. Spend exactly three minutes on
this part. Do not write anything down at this stage but use whatever
mental strategies and techniques you have at your disposal to remember
the words on the list.
Once the three minutes are up, turn over the list so that you cannot see it
and write down as many words as you can recall. Give yourself another
three minutes to do this. Once these three minutes are up, and you think
you have recalled as many of the words as you can, count up the total
number of words you have got.
Throughout the exercise, observe what you are doing, your own internal
mental processes, what works easily for you and what doesn't work as
well. Note these down. Be aware of your outward behaviour as well. Do
you do anything that someone watching you would notice such as a tic
or a movement of some sort? If you are doing this with a partner, ask
them.
If you are doing it with a partner, have one of you do the exercise first
while the other observes and then switch places. This gives you the
chance to observe them doing the task and also for them to observe you.
Now, when you are ready, turn over and spend three minutes
memorising the list of words on the next page.
!40
Spend three minutes on this list, then turn the page over and write down
as many words as you can recall.

1. Apple
2. Handbag
3. Cat
4. River
5. London
6. Peace
7. Mouse
8. Sculpture Mouse
9. House
10. Pain
11. Handbag
12. Virtue
13. Mum
14. Computer
15. Buffy the Vampire Slayer
16. Demon
17. Piano
18. Rucksack
19. Television
20. Dog
21. Atom
22. Boring
23. Painting
24. Cave
25. Negative
26. Handbag
27. Beauty
28. Sun
29. War
30. Tent

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Once you have completed this make a note of how many words you got.
Check that you didn't get any words that weren't on the list. If you got
all the words your total should be thirty – note that the word handbag is
there three times.
We are now going to review this exercise and see what we can learn
from it.
Did you notice during the exercise how many words there were on the
list?
There were thirty words and they were numbered but not everybody
notices the fact that they were numbered. If you did then this gives you
an advantage. When you are doing the second part of the exercise, the
recall section, you know how many words you are trying to remember
and whether you have got them all.
Knowing how many words there are gives you a clear goal. In most
cases of mental training or personal development, it is better to have
clear well-formed goals. Having goals gives you a criteria for success
and failure. You will know when you have achieved what you want to
achieve. The more precise you can be about these goals the better and in
some cases it may help to write them down.
If you didn't notice how many words there were, then you have no way
of knowing for certain whether you have got all the words or not. You
may have an intuition that you have got them all but you can't be sure.
If you have got, say, twenty-seven words and you know that there are
thirty, then you know that you still have three more to find and you can
do something about it. You can search your memory for the remaining
three or you can go away and come back later. By contrast if you have
no idea how many there are, then you cannot be sure how many more, if
any, there are to find.
So when you are doing any form of study or mental training, ascertain
your goals, be as specific about them as you can be and write them
down.
What were you physically doing during the first part of the exercise?
You may have found yourself, or observed your partner, looking at the
first few words, and then looking away, saying them to yourself to see
whether or not you have got them, and then moving on to the next few,
and so on through the list. Some people do this with groups of three
words, some four, some five.
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You might also have done a similar thing during the recall section of the
exercise, saying three words, and then looking away and trying to recall
the next three and so on.
When you look away from the page and say the words out loud, this is
called rehearsal. Rehearsal is when you are not looking at what you are
trying to remember, but instead are repeating it back, either inside your
head, or out loud or in some other way.
Rehearsal is a vitally important part of the memorisation process. If you
are spending an hour say studying for an exam, half of this time should
be spent in rehearsal, repeating the information you want to know back
in some way. There are various ways that you can do this. You can
mentally say what you want to know to yourself. Or, preferably, you
can say it out loud. Even better than that, you can interact with someone
else. You can tell a partner what you have just learned. Or you can be
quizzed by them on what you have learned. These last two are
preferable, because they involve interacting with another person. By
doing so you will be using a wider variety of your brain's skills,
something that is vital to remembering effectively.

The Eyes Have It
Something else you may have observed: many people when they are
trying to recall something find themselves looking up at the ceiling or
looking out of the window with an unfocused gaze. It has been
suggested that by doing so, they are directing their attention away from
the outside world so that they can access internal visual memories.
If you are having difficulties remembering something, you could try
this. Try looking up, try looking up and to the left or try looking up and
to the right. Or try looking into the distance, perhaps out of a window
with an unfocused gaze. By taking our visual attention away from the
outside world, we are freeing up a large proportion of our brain, which
devotes much of its resources to visual processing, so that it can access
instead our internal visual memories. This is why another useful
strategy can simply be to close one's eyes. This is something else you
can also try if you are struggling to remember something.

Which Words Did You Remember?
We are now going to look at some of the words in the list. Make a note
of whether or not you got them.
Did you get the following word?
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apple
Did you get it? Most people do. Take a moment to ask yourself why that
might be the case.
The answer is obvious: it is the first word on the list and it begins with
a, the first letter of the alphabet. People tend to recall items from the
beginning, whether of a list, as in this case, or a book, film, lecture or
study session.
This is known as the primacy effect. How many other words from the
first five did you get? These words will be determined by the primacy
effect. The primacy effect is an example of a cognitive bias – our brains
are wired up in such a way that they tend to remember things from the
beginning of whatever it is that we are paying attention to.
Now ask yourself if you got the following word: -
tent
Did you get that? As with apple most people do. Again ask yourself
why?
This time it is because tent is at the end of the list. As with beginnings
we tend to remember endings. This is called the recency effect and it is
another cognitive bias. The recency effect applies to the last few items
on the list. How many of the last five words did you get? If you have
gone to a concert, you will probably come out singing the last song
played rather than the first. The recency effect can be stronger in the
short term but the primacy effect greater in the long term.

Making Use of the Primacy and Recency Effects
Due to the primacy and recency effects, when you are studying
something you will tend to remember things from the beginning and
end more than those in the middle as illustrated by the following
diagram.

!44

Recall is high at the start, then drops off rising again to towards the end.

There are a number of things you can do to make use of these effects to
help improve your recall.
One is simply to create more beginnings and more endings. By dividing
a three hour chunk of study into three one hour chunks, you triple the
number of beginnings and triple the number of endings. This will help
improve your recall as it will increase the number of peak periods of
recall to six.
When doing so, it is important to have proper breaks between each
session. Give your brain a complete rest. A ten minute break between
each session would be ideal. You can then do a quick review of the
previous session before the next one. During the break, do your best to
have a genuine rest. Time spent walking in a pleasant outdoor
environment is preferable to having a cigarette in a rainy doorway!
Before you start sessions two and three, do a quick review of the
previous session. This will be your first reinforcement of that memory.
We will talk about how to review material effectively later on in this
course.
Another thing you can do being aware of the primacy and recency
effect is to spend more time studying the sections in the middle. As you
can see from the above diagram, recall falls off in the middle so to
counteract that, you can spend more time studying those middle
sections.
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Finally, you can get the most out of your study by ensuring that the
most important parts are studied first or last, since recall of those parts
will naturally be greater.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Okay, this is a phrase. Most people recall this phrase. Did you? Why do
you think that is?
The answer is that it stands out from the crowd. Most of the other words
in the list are normal everyday things like apples, dogs and cats. Buffy
the Vampire Slayer is a fictional character from a TV show who fights
vampires and demons. We tend to notice and recall things that are
different, strange or that don't fit in. In this case, the phrase is longer
than all of the other words on the list, so it stands out literally on the
page as well.
There are a number of ways something that can stand out from the
crowd.
Take a look at the following list: -
Superman
Batman
Spider-man
Pomegranate
Iron Man
Did one word jump out at you? In this list of superheroes, it is
pomegranate that stands out. So what counts as outstanding or different
is very much context dependent.
If you were born before 1991 there's a good chance that you can
remember very vividly what happened on September 11, 2001, the day
that the planes flew into the World Trade Center in New York. This was
one of our generation's defining moments. For a previous generation, it
was the assassination of President Kennedy. Supposedly, everyone
could remember where they were when they heard that Kennedy had
been shot.
If you can't remember 9/11 because you are too young think of a similar
huge news event: the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami, Liverpool winning the
Champions League in 2005, the wedding of William and Kate in 2011,
the London Olympics opening ceremony in 2012.
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So if you can remember where you were, what you were doing and how
you felt on September 11 (or whichever other event you have picked),
ask yourself this – what were you doing the day before? The week
before?
The chances are that you have no idea as it was just another day and it
is now many years ago. It didn't stand out in any meaningful way. If you
do remember, it is probably because something special was happening
anyway in your life at that time, such as a birthday, holiday or a
wedding and the two events have become associated with each other.
An event is more likely to be recalled if it outstanding in some way – if
it is strange, bizarre, funny, rare or in some other way. Later on we will
look at creating powerful new memories employing this device.
If you got Buffy the vampire slayer did you get the following word: -
demon
The chances are that you did. Why do you think that might be? Most
people who got demon associated it in some way with Buffy the Vampire
Slayer because the two are obviously linked. You too may have made
such an association.
We will discuss association in much more detail in the next chapter. You
may have found yourself using association not just to remember Buffy
and demon but for many of the other words in the list. You may have
associated atom with negative, for example; or associated words
beginning with the same letter; or simply words grouped together on the
list. If you did any of these you are making use of a very useful tool and
one of the fundamentals of a powerful memory.
mum
A large proportion of people get mum. Why?
Many people get this word because it is laden with emotional
associations. Most of us have a very strong emotional link to our
mothers, hopefully a positive one. Again, by ensuring that what we
want to remember is laden with emotional content, we increase the
likelihood of its being remembered. Extremely emotional events can
burn themselves onto our memories very powerfully – again think of
9/11. These are sometimes known as flashbulb memories.
handbag
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Virtually everyone gets handbag. Why?

It is the only word that is repeated and it is there three times.
Repetition is important for memories to be laid down. Repeating a word
in the list ensures that the neural pathways associated with that memory
are strengthened because the more a particular neural pathway is
stimulated, the stronger it gets. This is why rote learning is effective. It
makes use of repetition to learn vocabulary, times tables, poems and so
on. The problem with rote learning is that it can be very boring. It uses
one aspect of what the brain needs, but fails to make use of others. In
this course, we will be attempting to use all of your brain's abilities.
sculpture mouse
Another phrase. Initially it was simply a typo – an error made when the
list was initially created. It should have been sculpture and then mouse,
but it was left in by mistake. And you may have noticed it and
remembered it simply because it was an error. This is a little like the
effect that helped you to remember Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Some
people are very good at noticing and remembering mistakes.

Material Objects
One thing that you may have noticed is that all of the words we have
discussed so far are actual things: - apple, tent, Buffy the Vampire
Slayer, demon, mum, handbag, sculpture mouse. They are all nouns –
concrete, tangible, material objects. Generally these are easier to
remember because it is possible to make mental pictures of them. Our
visual memory is especially powerful and being able to picture
something makes it much, much easier to remember.
However, not everything you will want to remember is a material
object. You will also want to remember abstract ideas. We included a
number of abstract words in the list so check whether you got any of the
following: -
peace,
pain,
virtue,
boring,
negative,
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beauty,
war.
Fewer people get these words precisely because it is difficult to picture
of them in your mind's eye.
Of these words, war is probably the easiest to remember because one
can picture explosions, planes, tanks, soldiers and so on. Some people
associate it with the word tent at the end of the list.
Many of the people who get war also get peace. There is an obvious
connection between the two and also, of course, the book War and
Peace. Fewer people tend to get peace however, because peace is
harder to picture.
The words that are got by the fewest number of people are boring and
negative. This is because it is difficult to make a picture of both of these
words and because they lack associations. People who get them tend to
find a way of making pictures or associations with them somehow. For
example, by imagining that an atom has a negative charge or that a dog
is boring a tunnel underground.
As we progress through this course we will initially be using material
objects in our exercises so that you can get to grips with the
fundamentals. However, we will also gradually introduce methods that
will help you remember abstract concepts using the same techniques.
One other strategy that people use to remember a large number of
words from this list is to group them together or connect them in some
kind of story. We will discuss this later in our chapter on memory
systems and show you how a link system could be used to memorise the
whole list easily and in order within the given time.
In the upcoming sections we are going to show how we can use the fact
that some of these words are remembered more easily and the
underlying reasons for that to help you construct powerful easily-
recalled memories.

Tricking Your Memory
Did you get any words that were not on the list? This is a rare
occurrence as our memories generally do not make up words when
trying to recall a list. However, under certain circumstances our
memories can be tricked. Try memorising the following list in one
minute and then writing down all the words you remember: -
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bed, rest, awake, tired, dream, wake, night, eat, comfort, sound,
slumber, snore, snooze, pillow, duvet.
Carry on reading over the page.

!50
Now look at your list. Is the word sleep on it? If not, well done! About
fifty per cent of the people who take this test recall the word sleep but it
is not there.
Because all of the words on the list are conceptually related to sleep and
a sequence of four words begin with the letter S, our brains can be
tricked into thinking that it has seen a word that is not there. This
concept is known as interference and it is something to beware of when
creating your desired memories.

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Quiz

1. What is the primary sense used to recall memories? 

2. Why is setting goals important in mental tasks? 

3. Name three factors that make a word easier to remember. 

4. Name three steps you can take to take advantage of primacy
and recency effects. 

5. Outstanding events are more memorable. What kinds of events
can be outstanding? 

6. Why are material objects easier to remember than abstract
ideas? 

7. Why is repeated exposure an important element in memory? 

8. What do we call strong emotional memories that can burn
themselves into memory in one exposure?
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Answers

1. What is the primary sense used to recall memories?
The visual sense 

2. Why is setting goals important in mental tasks?
It gives us a criterion for success or failure, lets us know when
we have achieved our task and gives us something to aim at. 

3. Name three factors that make a word easier to remember.
Primacy effect, recency effect, outstanding, association,
emotive, repetition, material. 

4. Name three steps you can take to take advantage of primacy
and recency effects.
Dividing learning up, spending more time on material in the
middle, putting important material at the beginning or the end. 

5. Outstanding events are more memorable. What kinds of events
can be outstanding?
Strange, bizarre, funny, rare events all dependent on context. 

6. Why are material objects easier to remember than abstract
ideas?
They are easier to picture in the mind's eye. 

7. Why is repeated exposure an important element in memory?
Because neural pathways are strengthened by repeated
exposure. 

8. What do we call strong emotional memories that can burn
themselves into memory in one exposure?
Flashbulb memories.
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FOUR

THE POWER OF ASSOCIATION

Over the last century we have seen a huge advance in technology
whether in engineering, food production, medicine or communication.
In 1900, the primary modes of transport were the same as they had been
for hundreds of years. Very few people had seen a car and certainly no
one had ever been aboard an aeroplane because powered flight had yet
to be invented. Few people had telephones and no one owned a
television. The notion of going to space was a fantasy confined to the
writers of science fiction at the time such as Jules Verne and H.G.
Wells.
We have come a huge way in the intervening time. We have travelled to
space and man has set foot on the Moon. We routinely travel distances
that would have been beyond the dreams of all but the richest people in
the nineteenth century and do so in a fraction of the time. We now keep
in our pockets mobile phones that are so technically advanced they can
communicate instantly face-to-face with people on the other side of the
world while allowing us to keep track of the news, play games and
watch the latest TV shows.
Laptop computers perform billions of calculations per second and the
most advanced computers can do quadrillions. Computing power
doubles approximately every eighteen months and we all now have at
our fingertips more computing power than NASA had when sending
Neil Armstrong on his interplanetary journey.
However, not one of these devices is anywhere near as advanced as the
most complex and mysterious object in the universe - the three pounds
of matter sitting between your ears: your brain.
Your brain somehow manages to do the one thing that no computer can
do. It makes you conscious. It makes you aware of the world around
you. Without any training at all it will ensure you can speak and
communicate with the other brains around you, make decisions, plan for
the future, relive past experiences and fall in love. With a little bit of
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training it will enable you to compose a song, ride a bicycle, paint a

painting, and if your name is Steve Jobs design a pretty nifty mobile
phone.
And yet no one in the world knows how it does this. We know much
more about the brain than we did even fifty years ago but how it does
the magic of converting electro-chemical impulses passing between
neurons into the unique individual that is you is still a mystery.
Your brain consists of approximately 100-200 billion neurons, or nerve
cells, each of which is connected with up to 10,000 nearby cells.
Connection is made between cells across gaps known as synapses and
there may be as many as 125 billion of these in the cerebral cortex alone
and possibly a trillion in the whole of your brain.
When one cell is fired this activity is transmitted through connected
cells via these synapses to further cells and so on in a cascade of
activity. Up to 100,000 connections between cells can be made every
second. We believe that each memory, idea and thought that we have
creates one of these neural pathways which are the physical structure
associated with thought. Certainly we see through MRI scans neural
pathways being activated when we consciously think of a particular
thought or memory. Where these reside when not in consciousness is
still a mystery.
Our brains work through a web of connections. And so do our
memories. We do not access a memory by searching for it in a mental
filing cabinet. We find it through a string of associations each one
setting off another. A song on the radio may transport us back in time to
another period in our lives and we find ourselves thinking about old
friends. A cake dipped in tea might bring back childhood memories. The
smell of wood burning may take us back to a time when we were
singing around a camp fire.
Every memory we have is accompanied by a series of associations and
these associations will be unique to us. No two people's set of
associations will be the same and each individual thought, idea and
memory will also have its own unique associations.
Each of us has a unique personal history, a unique knowledge base and
a unique set of experiences. So seeing a particular flower, hearing a
certain song or seeing a specific film might make one person burst into
tears while leaving someone else completely unmoved. And the reason
is that their associations with the flower, the song and the film will be
different.
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This associative and non-linear structure of memory prevents us from

searching it in an orderly way. Instead individual memories can pop up
as a result of certain cues. For example, if you met an old acquaintance
and you were trying to remember their name you might think, “her
name begins with 'L', she's into skydiving, it rhymes with juicy – ah, yes,
it's Lucy!”
If we want to use our memories as well as we can, we are going to have
to work with the associative nature of memory rather than against it.
That will be the aim of the exercises in this chapter.

Creating Memories
As you may have gathered from the preceding paragraphs memory is
not a passive thing. It is not simply a question of storing memories in a
box. Whenever you have a new experience a new neural pathway is
created to give structure to the memory of that event, and if that
memory is revisited, the neural pathway is strengthened. So a memory
is something that you create and if you create it in the right way, you
raise the chances of recalling it.
The way to do this is to link by association what you want to remember
to the memories, ideas, words and experiences that are already stored
away in your brain. And to do it in the most natural and intuitive
manner possible.
You already have a vast amount of information stored in your brain. A
thirty year old person has been alive for about eleven thousand days.
Eliminating the first three years of life as not remembered, that still
leaves ten thousand days or so of experiences. Supposing that you
spend half that time awake, that gives 120,000 hours of wakefulness. At
one experience an hour, a very conservative estimate, that means a
thirty year old has had 120,000 experiences of one sort or another.
Since you are reading this book you have clearly mastered the English
language. The average English speaker has a recognition vocabulary of
about 50,000 to 75,000 words and an active vocabulary somewhat
smaller. Language works by association. It links ideas and concepts
together in a sequential way to express whatever ideas we want to
express. The number of ways we can arrange words to express
ourselves is essentially infinite.
So, we have a huge number of experiences to draw on, and also a very
large vocabulary. When we create new memories we link the new
experience to what is already there. This is something that you already
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do unconsciously and in an undirected way. We are now going to

consciously take control of that process.
Think of your brain as a vast net with many thousands of hooks hanging
down, one from each node. Each hook represents a memory or a word
that you already have in your brain. You are going to create a new
memory by attaching it onto one or more of the hooks that are already
there.
Since this is something that you already do naturally, you should find
this quite straightforward. The only difficulty might be that you are now
doing it consciously rather than unconsciously.

Association Exercise
We are going to do a number of exercises on linking ideas together
through association. The first is very straightforward. On the following
page, you will see the word happiness, with twelve lines emanating
from it. Over a period of two minutes, would you please write on each
line a word, concept or idea that you associate with happiness.
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!59
This is what the author came up with on doing this exercise.

!60
The purpose of this exercise is twofold.

The first is to demonstrate that for a particular concept there are a
multiplicity of different associations. These associations are what
happiness means to you. They are what you think of when you think of
being happy.
It may be that you wrote down words like sun, holidays, family or
peace. Most people come up with the same or similar words when they
do this exercise. The concept of happiness is a high-level goal,
something we all aspire to, so many of the things that make us happy
are likely to be the same from person to person: things like family,
friends and so on.
However, since everyone is unique, it is likely that some of the ideas
that you came up with will also be unique. For instance, when we have
run the same exercise in our courses, delegates have some up with
words such as beer, cricket, studying, Corfu, money and so on. The
words you came up with will certainly differ from those.
Try the same exercise on your family and friends to see if they come up
with the same or similar words. You are likely to find that you will have
some words in common, but certainly not all. Your associations are
unique to you.
This has one important implication for creating memories. It is vital to
use your own associations when building memories, and not use
someone else's because their associations will be different. Later on we
will show you how to remember numbers by associating them with
people. When you do this exercise, it is far better if you choose your
own set of people to link numbers to rather than the ones we
demonstrate with.
The second purpose of this exercise is for you to appreciate that what
you have written down is essentially what happiness means for you.
Happiness, as well as any other word you care to think of, will mean
something slightly different from person to person. For example,
skydiving might mean fun and excitement to one person but abject terror
to someone else. If the same word means different things to different
people it can lead to misunderstanding, upset, arguments, legal cases,
even wars. So choose your words carefully!

Mental Blocks
We have observed people doing this exercise many times. Sometimes
people come up with twelve words very quickly and easily. Others find
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it a little more difficult. They sometimes get stuck, suffering from what
looks like writers' block, saying that they can't think of anything else or
that they have run out of ideas. However, we have shown above that the
number of associations that you can make is essentially infinite. This
section is for those of you who struggle to come up with words.
One reason might be your educational history. People who are very high
achievers occasionally struggle with this exercise. The reason is that
that they are used to seeing exercises such as this in terms of right or
wrong answers.
However, here there are no right or wrong answers. There are simply
whatever associations your brain makes, associations that are unique to
you. The only relevant criterion is whether you have them or not, not
whether they are right or even whether they are appropriate. So if you
are finding it difficult to come with enough associations, ask yourself
whether you are being overly critical of any ideas that occur to you.
Instead simply write down whatever comes to mind.
This leads on to another reason people might have difficulties: namely
self-censorship. Even if you have an association that you think is wrong
or inappropriate, write it down anyway. No one else is going to see it
(unless you let them) and it is important for these purposes that you are
honest with yourself. Your brain makes its own associations anyway
irrespective of what your conscious mind thinks. If you find your mind
in the gutter, don't be ashamed, simply go with it. These associations are
simply tools to help you remember. Much of the literature on memory
suggests that we remember images with sexual content much more
easily so if you find yourself thinking of sexy ideas, make use of them.
Another problem you might have is that your mind simply goes blank
and you run out of ideas to write down. However, we all have an
internal monologue (what we say to ourselves in our heads) and at this
point our internal monologue might be saying something like, “I can't
think of what else to write. I've got seven words and now my mind has
gone blank. I just can't think what to put.”
If this happens, then that is exactly what you should write down
because that is what your brain is associating with this exercise at that
particular moment. It may not seem like an obvious link to happiness
but write it down anyway. i.e. write down “I can't think of anything.”
Not doing so is another act of self-censorship. It is very unlikely that
your mind is actually, really, truly blank. The aim of completely stilling
the mind is studied in meditation classes the world over and it takes a
lifetime. So it is very unlikely that your mind has in fact gone blank at
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the drop of a hat. Having written down that you can't think of anything
will actually free your brain up to pursue other trains of thought and
come up with new ideas. Again they may not be what you expect but go
with them anyway. The more unusual they are, the more creative your
mind is being.

Zen Exercise
Just to demonstrate that your mind can't stay empty for very long, try
the following exercise. Sit quietly and relax in a darkened room, taking
a few deep breaths, allowing your eyes to close. Just before you close
your eyes start a stopwatch.
As you become more relaxed allow your mind to become still as well.
When you are ready, empty your mind of all thoughts. Consciously
empty your mind. Ensure that you are thinking of absolutely nothing.
Now the aim of this exercise is to keep your mind completely empty of
all thoughts for as long as possible.
At some point you will notice that you have started thinking of
something. As soon as you become aware of this, stop the stopwatch. It
is unlikely you will get beyond a few seconds before some thought or
other fills your mind. You might not stop the stopwatch immediately
simply because you get caught up in the train of thought and forget to.
Only some time later will your mind notice you are having a thought
and remember to stop the watch. It is in the nature of trains of thought
that when we follow them we don't think about the things we are not
thinking about – in this case the stopwatch). So you are likely to
measure a longer time than your mind is actually empty for.
When you have stopped the stopwatch, bring your attention gently back
to the outside world.
The point of this exercise is to show that your mind won't be empty for
more than a few seconds. You will find yourself thinking about
something.
So even if you initially struggle with the happiness exercise, you can
make the associative links you need to. Repeat the exercise using
different words (use nouns selected at random from a dictionary). The
more you repeat it, the easier you will find it. If you are getting fewer
than twelve words in two minutes, keep on practising.
Ultimately your aim should be to keep your pen writing throughout the
entire two minutes, adding more lines if necessary.
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Exercise in Directed Association
The happiness exercise is an exercise in free association. You associate
the word happiness with whatever occurs to you.
When we introduce memory systems later on, you will find it useful to
link a new item to a specific item that you have already selected,
something that is already set up in your mental infrastructure. So in the
following exercise we are going to look at pointing your associations in
particular direction.
This exercise is very straightforward and should not be difficult. Simply
link the words in the column on the left to the equivalent word in the
column on the right in four links or less.
The first one asks you to link the word Kingfisher to the word Halo.
Your train of thought might be something like this: a kingfisher is a type
of bird, birds have wings, angels also have wings, and, finally, angels
have halos.
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Try the same with the following words: -

Kingfisher - Bird - Wings - Angel - Halo

Channel Helmet

Eye Magnet

Stomach Gumtree

Violin Pillow

Gas Pinball

Moon Shroud

Page Dragon

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If you were able to do this exercise, you have demonstrated that you are
able to successfully direct your associations. If you struggled, you
should spend more time practising so that you become aware of the
associations your mind naturally makes.
You can do this by making this exercise into a game. Take a box of
about fifty blank cards and write a random word on each card. Which
word? Get a dictionary and open it at a random page, and stick a pen
blindly onto one word. If it is a noun write it on the card, if it isn't, scan
down the page until you come to the next noun and write that one on
the card. Repeat this until you have a randomly selected noun written
on each of the fifty cards.
Now simply put them all in a box and mix them up, shuffling them
around. Pull out two cards and play the game as above – simply make a
connection between the two words. The one rule you must stick to is
that you must use the two cards that you have picked. You are not
allowed to think, “I don't like these two cards, I'm going to try two
others”.
This game will give you the chance to hone your skills of directed
association.
We suggest you do this exercise with family and friends and compare
the answers that everyone gets. You may find that many answers are
similar. For example, many people link page to dragon with the
following: page – book – fairytale – dragon, but often there will be
some surprising connections.
For example, the first item linking channel to helmet is often something
like, channel – tunnel – workman – helmet. Occasionally, however,
channel is used in a different sense, such as channel – TV – show – war
film – helmet. Remember that different words mean different things to
different people, so people might use words in different senses in this
exercise.
A surprising example of this is that gumtree is sometimes used in the
sense of the website that advertises local jobs and services rather than
its more usual sense of a tree from which gum is obtained.
People's associations are determined by a number of factors, one of
which is the external environment, and this can change over time. We
introduced the directed association exercise in 2008 and back then the
final item linking page to dragon would often contain a reference to
Harry Potter. For example, page – story - Harry Potter - dragon.
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Now when we do the same exercise there are very few mentions of
Harry Potter. It is now several years since the Harry Potter series
finished so the books are not in the public consciousness as much as
they were.
Before you move on, just give this exercise a moment's thought.
Without too much mental effort, you can link one concept to any other
in your mental landscape. Given the huge numbers involved, the fact
that you are able to find a way from one word to any other in four or
fewer steps is quite amazing.
It is akin to the notion of six degrees of separation, the idea that through
a mere six people each of whom knows the next person in the chain you
can find a link to any other person on earth. So if you wanted to get in
touch with Barack Obama or Paul McCartney, you could reach them
going through six people or less, starting with someone you know, as
long as you select the correct route. However, knowing the right route
to take would be very difficult.
By contrast, in the directed association exercise you can determine your
own route through the myriad of ideas in your head and reach your
selected destination with little effort.
This chapter should have given you a little insight into the notion of
association and its importance to how your brain works and how
memories are formed. This is one of the most important and
fundamental elements in developing your memory, but in order to make
use of it fully, we need to look at the next element as well: making full
use of your senses and sensory memory.
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Quiz

1. How many nerve cells are in the brain?

2. What is the name of the point where a connection is made
between nerve cells?

3. How many points of connection are in the brain?

4. What is the name of the structure that gives shape to ideas and
thoughts?

5. What is the major theme of this chapter and one of the
fundamental elements of memory?

6. Is the structure of memory linear or non-linear?

7. How large is the average English speaker's recognition
vocabulary?

8. Are someone's associations with a particular word likely to be:
-
(a) exactly the same as everybody else's?
(b) overlapping with everybody else's?
(c) completely unrelated to everybody else's?

9. Why should you use your own ideas when creating memories?

10. Name two ways you might overcome mental blocks.

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11. It is easy to keep one's mind completely empty of ideas. True /

False?

12. The associations we have with particular words can change
over time. True / False?
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Answers

1. How many nerve cells are in the brain?
100-200 billion. 

2. What is the name of the point where a connection is made
between nerve cells?
A synapse. 

3. How many points of connection are in the brain?
Possibly as many as a trillion. 

4. What is the name of the structure that gives shape to ideas and
thoughts?
A neural pathway. 

5. What is the major theme of this chapter and one of the
fundamental elements of memory?
Linking ideas through association.

6. Is the structure of memory linear or non-linear?
Non-linear. 

7. How large is the average English speaker's recognition
vocabulary?
50,000-75,000 words. 

8. Are someone's associations with a particular word likely to be:
-
(a) exactly the same as everybody else's?
(b) overlapping with everybody else's?
(c) completely unrelated to everybody else's?
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Answer: (b) overlapping with everybody else's.

9. Why should you use your own ideas when creating memories?
Because your associations will be unique to you. 

10. Name two ways you might overcome mental blocks.
Writing down any train of thought that occurs to you;
Ignoring your tendency to self-censor;
Writing down the fact that you cannot think of anything. 

11. It is easy to keep one's mind completely empty of ideas. True /
False?
False. It takes years of training.

12. The associations we have with particular words can change
over time. True / False?
True. They are dependent on the external environment as well
as the state of your mind.
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FIVE

DEVELOPING SENSORY MEMORY

One way to develop superior memory skills is to emulate the techniques
used by people who are capable of outstanding memory tasks. It
transpires that these people use their brains in a different way to
untrained people. These differences can now be measured using modern
brain-imaging technology. When viewed in brain scans, more of the
brain appears to be active and different areas of the brain are being
used.
When you see pictures of the brain, it
The left and right hemispheres
looks a little like a walnut. This is the
can be clearly seen as well as the cerebral cortex, the outer layer
walnut-like appearance of the responsible for higher level brain
cerebral hemisphere. functioning. This structure is divided
into two hemispheres, known as the left
and right cerebral hemispheres.
The two hemispheres have different
functions. The left hemisphere contains
Broca's area and Wernicke's area, both
associated with language. It also
processes logic, number, sequences and
analytical skills while the right
hemisphere is associated with rhythm,
colour, music, imagery, dimensionality
and gestalt.
This distinction has permeated into
popular culture and we have acquired
the terms left-brained and right-brained. Left-brained people are
regarded as more scientific and analytic, whereas right-brained people
are seen as more artistic and spontaneous. In fact, we all use both
hemispheres, but one or other does tend to dominate. It is not the case
that we are solely left-brained or right-brained.
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Connecting the two hemispheres is a bundle of neurons known as the

corpus callosum which enables communication and co-ordination
between the two sides. This bundle is denser in women than in men and
it has been speculated that this is the reason that women are supposedly
better at performing multiple tasks at the same time.
At the base of the brain are the most primitive elements, those
structures that developed early on in our evolutionary history. Many of
these structures are associated with basic functioning, but functions that
are vital to survival, such as regulating heart rate, breathing and motor
control. These structures include the brain stem and the cerebellum.
Above these areas are the mid-brain and limbic system. The mid-brain
is associated with vision, hearing, motor control, sleep and waking
cycles. The limbic system is a complex of brain structures supporting
functions including the emotions, behaviour, motivation, long-term
memory and olfaction (smell). It includes the hippocampus which is
associated with spatial memory.
The outer layer of the brain is the cerebral cortex. It plays a key role in
memory, attention, high-level thought, language, consciousness,
planning and learning from experience. It is conventionally divided into
four lobes, the frontal lobe, the parietal lobe, the temporal lobe and the
occipital lobe. The cerebral cortex is most highly developed in us
humans – it is larger relative to our size than in any other animal.
These broad structures are common to all undamaged brains. We also
know in detail what happens at the level of the brain's microstructures,
that is at the level of the individual neuron.
However, we are still ignorant of what occurs at intermediate levels. We
do not know, for example, where an individual memory is stored (or
even if it makes sense to say that a memory is stored at a particular
location).
Since everybody's memories are determined by their own experiences,
the detailed structures associated with each individual memory will be
different. So even if it were possible to identify a collection of neurons
in one person corresponding, say, to the memory of an elephant, there
would be no exactly corresponding set of neurons representing an
elephant in any other person.
Good memorisers tend to use as much of these different areas of the
brain as they can. Of course, they don't do this by thinking of a
particular area of the brain and consciously trying to use it: “I must
make sure I use my hippocampus today!”.
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Instead, certain subjective techniques are employed which ensure that

the brain is being used to its fullest extent. These techniques are the
subject of the remainder of this chapter.

The Importance of the Visual System
Mnemonists (memory men) consciously make visual images of what
they want to remember. A large proportion of our brain is devoted to
processing visual images. Spend some time on the following exercise. It
is divided into two parts. Do the first part now and the second part after
a break of half an hour.
Over the next few pages are thirty different visual images. Please
inspect them very quickly, taking no more than one second per image.
Cover up the images that you are not looking at, so that you can only
see one image at a time.
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Now take a break, wait thirty minutes and then turn to the end of the
chapter. You will see thirty pairs of images. Each pair contains one of
the images that you have just looked at and one that is entirely new. For
each pair, select the image that you have already seen. When you have
done that check your answers and make a note of how many you got
right. When finished, continue reading.
Studies similar to this exercise have been conducted which show that
our recall of visual images is very good indeed. Even when the number
of images shown is increased to as many as 10,000, the accuracy rate
remains at over 95%.
The reason for this exercise is to demonstrate the importance of the
visual system to memory.
This notion may be new to you. Remembering inevitably involves a
process of abstraction and this can lead to memories being searched for
through the auditory system, through language: language being the way
that we create abstract ideas.
For example, if someone asked you what you were doing last
Wednesday at 2pm you might hear your internal voice saying, “That's
when I went to the doctors and had a blood test, isn't it?”. Hearing
yourself say something like that is an auditory memory. Recall of the
same memory would be much more vivid if you actually saw in your
mind's eye a picture of yourself walking up to the doctor's surgery,
going through the door into their office, seeing the chair on which you
sat, picturing the doctor, seeing the needle going into your arm and so
on.

Developing Visual Imagination
We can all visualise. With the exception of a small proportion of people
who are unfortunate enough to have suffered damage to their visual
cortex, we are all capable of forming vivid images in our imaginations.
We do so when we dream: anyone who is capable of seeing in their
dreams is capable of forming visual images in their imagination.
When you use your visual imagination you are stimulating the same
neural pathways as you do when you are actually seeing something.
When you remember seeing something you are using the same neural
pathway that was created when you first experienced the event that gave
rise to the memory.
As far as the relevant portion of your brain is concerned there is no
difference between an imagined visual image and a real visual image.
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So for someone skilled in visualisation they are not remembering an

event so much as simply seeing it again. This is why developing your
ability to visualise effectively is so important.
When visualising it is better to have your eyes shut. Your visual system
uses a large proportion of your brain's processing power. When you
close your eyes, this power is diverted from external images to internal
images, freeing up your imagination. This is why we sometimes gaze
unfocused into the middle-distance when trying to remember something
or, indeed, when we daydream. Doing so gives us access to our internal
visual imagination by taking our attention away from the outside world.
Set aside ten to twenty minutes for the following exercise.
Take an object which is visually pleasing, such as a flower. Set it in
front of you and spend some time looking at it. Look at it in two slightly
different ways: firstly, simply gaze at it, taking it in as a whole.
When you have done that for some time, begin consciously to take in all
of its features. Notice the different parts of the flower and study them in
detail: the stem, the petals, the stamen and so on.
Notice the specifics of its shape, including vertical lines, horizontal
lines and diagonal lines. Notice where there are straight lines and
curves, circles, ellipses, squares and spirals.
Observe the different colours. What different colours are there? How
does one area contrast with another? What patterns are on the flower?
Become aware of as much detail as you can. When you have thoroughly
surveyed the flower return to gazing at it, simply taking in it as a whole.
There is a reason for looking at the flower like this. We are attempting
to activate as much of your visual brain as possible. Different structures
in the brain deal with different aspects of vision: some see objects as a
coherent whole, others notice specific details such as vertical lines,
others horizontal lines and so on. So by focusing on all of these
different areas we are activating a large proportion of your visual
system.
When you have spent a few minutes looking at your object, close your
eyes and make a mental picture of it in your mind's eye. Immediately
after you close your eyes you may have a residual image of it on your
retina, due to staring at it for a while.
As the retinal image fades, attempt to maintain the image in your mind's
eye for as long as you can. After a while, you may find that this image
too starts to fade. If this happens consciously run through the details
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you observed to help you maintain it. Run through the shape in your
mind. Ask yourself about the different colours and the different patterns
that you saw.
When you have spent a few minutes picturing it with your mind's eye,
open your eyes and examine the object one more time.
You can also draw what you have been visualising. When you open
your eyes, without looking at the object again, draw it using the image
that you have retained in your mind's eye as a cue. When you have
drawn the object you can compare your drawing to the original.
You can repeat this exercise on an ongoing basis, using different
objects, to help develop your visual imagination.

Developing Sensory Imagination
The previous exercise is excellent for developing your visual
imagination. You can use similar exercises to improve your ability to
imagine using the other senses. To develop your auditory imagination
you might listen to a piece of music and then try to hear it again in your
head.
To imagine your sense of touch take an object, close your eyes and
manipulate it, exploring it only with your hands. When you have done
so, put it to one side, then reproduce it in your imagination. Do similar
exercises with your senses of taste and smell.
In addition to the traditional five senses first listed by Aristotle,
numerous others have been proposed over recent years and there are
now as many as twenty-one. You may or may not agree that all of the
following count as senses but all have been suggested: temperature,
pain, pressure, vibration, acceleration, balance, sense of time, bodily
position, joint motion, hunger and thirst.
Whatever your view, the ability to imagine all of these will activate
different areas of your brain and so each is worth cultivating. The
primary senses, though, and the ones you should devote most energy to
developing, are sight and sound.
As well as the exercises above, another way to develop your sensory
imagination is with a guided visualisation, such as the ones below.
If you have a partner, you could ask them to read the following
visualisation out to you. If not, you could record it and then play it
back. Read it in a slow monotone, as this will ensure that your
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imagination is able to fully engage and is not distracted by changes in

tone of voice.
If neither of these alternatives are available you can simply read it to the
end and then go through it in your imagination afterwards.

Guided Visualisation – Beach Scene
Find a relaxing place where you can sit down and where you won't be
disturbed. Turn the lights down. Take a few slow breaths, breathing
deeply from the abdomen. On each exhalation allow yourself to relax
more fully. As you relax you might find that your eyelids become
heavier and heavier until they close. Gradually allow the following
scene to form in your imagination.
Imagine that you are alone on a beautiful, sunny, sandy beach on a
desert island at the height of the day.
The sun is beating down on you from above. It is hot but not
uncomfortable. The sand is very dry, fine and almost white. Take in the
scene visually. Notice the white sand extending both ways along the
beach. Now imagine that there are some rock pools on the beach as
well. Look out towards the sea.
Notice the colour of the see: how clear and blue it is. It is blue and it is
beautiful, extending off into the distance as far as the eye can see.
Notice the shape of the waves as they gently approach the shore.
Gradually look up, noticing the colour of the sky and how the colour
deepens as you look higher and higher up in the sky. Notice some small,
white fluffy cumulus clouds gently scudding across the sky as well as the
golden disc of the sun shining down, imparting light and heat onto the
whole scene.
Bringing your gaze back to the ground, look towards the back of the
beach. There is the edge of a forest, filled with palm trees, vines and
other flora.
Gradually turn your attention to the sounds that you can hear. The main
sound is the sound of waves breaking on the shore whooshing up the
beach and then flowing back into the sea. Other sounds that you hear
are the sounds of gulls flying overhead and animal noises emanating
from the forest.
Turn your attention to your sense of touch. Feel the sand under foot.
Feel it between your toes. It is lovely and warm. Now run down to the
shoreline. The sand is wet here. Feel how it changes underfoot. Bend
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down and stick your hands in the sand, like a child, and feel it. It is wet
and clay-like. Rub it between your fingers and thumbs.
You decide to take a swim. Run into the sea. You can swim in this
fantasy even if normally you cannot. The water is cool against your
skin. Feel it. When it is deep enough you take your feet off the bottom
and swim. The water easily supports your weight. Feel it splash around
your head. Feel the taste of the salty water as it splashes round your
mouth and nose.
Now take a deep breath and dive underwater. As you dive down a whole
new world is revealed to you. You can see hundreds of fish of all
different types swimming round in the sea with you. There are as many
different colours as you can imagine. Some are large, some are small.
Some beautiful, some ugly and grotesque. Some swim in shoals
hundreds strong; some are solitary. On the bottom you can see starfish,
seahorses and what looks like millions of shells.
You see a large oyster shell on the bottom. Swim down to it and open it
up. Inside is the most magnificent pearl. Take it out, swim back to the
surface, and gently return to the beach. When you are back on dry land
look at the pearl. Admire its opaque colour. Feel it. Roll it between your
fingers and thumb. Now slowly walk back up the beach. You can smell
the salt of the sea as it dries on your body.
Find your towel and lie down. Notice that you have a nice cool drink
sitting on the beach beside you. Take a long swig of the drink and
swallow it down.
Allow yourself to relax on the beach and then gradually bring your
attention back to the outside world to conclude this session.
As you come out of this visualisation, take a little time to review it,
thinking about what you experienced. How well were you able to
picture the scene? Could you hear the sounds of the waves breaking?
Were you able to feel the water and the sand? Could you taste the
drink? Could you smell the saltiness of the sea air?
As we said, for each different sensory system, you are stimulating the
same neural pathway when you imagine something as when you
actually experience it. So if you were really into the scene you may
have even found yourself salivating when you imagined yourself
drinking.
An interesting consequence of this is the effect that imagination has on
the motor system, that is, the system of the brain that controls
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movement. Think of a time when you were watching a sports match

such as a game of football, rugby or tennis.
Have you ever got so caught up in the action that you found yourself
moving along with the game? This often happens at moments of intense
drama such as when a goal or a try seems imminent. And then when the
drama is resolved you find yourself relaxing and sinking back into your
chair.
This happens because you are using both your visual system which
allows you to see the action and motor neurons – neurons concerned
with movement - to move along with the action. You are also using
mirror neurons, neurons which allow you to imagine yourself in another
person's position, in this case the position of one of the players.
If you vividly imagine yourself doing some physical activity, you are
using the same parts of your brain as if you are actually performing the
activity in real life, so you can use this as a form of accelerated practice.

Developing Your Overall Imagination
You might like to practise developing your imagination using scenes of
your own similar to the one above. Pay attention to the following
factors. Each of them will make the scenes you imagine more
memorable.
Movement
Moving images are much more memorable than still images.
Colour
Colourful images are more memorable than monochrome ones
Symbolism
If you can give symbolic meaning to your images, if you can make
them stand for something, they will be more memorable.
Humour
We tend to have good memories for humorous scenes, so if you can
incorporate humour into your images that will make them more
memorable.
Sex
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Most people have an excellent memory for matters to do with sex. If

you can make your images sexy then again that will improve your
chances of recall.
Positivity
All other things being equal, it is better to use positive images rather
than negative ones as you are more likely to want to return to them.
Unpleasant scary images can be memorable, but you might not want to
have anything to do with them. This isn't always so, because sometimes
we like being scared. This is why horror films are so popular. However,
in general attempt to make your images positive.
Emotion
Using as much of your brain as possible means using those areas
associated with emotion. If you recall the word list, you will remember
that the word mum was one of the words that people tended to
remember, because of the emotional connection people have with their
mothers.
Exaggeration
Making your images big, bright, bold and bizarre will make them more
memorable.

Visualising Bizarre and Exaggerated Images
If you give it a moment's thought it should be apparent that you can
imagine things that aren't possible in real life. Of course, this is exactly
what happens when we dream.
The following guided visualisation is designed to help you imagine the
impossible. This is to show you that the images that you create are
under your control and that they can be anything you want. This will
help when you come to making images more memorable by making
them strange, bizarre and exaggerated.
As before ensure you are fully relaxed before entering into the
visualisation.
Visualise a glass of water in front of you. How big is it? Is it small or
large? What colour is the glass? Is it plain or coloured? What texture is
the glass? Do you see the glass standing on something or is it floating
in the air in front of you? Pick it up. Is it light or is it heavy? Does it fill
your hand? How much water is in it? How dry does your mouth feel?
Do you need a drink? Take a sip of water. Do you have to tilt the glass a
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lot or a little? How does your mouth feel now? What temperature is the
water? Cold, freezing cold, lukewarm, warm or hot? Is it pleasant?
Swill the water around in your mouth and then swallow it.
Now imagine the remaining water in the glass turning into wine. Is it
red or white? Has the glass changed into a wine glass or has it stayed
the same? Swirl the wine around. How does that feel? Now take a smell.
What does it smell like? Lift the glass to your lips and take a sip. What
does it taste like? Feel the wine on your tongue. Which bits of your
tongue are stimulated? Is the wine warm or cold? Swallow the wine and
notice the feelings as it travels down your throat to your stomach. Can
you feel it settling on your stomach?
Now imagine the glass of water again. Watch as the glass of water
floats slowly up into the air in front of you. Rotate the glass slowly in
your mind so that it is upside down, but notice that the water stays in
the glass. Now make the glass bigger in your mind. Now make it
smaller. Now return it to its former size.
Turn the glass back to the right way up. Change the colour of the water.
Make it blue. Now make it red. And now green. And now yellow. Does
changing the colour affect anything else? Are there any different
smells? What does yellow water smell like?
Now turn the glass over again and let the water fall out of the glass and
splash onto the floor. What sound does it make? Now let the glass drop
to the floor and watch it smash. Listen to the sound as the glass
smashes.
Now something very strange happens. Time starts running backwards.
Watch the scene in reverse. Watch the shards of glass that are scattered
all over the floor collect themselves together and reform the glass.
Watch as it rises back into the air and watch the water jump back into it
from the floor. When the glass is full again turn it back the right way up
and then put it down on a table in front of you.

When you have completed this visualisation, gradually bring your
attention back to the outside world to conclude the session. Review
your experience in the same manner as before.
These exercises are designed to provide you with an introduction to
developing your sensory imagination. You can practise further by
creating your own guided visualisations. You can use scenes from your
past, or scenes that are entirely of your own creating. If you do so,
incorporate all of the factors that we have discussed here.
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In the following chapter, we will examine how to create vivid new

memories by combining your sensory imagination with your associative
abilities. Before you move on, however, be sure to take the quiz.

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Visual Memory Exercise Part 2

1 A B
2 A B
3 A B
4 A B
5 A B
6 A B
7 A B
8 A B
9 A B
10 A B
11 A B
12 A B
13 A B
14 A B
15 A B
16 A B
17 A B
18 A B
19 A B
20 A B
21 A B
22 A B
23 A B
24 A B
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25 A B
26 A B
27 A B
28 A B
29 A B
30 A B
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Quiz 

1. Which of the following skills are associated with the left-
hemisphere and which with the right-hemisphere? Language,
music, colour, imagery, logic, number, gestalt, rhythm,
sequences.

2. What is the name of the bundle of neurons connecting both
hemispheres?

3. Which area of the brain is associated with the processing of
spatial memory?

4. What proportion of the 10,000 images shown to test subjects
were recognised?

5. What is the significance to memory of the fact that we use the
same neural pathways to process external images as imagined
ones?

6. When visualising is it better to have your eyes open or shut?

7. Why is it preferable to visualise an object both as a whole and
in detail?

8. Name five senses in addition to the traditional five.

9. Why is it preferable to read a guided visualisation in a
monotone?

10. Name five factors that you can incorporate into images to make
them more memorable.
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Answers 

1. Which of the following skills are associated with the left-
hemisphere and which with the right-hemisphere?
Language - left, music - right, colour - right, imagery - right,
logic - left, number - left, gestalt - right, rhythm - right,
sequences - left.

2. What is the name of the bundle of neurons connecting both
hemispheres?
The corpus callosum.

3. Which area of the brain is associated with the processing of
spatial memory?
The hippocampus.

4. What proportion of the 10,000 images shown to test subjects
were recognised?
Over 95% were recalled.

5. What is the significance to memory of the fact that we use the
same neural pathways to process external images as imagined
ones?
It allows us to experience memories as if we are actually seeing
them.

6. When visualising is it better to have your eyes open or shut?
Shut.

7. Why is it preferable to visualise an object both as a whole and
in detail?
Because doing so stimulates different areas of the visual system.
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8. Name five senses in addition to the traditional five.
Temperature, pain, pressure, vibration, acceleration, balance,
sense of time, bodily position, joint motion, hunger and thirst.

9. Why is it preferable to read a guided visualisation in a
monotone?
It ensures that your conscious mind is not distracted by changes
in tone of voice.

10. Name five factors that you can incorporate into images to make
them more memorable.
Movement, colour, symbolism, humour, sex, positivity, emotion,
exaggeration.

Answers to Visual Memory Quiz
1. B; 2. B; 3. A; 4. B; 5. B; 6. A; 7. B; 8. A; 9. A; 10. A;
11. A; 12. B; 13. A; 14. A; 15. B; 16. B; 17. A; 18. B; 19. A; 20. A;
21. A; 22. B; 23. A; 24. A; 25. A; 26. B; 27. B; 28. A; 29. B; 30. A
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SIX

CREATING NEW MEMORIES

The remembering process can be divided into three stages: creation,
storage and recall. In this chapter we are now going to look at the first
stage, the creation of new memories. We are going to use the concepts
of association and visualisation to show you how you can create
powerful new memories.
You are going to memorise a number of words from various foreign
languages. This will be a good opportunity to practise your skills in
noticing and creating associations because when you are confronted
with a new foreign word it may not have the conceptual associations
that words in your own language will naturally have – think back to the
word happiness and how you were naturally able to make associations
with it. If you are unfamiliar with a particular foreign word it will have
no natural associations, so you will have to think creatively.
Once you have learnt how to do this for foreign words you should be
confident in applying the same techniques to anything else that you
want to remember. In later sections we will show you how to apply
these skills to a whole host of different real life situations.
If you are interested in learning languages, you can use these techniques
to learn vocabulary much more quickly. If you studied a foreign
language at school, at some point you may have had to learn lists of
words. If so, you may well have learnt them by rote, repeating them
over and over until you remembered them.
This is not a good way of learning new words. While repeated exposure
to a new word is an essential element of learning it as it strengthens new
neural pathways, learning by rote fails to use all but a very small part of
your brain's cognitive skills. And because of this it can be terribly
boring because it fails to engage the brain.
We are now going to show you a better way of learning vocabulary, a
way that does engage the brain and in doing so makes the process much
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more fun. Creating new memories is a creative process and thus can a
very enjoyable one as it enables you to give free rein to your
imagination.
Later in this chapter is a list of English words and their foreign
equivalents. Here is how you can memorise them by applying the
memory techniques we have outlined. The first word on the list is the
Spanish word for cat which is gato.
Starting with the English word, making use of the various imaginative
skills we outlined in the previous chapter, picture a cat in your head.
Visualise a cat as vividly as you possibly can. Make it big, make it
move. Notice how it moves. Notice its colour. Become aware of its
sound, perhaps it is purring or miaowing. Imagine yourself patting it so
you know how it feels under your hand. Notice the smell of the cat. You
might even imagine that you are the cat, putting yourself in its place.
Can you do anything to make it even more memorable? Perhaps you
could make it a very large cat, or one that is an unusual colour. Can you
make it funny? Or sexy (perhaps you could picture Catwoman from the
Batman franchise)?
Once you have a very strong image of the cat, you need to do the same
for the target word gato. But since you aren't familiar with this word it
will not have the same conceptual associations that cat does. Without
context you cannot make such a rich picture as you did with cat.
However, listen to the word gato in your head. What does it sound like?
What is your most immediate association? If you didn't know any better
and you didn't know that the spelling was different, you would think
that the word you heard was gateau, a synonym for cake. In fact, the
two words sound exactly the same.
It is always best to go with your most natural, most intuitive
associations, so make a mental picture of a gateau, perhaps a huge
Black Forest gateau. As you did with the word cat, use as many of your
senses as you possibly can. Since it's a cake it makes sense to indulge
your senses of taste and smell. Imagine how delicious it tastes. Imagine
taking a bite and how it feels in your mouth. Really savour it. Also,
imagine that it has a lovely smell. Smell the chocolate, the cherries and
the kirsch.
One further thing that you can do in this case will help you to spell the
word. You could imagine that gateau has icing on top, spelling out the
letters g-a-t-o.
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So, you should now have in your head the image of a cat and the image
of a gateau.
The next stage is to link them by association. It is not sufficient simply
to have them both in your head at the same time. Without linking them
together you may not remember that one is connected to the other.
For example in one study, a test group of students were asked to recall
dolphins and daffodils together using visualisation techniques. One sub-
group imagined dolphins swimming in the sea, with daffodils floating
on the surface nearby. This image was much less effective than that
used by the second sub-group who pictured dolphins physically
blowing daffodils out of their blowholes. In this picture, the dolphins
and daffodils are physically interacting in the same scene and it is this
that creates the strong association.
To associate two separate images make them interact with each other.
This will create a single picture in your mind, so that when you trigger
one element, you will automatically trigger the other as well. This way
you will remember both parts.
Applying this process to cat and gateau, the obvious picture that comes
to mind is of the cat eating the gateau, perhaps jumping into it and
scoffing it down greedily. Since unusual images tend to be more
memorable, you could indulge your creative imagination, picturing a
scene that is impossible in real life: you could reverse the roles and
watch as the gateau, taking a fancy to the cat, decides to eat it up
instead, taking the cat somewhat by surprise. Just take a moment to
picture this scene.
If you have done it successfully you should now picture gateau
whenever you think of cat and so you have learnt your first word of
foreign vocabulary using this method. You can take this method further
by ensuring that you know it's the Spanish word for cat (rather than,
say, the Japanese word) by associating all the words you learn in a
particular language with their home country. More about this later.
Take a look at the second word on the list: Fernsehen, the German word
for television. Unlike gato, there is no direct homophone in English (a
homophone is a word that sounds the same but has a different meaning).
There is no English word that sounds like Fernsehen, so you cannot do
what you did with cat and gato.
However, in this case, it is possible to break down the German word
into its component syllables. Here you have fern – seh – hen
!94
(pronounced fern – say – hen). So you now have three English words:
fern; say; and hen.
You can now apply exactly the same principles. Firstly, picture the
English word: picture a television. As before, make sure you take it in
using all your senses: see it, notice if any sound is coming from it. Does
it have a particular smell – dust perhaps! Exaggerate it by making it into
an enormous television. You could make it more memorable still by
distorting its shape – perhaps by making it look like the melting
watches of a Dali painting.
Now for the German word: here you could picture either fern, hen or
both. You might not have intuitive visual association for the word say
but that needn't be a problem. You could choose to make your image
using just fern and hen. For example, you could picture a fern tree, with
long tendrils coming out of it and perhaps wrapping themselves around
an unsuspecting hen as it pecks at the base of the tree for food.
You could then link this scene to television by picturing the scene with
the fern and hen taking place on the enormous screen. You could make
it still more unusual and therefore memorable by having the whole
scene leak out of the screen and into real life.
At this point you might object that one syllable of the German word -
seh - has been omitted and therefore you might be concerned that you
won't remember it. You might worry that you will think the German
word is, perhaps, Fernhen.
Well, do you? Probably not.
The brain has an intrinsic ability to complete gaps even where there is
incomplete information (see the Kanizsa triangle illusion below) so in
all probability, you will naturally remember the whole word triggered
by the syllables fern and hen.

!95
The Kanizsa triangle – we see the white triangle even though it isn't there simply
because there are cues suggesting its presence.

Our brain's ability to fill in the gaps in our knowledge can be both
conscious and unconscious. One example is our visual blind spot.
Whenever you look at an object light enters your eye and hits your
retina where photoreceptors are activated transmitting information to
your visual cortex via your optic nerve.
Due to the fact that the nerves in your retina point the wrong way
(towards the front rather than the rear) they have to pass back through
the surface of the retina on their way to the brain. The point where they
pass through the retina doesn't receive any visual information and as a
result there is a blind spot in your vision.
You can confirm the existence of this blind spot by looking at the
following picture.

!96

Look at the picture with your left eye focused on the cross while keeping your right eye
closed. Move the page slowly backwards and forwards. At some distance the circle on
the left will seem to disappear. This happens at the point where the light from it is
falling onto the blind spot on your retina. You can do the same focusing on the circle
with your right eye keeping your left eye closed.
Normally we are not aware of this blind spot. We don't feel that there is
a gap in our vision. Our brain naturally completes the picture by filling
in the two gaps (one for each eye) with a simulation of what it expects
to be there and what makes sense given the context.
At a more conscious level, if you were to read this sentence and
suddenly it ….

…. stopped in the middle, you would expect it to continue and would
have a sense of frustration if it were not completed in a way that made
sense. You may have found that your brain naturally filled in the end of
the incomplete sentence above with the word stopped because that is the
word that was implied by the context.
So your brain has a natural tendency to complete things if it is given
sufficient cues. If you can't remember someone's name, a cue such as
the first letter of the name will often help you to remember it.
This means that not every element of your target word need be included
in your mental picture. Fern and hen might be sufficient, maybe even
just fern. But if you find yourself needing all three elements you could
change the image to include a talking fern, saying the word hen in a
speech bubble as it consumes the hen with its tendrils.
Of course it is far better if you create your own images rather than use
the ones we suggest, because your intuitive associations will be unique
to you.
Now, applying the same techniques, spend a few minutes, memorising
the remaining words on this list.
Cat Gato (Spanish)

Television Fernsehen (German)
!97

Record player Pureya (Japanese)

Newspaper Giornale (Italian)

House Casa (Spanish)

Bread Pane (Italian)

Sailor Marinheiro (Portuguese)

Eagle Adler (German)

Foreigner Gaijin (Japanese)

Whale Valas (Finnish)

Eagle Kotka (Finnish)

Holiday Festtag (German)

Aeroplane Vliegtuig (Dutch)

You should by now have an idea of what constitutes a good memorable
image and why. The real test, however, is simply whether or not you
recall the words you have just learnt.
We have included a vocabulary test in the quiz at the end of the chapter.
Take this test again in a couple of days' time and see whether you can
still recall all the words. If you can't, for those words that you don't
recall, try to work out why the image you used wasn't sufficiently
memorable.
!98
You will probably have to experiment for a while before this method
becomes completely natural. In the meantime, you can practise by
learning more new words from any language that you would like to
learn.
So that you can get an idea of the sorts of images that other people have
used, here are some that have been suggested in our seminars.

Record player (Japanese) Pureya
Of course, record players are somewhat antiquated now. One suggestion
is to use an auditory linkage rather than a visual one. Pureya sounds a
little like player. In fact, the Japanese word pureya is derived from the
English word. The Japanese language treats the letter L as an R as there
is no L in Japanese and the Japanese place a vowel sound between each
consonant, giving p_r_y_r. The final R is dropped, since it is not
pronounced, in the same way that it is dropped in spoken English. This
gives pureya.
It is perfectly acceptable to use an auditory association rather than a
visual one. Auditory associations can be created more rapidly so it can
be useful if you want to remember something quickly.
Try the following exercise using a stopwatch to time yourself. Say the
alphabet to yourself in your head, running through the letters from A to
Z as quickly as you can. It shouldn't take more than a few seconds and
certainly less than ten. Now do the same, but rather than hear each
letter, make a mental picture of each one instead. Again, time yourself.
It will undoubtedly take longer this time around. It requires more
mental processing power to create a mental picture than it does to create
a sound.
So if an auditory link suggests itself, use it.

Newspaper (Italian) Giornale
Many people notice the connection between giornale and journal. Since
they derive from the same linguistic root this is unsurprising. Again, if
that is the association that came naturally to you, then use it. The test in
all of these cases is simply whether it is effective and the only way to
know that is to come back to these words after a few days and see if you
can still remember them.

!99
House (Spanish) Casa

You may naturally have an association here as casa is often used in
English. For instance, casa blanca – white house - or mi casa es su casa
– my house is your house, and so on. If you have a natural ready-made
association, use it.

Bread (Italian) Pane
If you have learnt French, you may know that the French word for
bread is pain; since Italian and French are both romance languages, they
have many words in common and many words that are very similar. So
you might use your knowledge of the French word to help you
remember the Italian one.

Sailor (Portuguese) Marinheiro
Many people use the image of a marine hero, such as Johnny Depp in
his guise as Captain Jack from the film, Pirates of the Caribbean. This
naturally links to sailor.

Eagle (German) Adler
Various images have been suggested. You might have linked eagle to
adder, the snake. Clearly, however, adder and adler are not the same
word. Nevertheless, you might find it works. The danger here is that
you remember adder and not adler (this is known as interference).
What you will probably remember, however, is that the word you want
to recall is not quite adder. And this will then lead you on to adler. One
way to ensure that you don't make a mistake is to picture adder with the
letter L on it as part of its natural patterning.
Alternatively, you might have linked eagle to Irene Adler, the anti-
heroine of the Sherlock Holmes stories. Or you may have made an
auditory link, linking eagle to ADolf HitLER. Nazi iconography made
use of the eagle as a symbol so this association might be a very natural
one. If it jumps out at you, do not be concerned that it might be
considered politically incorrect. When developing your memory it is
always better to use your intuitive natural associations.

Foreigner (Japanese) Gaijin
!100
People often picture a guy or even a gay guy drinking gin in Japan.

Whale (Finnish) Valas
You might imagine someone called Val riding on the back of a whale
which is itself riding on back of an ass or donkey.

Eagle (Finnish) Kotka
You might picture a large eagle flying down and picking up a car in one
talon and a cot in in the other.

Holiday (German) Festtag
The German word contains fest which automatically suggests festival.
The Oktoberfest might spring to mind. This makes use of natural
conceptual association.

Aeroplane (Dutch) Vliegtuig
Vliegtuig, suggests a flea and a twig, so perhaps you could picture an
aeroplane being towed along through the sky by a flea riding a flying
twig.
Of course, you may have come up with entirely different images and
associations, and if you did that is fine. The test is simply whether or
not they work. If you find that the images you have used do not work,
use the techniques we described in the previous chapter to make them
even more memorable.

The Best Way to Learn a Foreign Language
The best way to learn a language is to learn it as an infant.
For the rest of us wanting to learn a new language as an adult, we have
to find a different way. The most effective is to completely immerse
yourself in the language by living in a country that speaks it. You will
be creating natural associations, in context, and with repeated exposure
to the common words that you need to know.
However, you will probably still want to learn vocabulary as well and
the techniques outlined in this chapter will allow you to learn more
!101
words more quickly and more memorably than you would by any other
method such as rote learning.
It is important to develop as large a vocabulary as possible when you
learn a new language because words are the essence of language. You
can know as much grammar as you like, but you cannot link concepts
and meaning to grammar.

Now you know how to use associations to link ideas and how to use
imagery to make them memorable you can now apply your knowledge
to learning virtually anything else that you would like to remember. As
you spend more time practising, you will find that it becomes easier and
quicker to construct memorable images and to make intuitive
associations.
Although it might seem to you that this method is slower than rote
learning, as you practise it, you will find that it becomes quicker and
more natural. As with any new skill it can take a little while to master,
but remember these methods are designed to work with your brain,
using its natural processes.
In the next chapter we will move on from the creation of memories to
their storage and recall, showing you memory systems that will allow
you to recall large amounts of information at will.
!102
Quiz 

1. What are the three stages of the remembering process?

2. Why is learning words in a foreign language a good test for
memory?

3. What is the one positive element of rote learning?

4. What are the drawbacks of rote learning?

5. When making associations to learn new words what kind of
associations should you use?

6. When learning a foreign word, what vital step should you take
to link your image to the image of the English word?

7. When learning a foreign word, if the whole word does not have
an English homophone, what steps can you take?

8. When learning a foreign word, why do you not need to use an
image for every single element of the target word?

9. Why is it preferable to make your own associations when
creating memories?

10. Should you always use visual associations when learning
vocabulary?

11. Which are quicker to create? Auditory or visual images?

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12. Why is immersing yourself in the culture of the language you

want to learn the best way of learning it?

13. What is the: -
German for eagle?
Spanish for cat?
Dutch for aeroplane?
Portuguese for sailor?
Japanese for record player?
German for television?
Finnish for eagle?
Italian for bread?
Finnish for whale?
Italian for newspaper?
Spanish for house?
German for holiday?
Japanese for foreigner?
!104
Answers 

1. What are the three stages of the remembering process?
Creation, storage and recall.

2. Why is learning words in a foreign language a good test for
memory?
Because foreign words do not have the same conceptual
associations as words in your native language.

3. What is the one positive element of rote learning?
It provides you with repeated exposure to what you wish to
learn.

4. What are the drawbacks of rote learning?
It fails to stimulate much of the brain and therefore can be
boring.

5. When making associations to learn new words what kind of
associations should you use?
Your natural, intuitive associations.

6. When learning a foreign word, what vital step should you take
to link your image to the image of the English word?
Make the two images physically interact so that you can picture
them together in the same scene.

7. When learning a foreign word, if the whole word does not have
an English homophone, what steps can you take?
You could break the word down into its constituent syllables.

!105
8. When learning a foreign word, why do you not need to use an

image for every single element of the target word?
Because your brain has a tendency to fill in the gaps where
there is incomplete information.

9. Why is it preferable to make your own associations when
creating memories?
Because your own intuitive associations will be unique to you.

10. Should you always use visual associations when learning
vocabulary?
No. You can use whatever associations occur to you. Auditory
associations are a perfectly acceptable alternative. Visual
associations, however, do engage more of your brain.

11. Which are quicker to create? Auditory or visual images?
Auditory images.

12. Why is immersing yourself in the culture of the language you
want to learn the best way of learning it?
Because you will constantly be creating natural associations in
the appropriate context, and you will be repeatedly exposed to
the words that you need to know.

13. What is the: -
German for eagle? Adler.
Spanish for cat? Gato.
Dutch for aeroplane? Vliegtuig.
Portuguese for sailor? Marinheiro.
Japanese for record player? Pureya.
German for television? Fernsehen.
Finnish for eagle? Kotka.
!106
Italian for bread? Pane.

Finnish for whale? Valas.
Italian for newspaper? Giornale.
Spanish for house? Casa.
German for holiday? Festtag.
Japanese for foreigner? Gaijin.

!107
SEVEN

MEMORY SYSTEMS

This chapter moves on from the creation of memories to their storage
and recall.
As we have seen, our brains connect concepts by associating new ideas
with concepts that already form part of our mental landscape. However,
it is this very fact that can make it difficult to find a particular memory.
If we cannot remember something we are forced to hope that the
relevant associations crop up in our minds and that they somehow lead
us on to what we are looking for.
Our left cerebral hemisphere is associated with sequence, order and
number. We can make use of these skills, as well as our spatial memory,
to store memories in a way that will allow us to recall them much more
easily. To do this we will be looking at a number of memory systems,
some of which are very modern, others which date back to the Ancient
Greeks.

Memory Systems
You may have come across some basic memory systems, or
mnemonics, when you were at school. The root of the word mnemonic
is the same as Mnemosyne, the Greek goddess of memory and mother
of the nine Muses. Many of the common mnemonics learnt at school
make use of some of the concepts we have outlined in the previous
sections.
One well known mnemonic is the phrase Richard of York gave battle in
vain used to recall the seven colours of the rainbow: red, orange,
yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. The initial letters of the
mnemonic phrase provide a cue for the initial letters of the colours. The
initial letters need not form a phrase. They can also be used to form a
word. For example, a mnemonic for recalling the Great Lakes of
America is simply homes (Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Eyrie, Superior)
!108
Another well-known mnemonic is used to distinguish between

stalagmites and stalactites, the features found in limestone caves. One
hangs down suspended from the roof of the cave, the other grows up
from the ground, but which is which? This is easily recalled when you
realise that stalaCtites hang down from the Ceiling while stalaGmites
grow up from the Ground. Another way to remember is to notice that
tights, -tites, hang down.
A camel with one hump is called a dromedary, a two-humped camel is
called a bactrian. If you picture the initial letters of Dromedary and
Bactrian lying on their sides, you will have no difficulty remembering
which is which.

Rhymes and phrases can be used as mnemonics, the following rhyme is
used to remember the number of days in each month: -
Thirty days has September,
April, June, and November,
All the rest have thirty-one
Except February alone
Which has twenty-eight days clear
And twenty-nine in each leap year.

The firsts few digits of pi are 3.14 159 265 358 979. The following
phrasal mnemonic allows you to recall them, the number of letters in
each word representing each digit in the sequence: How I want a drink,
alcoholic of course, after the heavy chapters involving quantum
mechanics.
Mnemonics can also be based on physical features. Another way for
remembering the number of days in each month is to hold both hands
out in front of you palms down making a fist with each. You will see
your knuckles sticking up and the gaps between them. From left to right
think of each knuckle and gap as a separate month, starting with
January (knuckle), February (gap), March (knuckle) and so on.
!109
Using a physical mnemonic to remember the number of days in each month.

Each knuckle represents a thirty-one day month, and each gap a month
with either thirty days or in the case of February, twenty-eight or
twenty-nine days.
Another physical mnemonic, the left hand rule, can be used in physics
to show the direction of thrust of a motor given the directions of electric
field and current: -

Using the left had rule in physics to recall direction of thrust.

If you are interested in finding more mnemonics of this type an internet
search will reveal many thousands.
However, if there is something specific you would like to remember
there may not be a ready-made mnemonic out there in cyberspace. In
any case, no mnemonic that has been created by someone else will have
the associations that you, unique as you are, will have.
So we are now going to show you how to create your own mnemonics,
using a variety of memory systems. We will introduce them now and in
the following sections show how they can be used in most of the
situations in which you are likely to want to recall something.

!110
Method of Loci
The method of loci is the oldest and grandest of the memory systems.
Cicero tells how Simonides of Ceos (556-468 BC), an early Greek lyric
poet, was attending a victory banquet given by Scopas, a Thassalian
nobleman. He, Simonides, was summoned outside to receive a message
and as he went out, the banqueting hall collapsed behind him, killing
everyone inside.
The dead bodies were not able to be recovered so the only way of
identifying them was to rely on Simonides's memory of who was there.
He realised he could remember by mentally working his way round the
banqueting table, seeing in his mind's eye who had been sitting at each
place.
In other words, he linked what he wanted to remember to a specific
location and ever since this technique has been known as the method of
loci, since locus is the Latin word for place. Variations on this method,
such as the Memory Palace, have been developed over time.
The locus method is a two part system. The first part is to think of an
ordered sequence of locations with which you are familiar. The most
intuitive way of doing this is to use a journey that has a number of
memorable points of interest along it. The second part is simply to link
each item that you wish to remember to each point on the journey, using
the visualisation and association techniques that we have previously
discussed.
You can use any journey at all. For the initial exercise that you are
about to do, in which we are going to ask you to memorise the twelve
signs of the Zodiac in chronological order, we suggest that you use a
journey with which you are very familiar. As you become more adept at
the method, you can use a wider variety of different journeys, even
including imaginary ones. However, for this first one we suggest you
use a journey that you make every day.
Author's Note
For this exercise, I use a journey that is simply a walk from the cottage
where I used to live into some nearby woods. The first few points of
interest on my journey are (1) the front door: this serves as a good
intuitive starting point. The second point is (2) the garden path leading
towards (3) the garden gate, and so on.

!111
Method of Loci Exercise

Think of a journey that you are very familiar with, perhaps a journey
that you make every day. When you have done that identify twelve
locations on that journey. You may write them down while you are
working them out and it shouldn't take you more than two or three
minutes. When you have done that run through the journey in your
mind's eye making sure that you know each point on it and the order in
which they occur. Visualise each point on the journey as vividly as you
can.
When you have this journey firmly fixed in your head, you are ready to
move onto the second phase, memorising the signs of the Zodiac. You
are going to remember them in chronological order, starting with the
first sign, Aries.
The first three signs of the Zodiac are: -
Aries, the Ram;
Taurus, the Bull;
Gemini, the Twins.
To store these items in a memorable manner, simply link the first sign,
Aries the Ram to the first point on your journey, the second sign, Taurus
the Bull, to the second point, and so on.
Author's Note
The first sign is Aries the Ram and the first location on my journey is
my front door. I imagine myself setting out for a walk and trying to open
the front door. I cannot open it though because a ram is pushing hard
against the door from the other side. It seems to be trying to get into the
house (a battering ram!).
The front door is a glass door so I can see the ram quite clearly. I push
harder against the door and the ram pushes harder from the other side.
Eventually, the door gives way, the glass smashes and the ram and I
collide, the ram's momentum carrying it past me into the house.
I can now proceed on my walk and, brushing myself down, I now step
onto the garden path. Unfortunately, standing halfway along the path is
an enormous bull (Taurus the Bull is the second sign). Being a
resourceful type, I happen to be carrying a matador's cloak with me
(doesn't everybody?). I pull out the cloak and wave it at the bull. The
bull, seeing the cloak, charges at it and runs past me leaving me free to
continue on my walk.
!112
The next location is my garden gate, which consists of two wooden

posts, one of which supports the gate. Sitting on each post is one of a
pair of very beautiful twins (representing Gemini, the Twins). I greet
them as I walk by, shaking hands with each one and they congratulate
me on dealing with the bull so adroitly.
And so on...
You will see that for each location I have personally interacted with
each of the items to be recalled. This creates a double association, one
with the place and one with me.
You may also have noticed that so far we just linked the object – ram,
etc. - to the location. We have not yet taken any steps to remember its
name - Aries. You might not need to remember both because you may
already be familiar with the names of the signs: you might already
know that it's Aries, the Ram, Taurus, the Bull, and so on. If so, you
need not to take any further steps to remember the names as well.
We have chosen to remember the animal rather than the name, and not
the name rather than the animal, simply because it is easier to create a
mental image of the animal itself. It is easier to simply picture bull than
it is to create an association in order to remember Taurus. However, if
you want to remember the name as well, you simply create more
associations.
Author's Note
To remember the name Aries, as the ram rushes past me into my house,
I notice that it is very, very hairy and I make an auditory link, saying to
myself how hairy it is, using the fact that hairy rhymes with Aries as a
memory aid. To remember that the bull is called Taurus I notice that a
large circular ring is hanging from the nose of the bull. A ring shape is
known as a torus. For the twins, Gemini, I notice as I shake hands with
them that they are wearing clothes completely covered in gems. And so
on...

Signs of the Zodiac
Having demonstrated the process, it is now your turn! Memorise all
twelve signs of the Zodiac linking them to the journey that you
previously constructed. Give yourself four minutes for this exercise and
for this stage, do not write anything down.
Aries, the Ram;
!113
Taurus, the Bull;

Gemini, the Twins;
Cancer, the Crab;
Leo, the Lion;
Virgo, the Virgin;
Libra, the Scales;
Scorpio, the Scorpion;
Sagittarius, the Archer;
Capricorn, the Goat;
Aquarius, the Water Bearer;
Pisces, the Fish.

Recall
You can view the exercise you have just done as the creation and
storage elements in the three part process of creation, storage and recall.
We now need to see whether you have successfully stored your images
in a way that allows you to recall them easily.
To do this simply take a mental walk along your journey, passing each
location in turn. As you do so, notice what you see there. If you have
been successful, you should see each sign of the Zodiac as you pass by.
If you find that you cannot remember a particular sign, then you might
need to strengthen the memory by trying a different image or different
set of associations. In any case, move onto the next location in your
journey and see if you can remember that one.
Make a note of how you did. Did you get all twelve signs? And their
names? For any that you did not, ask yourself how you might go about
making the image more memorable.
Since this method is probably new to you, you might find that at present
the storage element takes a little longer than with rote learning. As you
practise, however, you will find that you get faster. Remember that the
world record for memorising a whole pack of fifty-two playing cards is
just under twenty-two seconds using a similar method. In competitions,
it is the storage time, not the recall time, that is tested.
!114
Since recall is simply taking a mental walk along your journey, this
stage can be very rapid indeed once you are confident with it.
The method of loci can be used to remember facts, speeches,
procedures, in fact anything in which order is important. It can also be
used to construct a mental diary or to-do list. We will outline all of these
in Chapter 10.
You may be concerned about running out of journeys to use but if you
are creative this is unlikely. You can use walks near your house, walks
you used to go on as a child, car journeys, journeys you took on holiday
and routes around towns that you are familiar with.
You can even use routes around your house going from room to room,
or even within each room. For example, you might pick a journey
around your living room, using a sofa, a chair, then the TV, then a
painting on the wall and so on, as different locations.
If you continue to use the method you might find yourself using
journeys that are associated with the concepts you want to remember.
You might, for example, use a journey along a riverbank to remember
facts about rivers such as which are the longest rivers in the world.
You are not limited to real journeys. You could start to build a memory
palace. In this you can add imaginary rooms to your house or even
build a whole new house in your imagination, adding rooms relevant to
whatever it is you want to memorise. For example, if you wanted to
learn how to memorise playing cards, you might imagine that you have
a games room or a casino in your memory palace.
It is possible to reuse the same journey for different items. Generally, if
the kinds of thing that you are want to remember are sufficiently
different, you can reuse the same journey and you shouldn't encounter
any problems. However, you can also empty out a journey that you have
previously used by mentally walking along it and then erasing whatever
is there. This will free it up for something new.
You might want to know how far along your journey you are. For
example, you don't have any obvious way of knowing that Capricorn,
the Goat is the tenth item on the list of Zodiacal signs. One way around
this is to create a numbered marker every few places. If the journey is a
walk through the woods, you could imagine a large stone at every fifth
point. There could be a number marked in chalk on the stone indicating
precisely how far along it is. In this way, every point on your journey
will be within three places of a numbered marker.
!115
One drawback of the method of loci is that you must construct a mental
journey before you can use it. If you have to remember something at
short notice you might need to try another method. One of these is the
Link Method.

Link Method
Using the link method, you can remember a large number of items
simply by linking one item to the next, creating a mental narrative that
connects all of the items that you wish to remember. Otherwise it is
essentially the same as the method of loci. You must still create images,
making them as memorable as you can, associating one item with the
next by having them interact with each other.

Author's Note
I had been giving seminars on memory for a number of years and one
element of the seminar required those attending to memorise the same
list of words as in the exercise in Chapter 3. I had never bothered to
memorise it myself because I knew that I could remember much longer
sequences (see, for example, the countries of the world list below).
However, simply to pass the time in one seminar I decided to memorise
the list at the same time as the delegates. It took about a minute for me
to do it and I used a link system.
The system is so powerful that a year later I can still remember the list.
Here is how I did it. I simply constructed a story linking one item in the
list to the next, as follows: -
I start off with an image off an apple being picked up by a large set of
teeth belonging to an unseen agent and dropped into a gaudy handbag.
A cat, the owner of the teeth, pushes the bag to the bank of a river and
then pushes it in, itself jumping in as the handbag starts to float away.
Along it sails until it reaches London and on reaching the shore the cat
jumps out and promenades through the city until she reaches
Westminster Abbey (representing peace), where she sees a mouse and
starts chasing it.
The mouse runs up to a sculpture of a giant mouse, no doubt the
mouse's god. There is a hole in the sculpture at the bottom, and this is
clearly the mouse's house, much like in the Tom & Jerry cartoons. The
cat chases the mouse into its house and on going inside there is much
more space. In fact, the house is a sado-masochistic house of pain with
all sorts of people doing all sorts of strange things including a
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dominatrix hitting people with a handbag. A nun (representing virtue)

turns up and tells everyone that they should not be behaving like that in
a church.
On closer examination, I notice that the nun is in fact my mum. She is
carrying a laptop computer and opening it up, she starts to watch a TV
show on it. The show she is watching is Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and
in it Buffy is having a fight with a demon. Their fight takes them all
over the place and eventually they crash into a piano which collapses
underneath them. Inside the workings of the piano is a rucksack which
falls open and a television falls out. Zooming in though the TV screen
we see a scene with a dog holding a large model of an atom between its
teeth. The dog is burying the atom by boring out a hole. As it digs
further and further it becomes apparent that the hole it is digging goes
on forever and it has paintings along the side.
Eventually, the hole opens out into a cave also with paintings on it. It is
apparent that all of these cave paintings are for sale because they are
all marked up as discounted with minus signs on them (minus equals
negative). On looking around the cave, I am surprised to see the
original gaudy handbag lying on the floor. It now contains a small but
very beautiful woman (beauty) who emerges and starts to do the sun
salutation yoga sequence. Doing so she summons up the sun which
lights up the cave. The sunlight reveals that a war has clearly taken
place in the cave because there are injured soldiers hobbling about who
are all making their way into a medical tent.
This story is unusual and defies logic, but it is memorable because it
makes generous use of strange, bizarre, sexy and funny imagery and
each element is linked to the next by sharing a scene with it.
This is how a link system works. The advantage of this system is that it
allows you to memorise a large number of items, without having to
have a journey system set up in advance unlike the method of loci
memory system.
Compared to the method of loci, however, there are one or two
disadvantages.
First, what is being created here is a chain of associations and no chain
is stronger than its weakest link. So if you do forget one link, it could be
that you get stuck.
Suppose in the above example I forget that the cat stopped at
Westminster Abbey. I might not be able to recall any subsequent links.
In reality, however, if you are using a link system and do fail to recall
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one of the links, there will be other associations that you naturally draw
on that will help you to remember the rest of the narrative and which
may even help you reach back to the link that you forgot.
Another problem is the possibility of recalling links in the wrong order.
This is unlikely but not impossible. In the narrative above, it is
conceivable that I might mistakenly recall cave before painting, having
failed to notice the paintings in the tunnel being excavated by the dog.
Of course, this is only a problem if it is important to remember the
items in order. In the word list exercise it wasn't although it transpires
that it is simply easier to do so. Due to the narrative structure of the link
system, recalling items in the wrong order is unlikely.
Finally, there is no way of knowing what the nth item on the list is.
Since you create the links as you go along there isn't really a chance to
have any form of numbering. However, you could, if you wanted to,
add a mental marker at a subsequent time to indicate how far down the
chain you are.
Link System Exercise
The author’s link system for memorising all two hundred or so
countries of the world in alphabetical order is shown in the Appendix.
For now, see if you can memorise just the countries from A to B.
Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Andorra, Angola, Antigua & Barbuda,
Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan;
Bahamas; Bahrain; Bangladesh; Barbados; Belarus; Belgium; Belize;
Benin; Bhutan; Bolivia; Bosnia & Herzegovina; Botswana; Brazil;
Brunei; Bulgaria; Burkina Faso; Burundi.
Author's Note
My mnemonic for recalling just the A's goes as follows: -
I get up out of bed and since it's cold I don an Afghan coat
(Afghanistan). I bump into my friend Al who for some reason has turned
into a werewolf and is baying like a wolf (Al-ba-nia). I go downstairs
and the sun comes up. This causes Al to turn back to normal, cheering
him up: Al cheers (Al-geria). There is a knock at the front door. I open it
to find Ann & Dora standing there (An-dorra). At that precise moment a
French man on a bike wearing a stripy jumper and with onions hanging
round his neck cycles up. He taps Ann on the shoulder and points across
the road, saying Ann, go là (An-go-la). He is pointing at a tea shop. Ann
goes and has tea (An-ti-gua), then pays for it using some silver, or
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argent (Argent-ina). We all then hear a military parade coming along

the road and see an army for some reason marching on their knees
(Arme-nia). When the parade has passed, a friend called Oz who is
working as a waiter in the tea shop, collects some trays and carries
them back to the shop (Aus-tra-lia), but the trays are stacked too high
and he can’t see where he’s going so he bumps into a tree (Aus-tri-a).
Hiding behind the tree is a bison which chases everybody away (Azer-
baijan).

The Number-Shape System
This is a basic system and is a good one for children. It isn't very
complicated and makes use of easily remembered associations. It only
allows for ten items but each one is numbered so it is good for
remembering things in a particular order.
In the number-shape system each number is associated with a shape that
looks like the number itself. For example, you might associate the
numbers one to ten with the following shapes. 

1. Paintbrush
2. Swan with its bent neck
3. Heart
4. Deckchair
5. Hook
6. Elephant raising its trunk
7. Cliff face
8. Snowman
9. Balloon on a stick
10. Bat and ball

As before, simply link whatever item you want to remember to the
symbol that resembles the number.
Suppose you wanted to memorise a list of items on a shopping list. Your
list goes: -
1. Oranges
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2. Bananas
3. Apples
4. Shoe polish
5. A mug
6. Potatoes
7. Tomatoes
8. Flour
9. Bread
To remember the first item on the list, the oranges, you would link the
image of an orange to that of a paintbrush. You might create a mental
image of a paintbrush painting a load of oranges an even brighter and
more colourful shade of orange. Smell the smell of the paint and of the
oranges as they intermingle.
To remember the bananas, link them to the image of the swan, which
represents the number two. You might imagine a swan flying along
holding some bananas in its webbed feet, flying towards you, coming
into land. As it lands, it slips, spilling the bananas which go flying
everywhere, including all over you!
To remember the third item, the apples, link the image of an apple to the
image of a heart. You might imagine a big apple tree, with big, red heart
shaped apples, pumping away on the branches of the tree.
Use the number-shape system to remember the remaining items on the
list.
The Number-Sound System
This system is very similar to the number-shape system but can be a
little faster to learn and master. This is because it links numbers to
sounds that rhyme with them (rather than pictures) and as we've shown
previously sounds can be recalled more quickly than images. The
suggested links for each number are: -
1. Bun
2. Shoe
3. Tree
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4. Door
5. Hive
6. Sticks
7. Heaven
8. Gate
9. Wine
10. Hen
As before, link the items you wish to remember to the image associated
with its number. You would link the first item on your list to the image
of a bun, the second item to the image of a shoe and so on.
So, looking back at our shopping list, the fifth item on the list is a mug.
To remember this you might imagine a number of bees flying along,
straining between them to carry a mug, and then finally squeezing it
into their hive, inside which they have their own little living room. They
all sit down on their own little bee-sized couches after their exertions,
and have a drink of coffee from the mug.
Use the number-sound system to remember the following shopping list:
-

1. Television
2. Newspaper
3. Book
4. Chair
5. T-shirt
6. Table
7. Toaster
8. Glass
9. Nuts
10. Car

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A System for Remembering Numbers

Remembering numbers is probably one of the hardest memorisation
tasks of all as numbers are not physical objects and are therefore
difficult to visualise. For many people, particularly those who did not
like maths at school, numbers may not have very many intuitive
associations, although we all have some numbers that are special to us,
such as birthdays and house numbers.
You can turn the fact that numbers are difficult to remember to your
advantage. By learning how to memorise them, you will be pushing
your memory a little harder, and as a result you will find that
remembering more run-of-the-mill things should become easier.
We are going to outline one technique which will enable you to create a
unique image for every two-digit number from 00 to 99, and then a way
to increase the power of that technique by a factor of one hundred to
enable you to create a unique image for every four digit number
between 0000 and 9999 (ten thousand in all).
Having learnt this system you can then use it in one of two ways.
The first is to remember numbers themselves, such as phone numbers,
bank card numbers, PIN numbers and so on. The second is for
remembering large amounts of numbered items. For example, it could
be used to remember the entire periodic table of elements, which
consists of elements numbered from 1, Hydrogen, through to newly
discovered element 118, temporarily named Ununoctium.
The system requires a little time and practice to master but it is quite
simple to understand.
Start off by associating each digit 0-9 with a letter: -
1 is A;
2 is B;
3 is C;
4 is D;
5 is E;
6 is S;
7 is G;
8 is H;
9 is N;
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0 is O.
You will see that each number is associated with its corresponding letter
in the alphabet, with two exceptions for 6 and 9. If we stuck completely
to the rule, 6 would be F and 9 would be I. However, S and N are the
initial letters of those numbers and seem to work better. We are going to
be making up words with these letters and many more words begin with
S than F; and more being with N than I.
Now, think of the numbers 00 to 99 as pairs: 00, 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, …,
97, 98, 99.
Replace each pair with its corresponding letters: -
00 is OO; 01 is OA; 02 is OB; etc.
13 is AC;14 is AD;15 is AE; etc.
66 is SS; 67 is SG; 68 is SH; etc.
97 is NG; 98 is NH; 99 is NN.
When you have done this you will have one hundred pairs of letters.
You now have to create a memorable image associated with each pair.
The best images for recall are people, because the brain processes
images of faces differently and more intensely than other types of
image.
Simply use each pair of letters as initial letters of somebody's name. For
example, 20 is BO; a famous person with the initials BO is Barack
Obama so he could be your image for 20.
The letters corresponding to 67 are SG, which could be the Liverpool
captain, Steven Gerrard. 68, SH, could be Sherlock Holmes, despite the
fact that he is a fictional character.
You should attempt to come up with your own associations for each
number, but with one hundred numbers this will take some time. We
have included a list of famous people whose initials correspond to each
pair of numbers at the end of this chapter.
Once you have created your own list learn it thoroughly. The
association for each number should come to mind quickly because the
code itself is very straightforward. Ideally you should be aiming to
reach a situation where seeing a two-digit number automatically triggers
the picture of the appropriate person in your mind's eye.
You might find a useful way of learning them is to have one hundred
cards with the numbers on one side and the corresponding name on the
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other. Shuffle them up and then check to see if you can remember them
all. If you are familiar with the name of a person, but don't know what
they look like, take a little time to find out. If you are using a famous
person or celebrity you should be able to find an image of them online.
Of course, if you are using someone you know personally, you will
already know what they look like.
Occasionally, you might find that the initials trigger an image of
someone else. For example, we suggested BO might lead you to think
of Barack Obama. However, you might know someone who has really
bad BO. If so, why not use them? Or 22, rather than suggesting, say,
Betty Boothroyd, the former Speaker of the House of Commons, might
suggest BB King. 66, SS, rather than triggering the image of Steven
Spielberg, might trigger an image of the head of the SS, Heinrich
Himmler. If someone is so famous that they are known by one name
you could use them for the double letters. For example, BB could be
Beyonce, EE Elvis, GG, God!
Sometimes the digits themselves might automatically trigger an
association. For example, you might associate the two digits
corresponding to the year of your birth with yourself. You might do the
same for other family members or friends. If these associations come
naturally, use them.
Now for each person on the list create an action that you associate with
them: Barack Obama giving a speech from the presidential lectern;
Steven Gerrard raising the European Cup over his head; Sherlock
Holmes examining a footprint with a magnifying glass, and so on.
If you have written the name of the person on your practice cards, you
might also like to write the action associated with them as well. Again,
we have made some suggestions in the table at the end of this chapter.
Having completed this set up stage, you are now ready to use this
system to remember a sequence of numbers or a set of numbered items.
Remembering a Sequence of Numbers
Suppose you have a four digit number sequence that you want to
remember, such as 2067; perhaps a PIN number.
For the first two digits, 20, use the image of the person associated with
that number. In this case, Barack Obama. For the second two digits, 67,
use the associated action, not the person, associated with that number.
In this case the action is raising the European Cup. So for the whole
sequence of four numbers, you would imagine Barack Obama, perhaps
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dressed in a Liverpool strip, raising the European Cup above this head!
By combining one person's face with another person's action, you will
hopefully be creating a strange, unusual and therefore memorable,
image.
Using this method, try memorising the following sixteen digit number.
You might decide to use this method for learning bank card numbers, all
of which are sixteen digits long.
5694392015966887
First, divide the number into blocks of four.
5694 3920 1596 6887
And then apply the method as described above.
Using the characters in our table, you would use Ebenezer Scrooge,
singing while sitting on some rocks; Chuck Norris giving a presidential
speech; Albert Einstein playing chess and Sherlock Holmes flying on a
broomstick.
This method means that you only have to use four images to recall a
sixteen digit number. Remembering how easily short-term memory gets
overloaded, you can see how memory systems such as this can be used
to overcome its limitations.
To ensure that you remember the four images in the right order, you
could put each into their appropriate place on a journey that you have
created using the method of loci. For example, if you are aiming to
remember a bank card number, you might choose to remember a route
around your local bank branch. This will ensure that you know where
numbers relating to financial matters are stored.
Ebenezer Scrooge might be singing while sitting on some rocks at the
entrance to the bank; Chuck Norris, could be giving a presidential
speech at the reception point now found in most banks; Albert Einstein
might be found playing chess to pass the time while queuing to see a
cashier and while doing so he might be watching Sherlock Holmes
flying out of the bank on a broomstick having had enough of waiting to
be served.
Remembering Numbered Items
To use the number system to remember numbered items, link each item
to be remembered to the person associated with each number.
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For example, if you decide to remember the periodic table, you would
link the first element, Hydrogen to OA. The person associated with OA
in our table is the footballer, Ossie Ardiles. You might imagine him
dribbling what looks like a football, but he then realises it is, in fact, a
hydrogen bomb, about to go off. So he kicks it as far as he can out of
the stadium, miles into the air and as it reaches its highest point it
explodes, creating a blinding flash of light and a mushroom cloud.
Helium is the second element, and therefore should be linked to OB. In
our table this is Otto Bismark. You might picture him holding onto a
load of helium balloons in one hand which carry him up into the air. As
he rises higher and higher he notices that in his other hand he is holding
his pointed Prussian general's helmet, which he uses to burst each
balloon allowing him to descend gently back to earth.
Should you wish to try memorising the periodic table as a whole we
have included it in full in the Appendix.
Once you have mastered the numbers system you can of course use it in
any other situation in which numbers might be needed. Suppose you
wanted to remember the dates Shakespeare lived (1564-1616). Simply
picture him with Albert Einstein (1564) swimming in a pool and then
being fired by Alan Sugar (1616).
Incidentally, to remember a three digit number, like 246, simply
combine the image for 24, Bo Derek, with the number-sound system
image for 6, sticks.
Other Memory Systems
There are, of course, other memory systems. However, to include them
all would involve unnecessary duplication. For virtually every situation
that you might come across the memory systems we have included here
will suffice. In the next sections we are going to examine the process of
forgetting and then a number of other factors that affect memory before
showing how you can use these systems to remember a wide variety of
different things.

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No. A-Z Character Associated Action

00 OO Ozzy Osbourne Biting the head off a bat
01 OA Ossie Ardiles Dribbling a football
02 OB Orlando Bloom Shooting a an arrow from a bow
03 OC Oliver Cromwell Covered in warts
04 OD Otto Dix Painting a picture
05 OE Old Etonian On a punt
06 OS Omar Sharif Walking in the desert
07 OG Organ Grinder Holding a monkey
08 OH Oliver Hardy Carrying a plank of wood
09 ON Oliver North Swearing on the Bible
10 AO Annie Oakley Getting her gun!
11 AA Adam Ant Holding up a stagecoach
12 AB Alan B'stard Wearing a loud pin-striped suit
13 AC Agatha Christie Typing a book
14 AD Arthur Daley Selling a car
15 AE Albert Einstein Riding a beam of light
16 AS Arthur Scargill Digging for coal
17 AG Alec Guinness Fighting with a lightsabre
18 AH Adolf Hitler Goose-stepping / saluting
19 AN Andrew Neil Typing a newspaper article
20 BO Bill Oddie Bird watching through binoculars
21 BA BA (Baracus) Sitting astride a tank
22 BB Betty Boothroyd Sitting in the Speaker’s chair
23 BC Bill Clinton Making a speech at the presidential lectern
24 BD Bo Derek Running along a beach in a bikini
25 BE Billy Elliot Dancing a ballet step
26 BS Buffy Summers Staking a vampire
27 BG Bob Geldof Demanding money and swearing
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28 BH Benny Hill Driving a milk float

29 BN Barry Norman Controlling a reel of film
30 CO Captain Oates Trudging to the South Pole
31 CA Charles Atlas Lifting weights
32 CB Cilla Black On blind date
33 CC Charlie Chaplin Swinging a cane
34 CD Christopher Dean Dancing on ice
35 CE Clint Eastwood Shooting a gun
36 CS Claudia Schiffer Walking on a catwalk
37 CG Cary Grant Running from a crop sprayer
38 CH Charlton Heston Fighting apes
39 CN Chuck Norris Letting loose with a machine gun
40 DO Dominic O'Brien Dealing a pack of cards
41 DA David Talking with a gorilla
Attenborough
42 DB David Bowie Walking dressed as the Thin White Duke
43 DC David Copperfield Sawing a woman in half
44 DD Dick van Dyke In a hospital
45 DE David Essex Singing on a stage
46 DS Delia Smith Cooking
47 DG David Gower Playing a cricket stroke
48 DH Daryl Hannah Swimming like a mermaid
49 DN David Niven Planting explosives
50 EO Eeyore Complaining about life
51 EA Eammon Andrews Presenting a big red book
52 EB Eric Bristow Throwing a dart at a dartboard
53 EC Eric Clapton Playing a guitar
54 ED Eliza Doolittle Selling flowers
55 EE Eddie the Eagle On a ski-jump slope
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56 ES Ebenezer Scrooge Counting money

57 EG Eddie Grundy Milking a cow
58 EH Edward Heath Conducting an orchestra
59 EN Emperor Nero Fiddling while Rome burns
60 SO Steve Ovett Running in a stadium
61 SA Steve Austin Crashing in a space ship
62 SB Seve Ballesteros Playing a golf shot
63 SC Sean Connery Wearing a dinner jacket and holding a gun
64 SD Sharon Davis Swimming in an Olympic pool
65 SE Stefan Edberg Playing tennis at Wimbledon
66 SS Steven Spielberg Sitting in a director's chair shouting action
67 SG Steve Gerrard Holding aloft the European Cup
68 SH Sherlock Holmes Looking through a magnifying glass
69 SN Sam Neill Being chased by a dinosaur
70 GO George Orwell Dining with a talking pig
71 GA Gillian Anderson Being probed by aliens
72 GB George Bush Chocking on a pretzel
73 GC Glenn Close Boiling a bunny
74 GD Gerard Depardieu Wearing a musketeer's outfit
75 GE Gareth Edwards Scoring a rugby try
76 GS Graham Souness Making a gut wrenching tackle
77 GG Germaine Greer Burning a bra
78 GH Geri Halliwell Wearing a Union Jack dress
79 GN Graham Norton Singing Bohemian Rhapsody in a cave
80 HO Hazel O'Connor Breaking glass
81 HA Hans Anderson Pointing at a naked emperor
82 HB Humphrey Bogart Lighting a cigarette by a piano
83 HC Henry Cooper Splashing on aftershave
84 HD Humphrey Davey Holding a Davey Lamp
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85 HE Harry Enfield Saying, "You don't want to do that," while

wearing a golf jumper
86 HS Hilary Swank Lying in a hospital bed
87 HG Hermione Grainger Riding a broomstick
88 HH Hulk Hogan Wrestling
89 HN Horatio Nelson Looking through a telescope
90 NO Nick Owen Conducting an interview
91 NA Neil Armstrong Climbing down ladder in spacesuit
92 NB Nigel Benn Boxing
93 NC Nadia Comaneci Performing on a beam
94 ND Neil Diamond Sitting on rocks, singing
95 NE Noel Edmonds Opening a box of money
96 NS Nigel Short Playing chess
97 NG Nell Gwynn Selling oranges
98 NH Nigel Havers Riding a black horse
99 NN Nannette Newman Doing the washing up
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Quiz

1. What word in common use can refer to any kind of memory aid
or memory system?

2. Name the colours of the rainbow.

3. Which geological features found in caves grow up from the
ground?

4. What are two mnemonics that can be used to remember the
days of the month?

5. What phrase can be used to recall the first fifteen digits of pi?

6. What is the name of the memory system first identified with
Simonides of Ceos?

7. Briefly summarise the two essential steps of the method of loci.

8. If you want to know the nth item on a journey what can you do?

9. What are the twelve signs of the Zodiac in chronological order?

10. Once you have created a series of memories using the method
of loci, how do you go about recalling it?

11. What alternative to the method of loci can be used if you don't
have the chance to set up a journey in advance?

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12. Briefly summarise the link method.

13. What are the possible disadvantages of the link method?

14. Name the countries that begin with the letter A.

15. Using the number-shape system, what symbol could you use
for the number 8?

16. Using the number-sound system, what image might you use for
the number 5?

17. What can you use the system for remembering numbers for?

18. Using the system for remembering numbers, what pair of
letters would be associated with the following numbers?

04;
18;
25;
37;
43;
59;
62;
71;
80;
96.

19. Write down the people / actions you have associated with each
of those numbers.
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20. How should you use this method to remember a sequence of

four numbers?

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Answers

1. What word in common use can refer to any kind of memory aid
or memory system?
Mnemonic.

2. Name the colours of the rainbow.
Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet.

3. Which geological features found in caves grow up from the
ground?
Stalagmites.

4. What are two mnemonics that can be used to remember the
days of the month?
The rhyme, “Thirty days has September, ...”;
The visual mnemonic using two fists.

5. What phrase can be used to recall the first fifteen digits of pi?
How I want a drink, alcoholic of course, after the heavy
chapters involving quantum mechanics.

6. What is the name of the memory system first identified with
Simonides of Ceos?
The method of loci.

7. Briefly summarise the two essential steps of the method of loci.
Think of an ordered sequence of locations with which you are
familiar using, say, a journey. Then link each item you want to
recall to a point on the journey.

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8. If you want to know the nth item on a journey what can you do?
Add a mental marker to every fifth location, such as a stone
with its number written on it.

9. What are the twelve signs of the Zodiac in chronological order?
Aries, the Ram;
Taurus, the Bull;
Gemini, the Twins;
Cancer, the Crab;
Leo, the Lion;
Virgo, the Virgin;
Libra, the Scales;
Scorpio, the Scorpion;
Sagittarius, the Archer;
Capricorn, the Goat;
Aquarius, the Water Bearer;
Pisces, the Fish.

10. Once you have created a series of memories using the method
of loci, how do you go about recalling it?
Simply walk the journey that you have created, noticing what is
happening at each location.

11. What alternative to the method of loci can be used if you don't
have the chance to set up a journey in advance?
The link method.

12. Briefly summarise the link method.
You link one item you wish to recall to the next, creating a
mental narrative that connects all of the items that you wish to
remember.
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13. What are the possible disadvantages of the link method?
Forgetting one link in the chain might lead to you getting stuck;
The possibility of remembering items out of order;
There is no easy way of knowing the nth item on the list.

14. Name the countries that begin with the letter A.
Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Andorra, Angola, Antigua &
Barbuda, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan.

15. Using the number-shape system, what symbol could you use
for the number 8?
Snowman.

16. Using the number-sound system, what image might you use for
the number 5?
Hive.

17. What can you use the system for remembering numbers for?
Remembering sequences of numbers;
Remembering numbered items in sequence.

18. Using the system for remembering numbers, what pair of
letters would be associated with the following numbers?
04 – OD;
18 – AH;
25 – BE;
37 – CG;
43 – DC;
59 – EN;
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62 – SB;
71 – GA;
80 – HO;
96 – NS.

19. Write down the people/actions you have associated with each
of those numbers.
If you haven't yet created and learnt your own associations,
continue to do so. 

20. How should you use this method to remember a sequence of
four numbers?
Use the image associated with the first two numbers and match
it to the action associated with the second two.

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EIGHT

FORGETTING

Training your memory and developing the skills that we have outlined
in this course does not mean that you will no longer forget those things
that you want to remember. The neural pathways created by a new
memory will gradually fade unless they are consolidated into long-term
memory. This often involves a process of abstraction. When you learn a
new language, for example, you might initially use some kind of
technique to learn vocabulary, whether it be the techniques we have
demonstrated in Chapter 6 or simply rote learning.
However, if you spend some time in the country where the language is
spoken and become more fluent, new associations with common words,
based on context and experience, will be created instead and these will
gradually take over. You will find that you cease to use the associations
that you initially used when learning the words. However, you might
still use them for less common words that you don't encounter on a
daily basis.
The same applies for physical procedures. Initially, you will be creating
conscious associations as you actively try to remember a procedure.
However, as you become more experienced you start to use associations
created by actually performing the task over a period of time. Consider
driving: as you learn to drive, you have to think about each task that
you are performing, such as how far to turn the steering wheel or which
pedal to press. As you become more experienced you stop doing this
consciously and, in fact, conscious thought can even hinder the process.
Try this exercise. Imagine yourself driving a car. Hold your arms out in
front of you as if you were holding a steering wheel. Now move your
hands as you would if you were changing lanes from the left-hand lane
on a dual carriageway to the right-hand lane.
Pause for a moment and physically make the movements before moving
on.
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Did you make one movement, moving your hands in a clockwise

direction and then another back to their starting position? If so, you
would have just crashed into the central reservation. Once in the outer
lane you need to steer to the left to straighten the car out and then return
your hands once again to their starting position. If you don't believe this
observe what you do the next time you are driving.
Of course, when you are driving, you make the correct movements
unconsciously and without noticing. Conscious thinking can interfere
with the state of flow that can come when you perform a physical
process with which you are very familiar. When driving, you may find
that if you are in this state of flow, you can complete a whole journey
with no conscious recollection of it.
If you have mastered a skill, you already know that you perform it best
when you don't think about it too much.
If you play a musical instrument, you will know that you a play tune
more fluently when you have learnt it thoroughly and don't have to
make any conscious effort to remember it. In fact, it can completely
disrupt the flow if you start thinking about what the next note is. In the
most extreme cases it can force you to stop completely while you
consciously try to search your memory for what comes next. We will
say a little more about this when we discuss the best state of mind for
memory tasks in the following chapter.
This state of flow comes from experience and relies on repeated
exposure to the same or similar situations. However, there are some
procedures where, no matter how familiar you are with them, you still
want to remain consciously engaged. For example, if you were a pilot
performing aircraft safety checks, you would not only want to do them
all, but to know that you had done them all. Sometimes for your own
sake, sometimes in order to demonstrate to others that you have taken
all necessary steps.
Being in a state of flow when you should be consciously engaged can
lead to disastrous results: for example, an American skydiver who was
videoing tandem skydives made so many jumps in one day that before
his final jump of the day he forgot to put his parachute on. As a result, it
really was his final jump.
For procedures, such as safety checks, where you want to remain
consciously engaged, you can either use a physical checklist, or if that
isn't possible, you can create a mental checklist using the method of
loci. See Chapter 10 for how you might go about creating a mental
checklist for a particular procedure.
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There are some things that you might want to store in long-term
memory that you won't encounter enough times for the myriad of
associations created by experience to take over.
Some events are easily stored in long-term memory even after just one
exposure: major life events such as births, deaths, marriages, major
news items, and so on. Such events naturally have all the qualities that
we have already discussed: they are outstanding, rare, unusual, they
have a strong emotional impact and a strong sensory element. Using the
neural pathway model of memory creation, it is likely that so many
associations are created by such events, that even if some fade, there
will always be a sufficient number to ensure that the event is recalled.
For everything else that you wish to recall, the techniques we have
outlined in this course making use of visualisation and association will
automatically extend the amount of time for which items are recalled.
Certainly, they overcome the limitations of short-term memory and
place them somewhere between short-term and long-term memory.
Think back to the section introducing you to the concept of short-term
memory in Chapter 2. You can probably still recall the two sequences of
numbers that were association-rich, while it is unlikely that you can still
recall the random, and therefore association-free, sequences. However,
over time even the association-rich sequences (the first based on the
dates of the two worlds wars and the second on the first twenty
counting numbers in sequence) may start to fade. To ensure that they
are recalled in the long term, there is one further factor you need to
consider.
Think back to the word list from Chapter 3. Do you remember the word
handbag? Virtually everybody who takes the test recalls that word
because it is there three times. It is this repeated exposure to the word
that ensures you remember it. The same applies to items that you wish
to store in long-term memory.
For items that you specifically wish to store in long-term memory, you
should ensure that you are exposed to them repeatedly by reviewing
them on a number of different occasions.

Reviewing Material
Without any review most new information is forgotten within a short
period of time. As time passes the amount forgotten levels off until it
bottoms out and very little further information is forgotten.
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The following table shows the amounts recalled from studying a

textbook without further review.

Time elapsed / days Amount recalled /
per cent
1 54
7 35
14 12
21 19
28 18
63 17
Table showing the amount recalled from a text book over time.

Fifty-four per cent is recalled (forty-six per cent is forgotten) after one
day and this drops off to the point where only nineteen per cent is
recalled (eighty-one per cent is forgotten) after three weeks. Then it
levels off and recall remains roughly the same.
The way that information is initially presented will have an effect on
how quickly it is forgotten. In contrast with a book, ninety per cent of
the information presented in a lecture is forgotten after two weeks
unless further steps are taken.
As you can see, generally the amount recalled falls off steeply and then
levels off. To counter this fall in recall, it is vital that you are repeatedly
exposed to the information that you wish to remember.

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Information recalled falls off very quickly at first and then levels off.

The key to storing items in long-term memory is repeatedly to stimulate
the relevant neural pathways. Each time this happens, the pathway is
strengthened. Each time the memory is experienced, the easier it will be
to recall it the next time around.
Think of the process of review as cutting a path through a jungle with a
machete. The first time it is hard and takes effort, the second time it is a
little bit easier, the third time easier still. After a number of times a
proper path is established and it is no effort to walk it. However, if the
path is only cut away once or twice the jungle will eventually grow
back.
So to encode a new idea into long-term memory it must be reviewed a
number of times.
When to Review
When should reviews occur? There is no single answer. It will vary
depending on the person, the circumstances and the type of learning
experience.
However, these general rules apply: -
• The first review should take place shortly after the initial
learning experience and should consist of a thorough review of
the material;
• Subsequent reviews can be shorter and should be further and
further apart;
• Each review should be an active, rather than a passive, review.
Suppose you attend a lecture and want to ensure you recall the
important points.
The first review should be within half an hour or so of the lecture
finishing. During this time your brain is still processing the newly
acquired information. Conduct a thorough review of the material on this
occasion.
The second review should take place the following day. During the
night, consolidation of the day's experiences, including what you have
learnt in the lecture, takes place while you are asleep, so a review the
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following day allows you to build on this. This second review need not
be as detailed as the first.
At this point you will have been exposed to the information four times.
The first time is during the lecture itself. The second time is your initial
review. The third time is the consolidation process that occurs during
sleep and the fourth is your second review the following day.
Further reviews should follow a pattern which increases the gap
between each one. So you might have reviews one week later, then after
a month, then three months, then six months, then a year.
This process ensures that you will have seen the information seven
times over the initial four months and nine times over about twenty-one
months. At some point during this process you should find that the
information has become firmly fixed in long-term memory.

Event Review Total exposures
Initial event 1
First review Within an hour 2
Sleep 3
Second review 1 day 4
Third review 1 week later 5
Fourth review 1 month later 6
Fifth review 3 months later 7
Sixth review 6 months later 8
Seventh review 1 year later 9

This review cycle allows for the fact that each additional review means
that you have seen the information one more time, so each time you can
leave it a little longer till the next one.
You could, if you wanted, conduct further reviews after two years, four
years, eight years and so on. In fact, you could continue throughout
your whole life, but this is probably unnecessary for the purposes of
establishing the desired long-term memory.
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Conducting these reviews ensures that recall stays high and changes the
shape of the forgetting curve so that it remains at a level similar to what
it was when the information was initially imparted.

In the initial curve information recalled tails off, but after reviews it remains high.

How to Review
What kind of review is best? Most people will intuitively review lecture
notes by re-reading them. However, this fails to take account of the
importance of rehearsal. By actively rehearsing information rather than
taking it in passively more of the brain is engaged.
So you might review a lecture by jotting down again, in note form, all
of the important points, and then comparing them to your initial notes.
If you have missed anything, highlight it. Once you are satisfied that
you can actively rehearse all the important points, then your review is
complete.
Later reviews should take the same form but you can make them
shorter. In addition to actively making notes, there are other ways that
you can rehearse information. If you are working with a partner, you
could make a short presentation to them or alternatively they could test
you on what you know. The latter is one of the best forms of rehearsal
because your partner can provide you with immediate feedback.
If you are familiar with mind maps, you can use them both for initial
note-taking and for subsequent reviews. Studies have shown that mind
maps may be ten per cent more effective than conventional style notes.
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Combating Absent-Mindedness
One problem that most of us suffer from at certain points in our lives is
absent-mindedness. You might arrive home and put your keys down
somewhere, then later when you need to find them again, you have no
idea where they are. This kind of forgetting is different from what we
have just discussed, and the clue to the difference is in the name:
absent-mindedness. We can only be sure to remember something if we
are paying conscious attention to it in the first place.
Absent-mindedness is a problem of attention as much as memory. So
how can we improve our ability to pay attention and combat it?
In the short term, one strategy you might use is simply to say out loud
what you are doing. If you know that you are always losing your keys
whenever you put them down, say where you are putting them. Say, “I
am putting my keys on the bookshelf”. This will force you to pay
attention to where they are.
Another strategy is to establish a routine or habit. Set aside a place for
your keys and always put them there and never anywhere else. Once
you have established an unconscious habit, you will naturally put your
keys in the correct place. Establishing habits to the extent they become
ingrained can take some time. For some people it can be as little as
three weeks, for others as many as nine months.
What if these fail and you still cannot find your keys? You can try
applying the memory principles we have outlined throughout this
course by running through past events in your mind's eye. Start at the
point where you last saw or used your keys and move forward from
then. Use as much sensory stimulation as you can. Close your eyes and
see the scene, hear what you heard, feel what you felt, smell what you
smelt. What emotions were you feeling? What were you thinking
about? Run through the sequence of events in your mind.
Stay as relaxed as you can by breathing deeply. The act of consciously
trying can itself be a distraction, raise tension and reduce your ability to
concentrate. Simply allow yourself to relive the scene. The aim here is
to stimulate the same neural pathways that you were using at the time.
In the longer term, you can combat absent-mindedness by learning to
still the mind so that it is fully focused on whatever you are doing at
any particular moment. This is easier said than done as our minds
naturally follow trains of associations jumping from one idea to next. In
certain contexts that can be very useful as it can be a source of
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creativity, inspiring new ideas and new insights. However, it is at odds

with keeping your mind totally focused on what you are doing.
One strategy to help focus your mind is to introduce mindfulness
training into your daily routine. This has a number of benefits in
addition to helping you to focus, including benefits to health such as
reducing mental and physical stress. Becoming mindful will not happen
overnight. It takes some time but some of the benefits that come from
being relaxed and spending time sitting quietly can be felt more or less
immediately.
Mindfulness Exercise
Set aside ten to twenty minutes for this exercise. Find a place where you
can sit quietly: a pleasant environment where you will not be disturbed.
It should be dark and there should be no distractions such as other
people coming or going. Telephones, TVs and other electronic devices
should be turned off.
Sit down and relax. Take a few deep abdominal breaths. On each
exhalation, allow yourself to relax just a little more. To ensure you are
as physically relaxed as you can be, mentally examine yourself from
your head to toe. Starting with your head say to yourself slowly, “I relax
my head, my head is relaxed”. Move on through your eyes, ears, neck,
chest, upper arms, lower arms, hands and fingers, abdomen, pelvis,
thighs, lower legs, feet and toes, telling yourself to relax each as you go.
Allow your eyes to close.
Once you have been through your entire body and you are completely
relaxed, focus on your breath. Focus all of your mental energy on your
breathing. Breathe in and out taking very deep, slow, deliberate breaths.
As you breathe in, slowly feel each breath going into your nose and
filling you up, starting from the base of your lungs and then filling them
up to the top.
When your lungs are full, pause for a moment and then gently exhale,
this time breathing out from the top of your lungs down to your
abdomen.
Count each breath. When you reach the fourth breath, start counting
again from one.
Keep your mind completely focused on your breathing throughout. If
you notice your mind wandering, and it certainly will, simply redirect
your thoughts back to your breathing. Do not be frustrated that your
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mind wanders. It is entirely natural. Stay relaxed and simply direct your
mind back to your breath.
The aim of this exercise is to maintain a relaxed state of mind. A relaxed
mind is a mind that is capable of maintaining its focus.
When you are ready to finish, gradually bring your attention back to the
outside world. Open your eyes when you are ready to do so. You will
notice that you feel much more relaxed, much more focused and much
less distracted. Maintain this state into the rest of you day for as long as
you can. Do this exercise daily for ten minutes initially, increasing to
twenty minutes over time.
If you persevere, you will find that you can adopt a state of relaxed
alertness more naturally and easily, which in turn will mean that you
can maintain focus. Being able to maintain focus and concentration will
help you to pay attention to whatever it is that you are doing and so
over time you will be less to be prone to absent-mindedness.

New Room Memory Wipe
Have you ever had the experience of leaving one room and going into
another with the intention of doing something, and then when you get
there, you forget what you had planned to do?
Recent research suggests that the mere act of walking into a new room
can reboot our brains causing us to forget what we were doing. There
may be good evolutionary reasons why this was useful in the past, but
now it can be extremely frustrating.
If this happens, you can go back to the original room where you started
off, reenacting what you were doing, thinking about what you were
thinking about, staying relaxed and maintaining focus. If you can't go
back to the room, run through the events in your head instead, engaging
as many of your senses as you can.

It's on the Tip of My Tongue!
There have no doubt been occasions where you knew that you knew
something, but you just could not recall it. If only someone were able to
provide you with a cue, such as the first letter of the word you were
looking for, that would be sufficient to trigger the memory.
Suppose it's someone's name that you can't remember. One thing you
might try is an exercise similar to the happiness exercise from Chapter
4. Write down as many associations that come to mind concerning that
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person as you possibly can: what they do, where you met them, what
they were wearing, what you think of them, mutual friends and
acquaintances, people they remind you of, their hobbies and anything
else at all. If you aren't in a position to write down these associations,
run through them in your head.
In doing so, you may stumble across something that provides you with
a cue to their name. For example, you might recall that you know a
member of their family and you might remember that person's name,
including the family name. Once you know the family name, it might be
much easier to recall their first name. Or you might have noticed when
you first met them that they had a similar name to a certain film star.
While you might not remember their name, you might easily recall the
actor's and the similarity might provide you with the necessary cue.
The more associations that you can make with the person the better. In
an interesting study which has given rise to what is known as the Baker-
baker paradox, it has been found that if you are shown photos of two
people and told one is named Baker, and the other is a baker, you are
more likely to remember the person whose profession is baker than the
person whose name is Baker, even though it is the same word. There are
more associations with baking and bread than there are with people
named Baker.
Of course, you won't always recall what you want to by following trains
of associations. Sometimes, whatever you want to remember simply
won't come to mind. If so, your best course of action is to stop trying.
Your brain tends to recall most effectively when it is relaxed. Making an
effort, deliberately trying, straining to get an answer are all at odds with
maintaining a relaxed state.
Change your brain state and physiology by deliberately doing
something else that distracts you and focuses your attention elsewhere.
You may find that what you want to recall pops into your conscious
mind unbidden at a later time.

Recalling Lost Memories
In Chapter 3 we asked you to do an exercise in which you explored one
memory that you could recall easily and another that you were
struggling to recall, but would like to. At the time we were simply
aiming to show that different memories were recalled in structurally
different ways. We are now in a position to extend that exercise and see
whether, by changing the way you recall the vaguer of the two
memories, you can bring it more easily to mind.
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In Chapter 5, we looked at sense memory and we set out a guided

visualisation where we asked you to picture a glass of water doing
impossible things, such as reassembling itself after it had been smashed
into pieces on the ground. This was designed to show you that you can
consciously change what you see when you are imagining something.
You can change an object's size, colour, shape and so on. You can also
increase or decrease the volume of something that you are listening to
and you can change the quality of how something feels, smells or tastes.
We are now going to repeat the exercise from Chapter 3 using the same
two memories that you used before. We have reprinted the first stages
of the exercise here: -

1. Sit down and relax. Close your eyes and take a few deep
breaths.
2. Gradually allow yourself to experience the memory that you
could easily recall. Step into it so that you experience the
situation as if you were there. See what you would have seen;
hear what you would have heard; feel what you would have
felt. Observe yourself as you do this. As you get deeper and
deeper into the state notice as much detail as you can. Take as
much time as you need to experience the memory fully but
make sure that you take at least five minutes. When you have
done so, gradually return your attention to the outside world
and then ask yourself the following questions – or if you are
working with a partner, get them to ask you and have them
make a note of the answers. 
 
If you were able to recall any visual aspects of the memory ask
yourself the following questions: where in your visual field was
the memory located? Was it directly in front of you, or off to
one side or the other? Or was it high or low in your visual
field? Did it fill the whole of your visual field or did it only fill
part of it? If so, was there a noticeable boundary? Was it a
moving image or was it still? Or was it a series of still images?
Were the images close or far away? Were they in colour or
monochrome? Were they bright or dim? Were they sharp or
blurry? Did you experience the scene as if through your own
eyes or were you watching it from a third party perspective? 
 
If you were able to recall the auditory aspects of the scene, ask
yourself the following questions: - What kind of sounds did
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you hear? Were there voices? Did you hear your own voice?
Were there ambient sounds associated with the scene? Were
they loud or quiet? Were they clear or unclear, distinct or
indistinct? Were they located on the left, on the right or
centrally in your head? Were they rhythmic? Were they smooth
or staccato?  
 
If you were able to recall any physical sensations concerned
with the scene ask yourself the following questions? What kind
of feeling was it? How intense was it? Where in your body was
it located? Was it sharp or not? Did it come and go quickly or
did it extend over time? Was there any feeling of heat or cold?
Did you notice any feeling of tension in your body? If so,
where was it located? 
 
Were there any tastes or smells associated with the memory?
What were they? How intense were they? 
 
What emotions did you feel while experiencing the memory?
How strong were these emotions? Did they make you think of
anything else? Did you associate these emotions with a
particular person? How long did it take for these emotions to
arise? Did they come on quickly or did they take some time?
Was there a physical sensation associated with these emotions? 

3. If you are working with a partner they can ask you these
questions while you are still sitting quietly with your eyes shut.
If not, you will have to answer them yourself after you have
finished. In addition to recording the answers to these
questions, make a detailed note of the memory itself and
anything else that occurs to you, such as any other memories
that come to mind.
4. Now think of the vague memory. This is the memory that you
can't remember very well but you would like to remember
better. Repeat steps one to three.
5. When you have completed this part of the exercise, notice what
was different about the two experiences. How was your visual
experience different? How was your auditory experience
different? How did you feel different? Go through the answer
to each question and make a note of the difference in each case.
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6. Now, moving on, step back into the second memory and
gradually change the quality of that memory so that it matches
the first. 
 
So, for example, if the first memory had sharp images and the
second one had blurry images, make them sharp in your
imagination. Or if the first one had moving images and the
second one had still images, make them move. Go though each
factor and change it so that it matches the first memory. When
you have done that run through the whole memory again and
see how it is different. Has your recall of the experience
changed? 
 
You can also focus on any other associations that occur to you
as you experience the second memory. As you direct your
attention to one association or another, you might find that this
leads you down paths to long forgotten memories. Don't rush
things. You can't expect these old memories to come back
immediately.
7. When you have completed this and fully experienced this
memory again, gradually bring your attention back to the
outside world. Review the experience and note down whether
doing this has made any difference to the quality of the second
memory or to the amount that you can recall.
It might not happen immediately. It may take some days for the memory
to come back and it may not happen at all. There is no guarantee, but
over time you may find that you can start to remember events that you
thought that you had long forgotten.
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Quiz

1. Does training your memory mean that you will remember
everything?

2. Conscious recollection can disrupt the performance of certain
tasks. True / False?

3. In what situations is being in a state of flow not necessarily a
good thing?

4. What kind of events are easily stored in long-term memory?

5. Why are these events easily recalled?

6. What one step can you take to ensure that material is
transferred from short-term to long-term memory?

7. What are the three general rules for reviewing material?

8. How should you review material?

9. How can you actively combat absent-mindedness in the short
term?

10. In the longer term how can you increase your ability to pay
attention?

11. What can you do if you know you know something but can't
remember it?
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Answers 

1. Does training your memory mean that you will remember
everything?
No. Learning involves a process of abstraction which means
that the specifics of certain learning situations might be
forgotten. Also, memory traces fade over time.

2. Conscious recollection can disrupt the performance of certain
tasks. True / False?
True. Conscious attention may disrupt you if you are in a state
of flow.

3. In what situations is being in a state of flow not necessarily a
good thing?
Situations where you need to be consciously engaged, where
you need to know that you have performed every step or where
you need to demonstrate to others that you have done so.

4. What kind of events are easily stored in long term memory?
Important life events such as births, deaths and marriages.

5. Why are these events easily recalled?
They are outstanding, rare, have a large emotional impact and
a strong sensory element.

6. What one step can you take to ensure that material is
transferred from short-term to long-term memory?
Regularly review material.

7. What are the three general rules for reviewing material?
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The initial review should be shortly after learning and be a

thorough review;
Following reviews should be spaced out with increasing gaps
between them;
The review should be active rather than passive.

8. How should you review material?
Review it actively and engage your brain;
Jot down notes;
Give a presentation;
Have a partner quiz you;
Use mind maps.

9. How can you actively combat absent-mindedness in the short
term?
Force yourself to pay attention by saying out loud what you are
doing;
Establish a routine or a habit.

10. In the longer term how can you increase your ability to pay
attention?
Cultivate mindfulness exercises such as the breathing
meditation.

11. What can you do if you know you know something but can't
remember it?
Write down all the associations you can think of and see if one
of them triggers the specific memory;
Don't force the memory;
Stay relaxed;
Distract yourself;
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Allow some time to pass.

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NINE

FACTORS AFFECTING MEMORY

In this chapter we are going to look at some of the other factors that can
have an impact on your memory and suggest steps you can take to make
use of these so that they work with your brain.
Context Dependence
Have you ever gone back to somewhere that you haven't been to for a
while and found that the memories of that place came flooding back?
You might visit a town from your childhood and find you can remember
all the streets, the shops, the parks, the schools and so on. Long dormant
neural pathways are being stimulated and all of the associations
connected to that place come back to your conscious mind. No doubt
you will think about people and places that you haven't thought about
for a long time.
Memories are recalled more easily in a context similar to that in which
they were originally laid down. This is because it is not only what you
are consciously aware of that is stored away. As we have seen your
conscious mind can only keep a small number of items in mind at any
one time. Everything else happening at the time, including what you see
and hear but are not paying attention to, as well as the smells, the state
of the weather, and so on, may also be stored at an unconscious level.
You may not be able to access all of those details, but they are still
there. So when you find yourself back in the same environment, many
of those peripheral details will be the same, and applying the principle
of association, it is only natural that they will trigger other memories
associated with the same place.
In one psychological study of memory, a group of divers were asked to
remember a list of words while underwater. Like the word list in
Chapter 3, the exercise was divided into two sections, learning and then
recall. After the learning part of the exercise, the group was split into
two. Half stayed underwater, while half came to the surface. It was only
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then that the recall part of the exercise was performed. Perhaps
surprisingly, it was the group that stayed underwater that performed
better in the recall test. But it was this group that were recalling the list
in the same environment in which they originally learnt it.
So, as with many things context is all important. If you know that you
are going to have to recall something, try to ensure that you learn it in
the appropriate context. If you are learning a speech, practise learning it
on the stage where you will be delivering it or in a similar setting.
Practise standing up rather than sitting down. If you are studying for an
exam, study in a similar environment to where you will be sitting it.
When you are studying you will also wish to rehearse newly learnt
information to ensure that it is actively recalled (see How to Review in
the previous chapter). If you were so inclined, part of this active recall
could include writing an essay under exam conditions. When you then
come to sit the exam, you will simply be repeating something you have
already done rather than doing something entirely new.
If you want to learn something for a particular occasion, but do not
know where you are likely to be performing, you might consider
immunising yourself against context dependence. If you practise
something entirely in one location, you might find that performing in a
different location could interfere with recall. If so, practise or study in a
variety of different locations.
It might also be worth considering the time of day. If you are rehearsing
for an event that will take place at a known time, spend at least some
time learning or practising for it at the same time of day. If you do not
know when you will be expected to perform, practise at different times
again to immunise yourself against context dependence.

Motivation
Think back to the exercise on the structure of memory that we looked at
in Chapter 3 and revisited in the previous chapter. As well as using a
specific memory, we also asked you to try the same exercise using a
subject area that you found easy to remember and one which you found
difficult. If you have not done that already, try it now. Refer back to
Chapter 8 for the relevant steps.
One factor that makes a huge difference is how we feel about the
particular subject area. If it is one in which we are especially interested,
we will find it much much easier to remember facts about it. If we are
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not interested in it, we will find it harder. In other words, motivation is

an important factor and affects how well we remember something.
A waiter who is motivated to do a good job is more likely to remember
his table's order than one who doesn't care. If you were introduced to
two new people and for some reason you were persuaded to lend one of
them £100, which one's name would you be more likely to remember?
At some point in your school career you may have been set a speech
from Shakespeare to learn by heart. For some students such a task
might be a fun, interesting challenge but for others it would be boring
beyond belief.
For that latter group it would clearly be a more difficult task. However,
among that group some students would be interested in pop music and
have a favourite band. They would know the words to every single song
by that band, which would be much more to learn than any single
Shakespeare speech. And yet at no point would they formally learn the
words to any of the songs. They would simply absorb them through
repeated listening and through a desire to know them. Part of the
difference in outcomes is related to the motivational attitudes they bring
to the two different situations.
If you have something that you want or need to memorise but you are
not especially motivated and therefore are finding it difficult, what can
you do about that?
You can explore why you are not interested in it. It may be that it has
negative connotations for you. Think back to the association exercise
and remember that the meaning of something is, to some extent,
determined by the associations your brain makes with it. If you have
negative associations, this may account for the difficulty in getting
motivated.
There are a number of exercises that you can do to increase motivation.
We will suggest just a couple here.
One exercise is to deliberately create new associations and link what it
is you have to do to something you want to do and are excited about.
You can repeatedly ask yourself what will happen if you do successfully
complete the task by saying to yourself, “If I do that, how will that
benefit me?” Doing so is likely to get you to a more general, higher
level answer (see below for the importance of categories and
hierarchies).
For example, suppose you have to memorise a page of vocabulary but
are finding it difficult to get excited about it.
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Ask yourself, “If I do memorise it, how will that benefit me?”
Your answer might be something like, “I will do well in the test on
Friday.”
Repeat the process: ask yourself, “If I do well in the test, what will that
do for me?”
Your answer might be, “a better chance of a good grade in the end of
year exams.”
Keep repeating this process. Your sequence of answers might be
something like: -
Better grade in exams;
Better degree course;
Better job;
More money;
More attractive spouse!
If you know the job (or the spouse) that you want and it excites you,
then that might be enough to get you motivated. On the other hand, if
you don't then carry on until you find something that you do get excited
about. If you can't find anything to motivate you, then it might be worth
exploring negative motivations.
Fear can be a stronger motivational factor than hope. A zebra running
away from a lion is motivated by the fear of losing its very life, whereas
the lion chasing it is motivated merely by the hope of gaining a meal.
You can use the same exercise as before to explore negative motivations
by asking yourself, “If I don't do that, what might happen to me?”
A similar sequence of answers might be: -
I will fail the test;
I won't get the grades I want;
I might not get to university;
I might have to work in catering when I'd really much rather be a spy!
While both positive and negative motivational factors can be effective,
and negative ones can be even more powerful, our brains prefer to
remember positive images, so if you can, dwell on these rather than
negative ones.
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If, having examined both your positive and negative motivational

factors, you can find no good reasons to perform the task, then you
might genuinely consider whether it is worth doing at all.
How we label things can affect our motivational attitude toward them.
For instance, like the placebo effect, there is another psychological
effect called the nocebo effect, which is the opposite. The placebo effect
makes you better; the nocebo effect makes you worse. One simple way
to invoke the nocebo effect is to label someone a patient: “Patients are
people who are ill. If I'm a patient, then I must be ill.” It becomes a self-
fulfilling prophecy.
The label work can have a similar effect. For most of us, getting down
to work can sometimes be a chore and we can find all sorts of ways to
avoid it. If we compare this to labels like fun or play, the difference in
motivations will be obvious.
Sometimes the label will genuinely be appropriate: it is difficult for the
author to imagine that cleaning toilets, for example, could ever be
anything other than a chore, but if your profession were, say, a
footballer, a singer or a pilot, would you think of these as work, play or
fun? These jobs could arguably fall into any of those categories. How
you think of them may mean that you bring a completely different set of
attitudes and behaviours to what you are doing.
So, in a memory context you might consider relabelling or reframing
the task. If you are thinking about it as a chore, instead try thinking
about it as a game or play. Merely to call it play might not be enough:
you should try to find a way of actually making it into a game
somehow. You might issue a challenge yourself – or your friends – to
complete the task to a certain standard by a particular time. If you do,
then you award yourself a prize.

Patterns and Organisation
Human beings are natural pattern spotters. Our brains have an ingrained
tendency to organise and categorise information to make it easier to
deal with. There may be a natural connection between our ability to
categorise information and our tendency to divide information into
chunks of meaning to overcome the limitations of short-term memory.
An obvious example of our tendency to categorise information is the
taxonomic classification of living things, which both classifies and
creates a hierarchy of information. After kingdom which includes
animals, plants and fungi comes phylum (chordata), class (mammalia),
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order (primates), family (homonidea), genus (homo), and species (homo

sapiens). One mnemonic for recalling these is: King Phillip Cried Out
For Good Soup.
Once we perceive a pattern, no matter how obscure, we often cannot
help but see it.

This pattern is difficult to spot, but once seen, you cannot fail to see it. If you cannot
spot it there is a clue at the end of the chapter.
In fact, we are so prone to spot patterns that we see them where none
exists. This can explain superstitions such as associating good luck with
rubbing a lucky rabbit's foot. We think we see a pattern: we rub the
rabbit's foot and we experience good luck. We fail to spot those times
when we rub the foot and do not have good luck and when we have
good luck without rubbing the rabbit's foot.
When walking down a street in the dark, we might see a pattern of
shadows and think that it is a person waiting to attack us, when in fact it
is just a pattern of shadows. There may be an evolutionary reason for
this. If we spot what we think is a predator, we would want to take
evasive action. If we take avoiding action when there is nothing there,
most times it will not cost us anything. However, if we fail to take
evasive action on just one occasion where we should, we might die. So
seeing things when there is nothing there might be hard-wired into us.
Our tendency to spot patterns has given rise to certain logical fallacies,
such as what is known as the Texas Sharpshooter fallacy. This arises
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from a tendency to assume that clusters of related things must be that

way for a reason.
If one were to shoot a large number of bullets randomly at a target,
somewhere on the target there would be clusters of bullet holes close
together while elsewhere they would be spread out. If a circle were
drawn around the cluster, and that was all we looked at, it would look
like the work of an expert shot and that is the conclusion we would
reach. The problem is that we have a natural tendency to pay attention
to the cluster and not look at the randomly placed bullet holes nearby.
Falling prey to this fallacy can lead to mistakes in many areas of life.
For example, it can lead to mistakenly attributing cancer clusters to
nearby power lines, when in fact, there will inevitably be clusters of
cancer even when the distribution is entirely random.
The sequence of digits in the number pi is thought to be entirely
random. However, there is a sequence of six consecutive nines before
the thousandth digit. If all you saw was that sequence of nines then you
might think that there was a definite pattern. In fact, with a sufficiently
long sequence of numbers, you should expect to see repeated digits.
We are particularly prone to spot patterns that look like faces again, no
doubt for good evolutionary reasons.
!164

As humans we cannot help but see faces in these images 

Exercise in Organisation
Given our ability to spot patterns, it is hardly surprising that it can be
used as an aid to memory. Spend the next four minutes organising the
following forty items into different categories. Write them down as you
sort through them.

Jupiter, giraffe, valley, tiger, concrete, puma, airship, bear, Mars,
supernova, scree-slope, ant, stone, boat, volcano, river, wood, steel,
galaxy, scorpion, stingray, chameleon, Saturn, delta, black hole, car,
aeroplane, quasar, parachute, octopus, Mercury, coral, mountain,
glacier, caldera, submarine, snake, brick, bird, train.

When you have done that compare your answers to ours.
Planets: Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn;
Living things: ant, bear, bird, chameleon, coral, giraffe, octopus, puma,
scorpion, snake, stingray, tiger;
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Geological features: caldera, delta, glacier, mountain, river, scree-slope,

valley, volcano;
Means of transportation: aeroplane, airship, boat, car, parachute,
submarine, train.
Space-bound objects: black hole, galaxy, quasar, supernova;
Building materials: brick, concrete, steel, stone, wood.
You may have identified different categories. For instance, you might
have divided living things up into mammals, insects, fish and birds. Or
combined planets with space-bound objects. You may have come up
with completely different categories that we have not thought of.
When you have checked your answers against our suggestions, turn the
page over and spend four minutes writing down as many items that you
can remember in each category. You may find that despite not actively
trying to remember them, you recall a surprisingly large number. By
concentrating on a related task that stimulates your brain's ability to
spot patterns and categorise, you can naturally remember a large
number of items.

Hierarchies and Abstract Concepts
Our tendency to notice hierarchies can also reinforce our associative
method of linking ideas. It is easier to remember concepts that we can
picture and it is easier to picture things rather than abstract ideas. If we
want to recall something abstract it would help if we could connect it to
something material. You will also remember that it is possible to link
randomly chosen ideas in just a few connections.
Think of any abstract concept. In the word list from Chapter 3 there
were, amongst others, the words beauty and virtue. We don't start off
our lives thinking about such abstract concepts. As babies, we start off
by identifying what philosophers call particulars, that is, actual things:
mum, milk, dog, cot. As we grow up we are able to categorise these into
higher levels. A particular drink of milk becomes milk, and at a more
general level, drink. Mum becomes an instance of family, or of person.
Cot becomes an item of furniture.
We can take this classification further. All of these are types of object.
And object is an example of an ontological category. We never
encounter objects or ontological categories in their pure form in real
life. We only ever encounter specific instances of them. So we
encounter actual dogs, actual cats, and so on.
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This shows how we can remember abstract concepts using association

and visualisation. We can link them back to specific instances of them.
So if we want to recall beauty, then we can picture someone whose
outstanding quality is how beautiful they are.
Numbers are amongst the most abstract concepts we have. You can
never see 3-ness in real life; only collections of three actual things. We
have already suggested a way of remembering numbers by linking them
to people and actions, but another way could be to link a number to
something that exemplifies its quality; so the quality of 3-ness could be
exemplified by picturing the Holy Trinity, or alternatively a triangle; 4-
ness by a square; 5-ness by a pentangle. 100-ness might be linked to a
Roman centurion, a soldier in command of a century of men.
If you accept that you can link numbers to something real, then it
follows that any other abstract concept should be able to be linked to
something that you can picture in a similar way.

Meaning and Principles
This is closely related to what we have just discussed. You can increase
the ease with which you recall something by giving it meaning. It
doesn’t matter what that meaning is, as long as it works for you. So, for
example, if you want to remember a name, linking that name to
someone you already know of the same name will make it easier to
remember.
By the same token, seeking the underlying principles of whatever you
want to remember will make things much easier. If you were presented
with a list of numbers to remember and you could see that they all
conformed to a particular pattern, then as long as you could see the
pattern, you would have no problem remembering the sequence. So if
the following sequence, eleven digits in total,

3, 11, 35, 107, 323,

seems difficult to recall, all you have to do is realise that you are
multiplying by three and adding two each time. Once you remember the
rule, the sequence becomes easy.

!167
Writing
One way to increase your recall is to write down whatever it is you
want to remember. Writing down material increases your involvement
with it. It forces you to concentrate fully on what you are doing
ensuring that you are paying attention. It also involves a number of
different sensory systems – notably the visual sense, the auditory sense
and the kinaesthetic sense (the sense of bodily position) as you move
your pen over the paper. Writing down the material you want to
remember can boost recall by as much as six times.
The way you write can be as important as what you write. For instance,
you might want to return to your written material later on in order to
review it. You can write in such a way that you will maximise your
chances of recall during review sessions by making sure that your notes
involve every part of your brain, and thus maximise cortical
stimulation.
So, rather than just making normal, traditional notes, think about using
mind maps. Mind maps make use of a number of different strategies for
stimulating cortical function such as colour, pictures, association,
patterns, logical hierarchies and more. By using keywords they focus
only on relevant material. This maximises the possibility of recall.

State of Mind
People who perform at high levels in memory competitions or in other
mental tasks take time to ensure that they are in the appropriate state of
mind for optimal mental performance.
If you are stressed, flustered and feeling that the world is on top of you,
you are unlikely to perform well. However, if you are in a relaxed, yet
attentive state, unstressed and able to devote all of your mental energies
to the task at hand, you will be able to perform at or near your best.
People who perform well in memory competitions have usually attained
what is known as an alpha brainwave state or alpha rhythm. Your brain
generates brainwaves throughout the day, which operate at different
frequencies. For most people these frequencies are determined by
external factors. However, by training the brain to focus and relax, it is
possible to take control your brainwave rhythms.
The following brainwave states have been identified.
Beta state: 14-40 Hertz (cycles per second)
Alpha state: 7.5-14 Hz
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Theta state: 4-7.5 Hz

Delta state: 0.5-4 Hz
[The newly discovered gamma state above 40 Hz is associated with
bursts of insight and high level processing]
Reading down the list from top to bottom, the brainwaves become
slower and are associated with greater degrees of relaxation. So a beta
state is the least relaxed and the delta state is the most relaxed,
associated with deep sleep.
A beta state or rhythm is what you might be in when you drive through
a city, go to a shop or get into an argument. It is what you are likely to
experience when you are fully engaged in the outside world.
If you spend some time relaxing, you may fall into an alpha state. In
this state you are still aware of the world around you, but are much
more relaxed. Your body feels heavy and you feel fully inside yourself.
This is exactly the kind of mental state you should be trying to cultivate
if you wish to perform at high levels of mental effectiveness. The
breathing meditation we demonstrated in Chapter 8 is one way to attain
such a state. When you complete your meditation, simply try to
maintain that state of relaxation as you progress through your day.

Other Factors Vital to Brain Function
To ensure that your memory is in the best state it can be, you should
take all the steps you can to look after both your brain and your body.
Give some consideration to maintaining high levels of fitness, taking
into account cardiovascular fitness, strength, flexibility, balance and co-
ordination.
Good nutrition is vital to brain function, so think about your diet. It
should consist largely of fruit and vegetables with low levels of red
meat. Current research is revealing that certain food types such as oily
fish are good for brain function, but your main concern should be to eat
a good, balanced, healthy diet. Ensure that you are well hydrated and
cut down alcohol to very low amounts and eliminate cigarettes entirely.
No matter how hard you work, take a break every day and make sure
you spend some time outside getting some fresh air and sunlight. Do
your best to avoid polluted environments.
!169
Take some time just for yourself where you can be undisturbed and
allow your brain time to relax. You might think about doing some deep
breathing exercises at the same time.
Ensure that you get plenty of good quality rest and sleep. Give your
brain a chance to wind down every night before you go to bed. If you
suffer from stress or are aware of other factors that prevent you from
resting well, or which impinge on your life more generally, take positive
steps to deal with them, rather than letting them fester.

*The picture shows a dalmatian dog pointing away and to the right, sniffing the ground.
!170
Quiz

1. If you know that you will have to give a speech on a particular
stage, what can you do to increase your chances of
remembering it?

2. If you have to perform somewhere but are not sure where or
when it will be, what can you do?

3. Your motivational attitude makes no difference to the
likelihood of recalling something. True / False?

4. Name one way of using motivation to increase your likelihood
of recalling something.

5. Is the motivation to avoid something stronger than the
motivation to gain something?

6. How can relabelling something help us to remember it?

7. Name a logical fallacy that arises from our tendency to spot
patterns.

8. What steps can you take to recall an abstract concept?

9. Which cortical activities are invoked by writing information
down?

10. Which brainwave state is appropriate for good recall?

11. Which of the following factors can have an effect on memory?
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(a) diet;
(b) alcohol;
(c) cigarettes;
(d) rest;
(e) sleep;
(f) all of the above.
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Answers

1. If you know that you will have to give a speech on a particular
stage, what can you do to increase your chances of
remembering it?
Practise delivering it on that stage, or in a similar environment.

2. If you have to perform somewhere but are not sure where or
when it will be, what can you do?
Immunise yourself against context dependence by practising at
a number of different locations and times.

3. Your motivational attitude makes no difference to the
likelihood of recalling something. True / False?
False.

4. Name one way of using motivation to increase your likelihood
of recalling something.
Link it to a larger goal that does motivate you.

5. Is the motivation to avoid something stronger than the
motivation to gain something?
It can be, if what you stand to lose is particularly important.

6. How can relabelling something help us to remember it?
It can change how we feel about it, thus possibly increasing our
motivation.

7. Name a logical fallacy that arises from our tendency to spot
patterns.
The Texas Sharpshooter fallacy.
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8. What steps can you take to recall an abstract concept?
Connect it to a specific item that you are able to picture.

9. Which cortical activities are invoked by writing information
down?
Visual, auditory, kinaesthetic as well as ensuring that you pay
attention.

10. Which brainwave state is appropriate for good recall?
An alpha brainwave state of 7.5-14 Hz.

11. Which of the following factors can have an effect on memory?
(a) diet;
(b) alcohol;
(c) cigarettes;
(d) rest;
(e) sleep;
(f) all of the above.
Answer: (f) all of the above.
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TEN

APPLYING MEMORY PRINCIPLES

In this chapter we are going to show how you can apply the various
memory principles we have discussed throughout this book to the kinds
of everyday things that you might want to memorise more easily. Each
of them will challenge and work your brain in a slightly different way,
so you might consider each one as a type of brain training. You might
think that creating, say, an appointments diary is unnecessary as you
could use an actual paper diary, but by using a mental diary instead, you
will be giving your brain a challenge, giving yourself increased self-
confidence, and ensuring that you are not at a loss should your paper
diary ever go missing.
Even if not all of the areas we examine are relevant to you, take a look
at them anyway as they might contain some clues as to how you can
adapt them to your own needs.
As well as outlining the method for each area, we will suggest a number
of images to help make a particular item more memorable. Our images
are simply that: suggestions. Create your own, because the associations
you make will be unique to you. Use as many senses as you can,
making the images you create strange, unusual, funny and sexy. Apply
all of the other techniques we have shown you, such as appropriate
reviews, use of context, seeking meaning and principles, attaining the
appropriate state of mind and so on.
We are going to cover the following in this chapter: -
• Mental to-do list;
• Appointments diary;
• Your life;
• Names and faces;
• Important numbers;
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• Facts;
• Vocabulary;
• Scientific formulae;
• Legal cases;
• Speeches;
• Procedures;
• Packs of cards.

Some of these we have already covered in some detail but we will say a
little more about applying them in real life situations.
To-Do List
You can use one of the memory systems we demonstrated in Chapter 7
to create and keep on top of a mental to-do list. Having a mental to-do
list ensures that you do not have to rely on post-it notes, scraps of paper
and notes in a diary, so in future you won't have to waste any time
attempting to find different pieces of paper.
The most widely used memory system is probably the method of loci,
but it does require you to set up a journey in advance before you can use
it. For a to-do list you want to be able to add new items to it quickly and
without fuss.
We are going to demonstrate a to-do list using the number-sound
system. The reason for this is that the number-sound system is set up in
advance and so is always ready to use. To-do lists are dynamic and
constantly changing. You are unlikely to have more than ten items on it,
so the number-sound system is ideal. If you do find that you regularly
have more than ten items on your to-do list, then you might set up a
particular journey using the method of loci and use that instead.
Remember that the number-sound matches each number from one to ten
with an object that rhymes with it as follows: -
1. Bun;
2. Shoe;
3. Tree;
4. Door;
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5. Hive;
6. Sticks;
7. Heaven;
8. Gate;
9. Wine;
10. Hen.

Suppose that the items on your to-do list are: -
1. Phone Mike;
2. Update website;
3. Check emails;
4. Go to post office;
5. Walk dog;
6. Buy printer ink.

You should by now know what to do. You link by association and
visualisation, the item on the to-do list with the corresponding symbol.
So the links you create would be as follows: -
1. Bun – phone Mike;
2. Shoe – update website;
3. Tree – check emails;
4. Door – go to post office;
5. Hive – walk dog;
6. Sticks – buy printer ink. 

Use the items here to create your own mental to-do list, or use items
that are on your own to-do list.
Once you have performed a particular task, you are then free to re-use
the symbol for that number. So once you have phoned Mike, you can
now re-use bun for another item.
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You might also want to ensure that you perform one of the entries on
your to-do list at a particular time. For example, you might be driving
home and want to remind yourself to make a phone call as soon as you
arrive. Unless you are constantly checking your to-do list, you might
forget to do that until the next time you check it.
One way to ensure that you remember something like this is to program
yourself to remember the phone call as soon as you get home. Picture in
your head, as vividly as possible, arriving home, parking the car,
opening the front door and making the phone call – associating the
action you want to do with the environment that you know you will
encounter on arriving home. This is essentially a reversal of the
situation we outlined when discussing context in the previous chapter.
You are creating a mental context so that when you experience that
situation in real life, the association that you want to recall, the phone
call, will be triggered.
If you want to perform tasks on your to-do list on a particular day, you
might consider creating a mental appointments diary, as discussed
below.

Appointments Diary
Many of us keep diaries for upcoming events, appointments, birthdays
and so on. One way of developing your memory is to keep a mental
diary. Not only will it come in useful if you ever lose your paper diary,
but it will give you added confidence because you will not have to rely
on an external reminder. In addition, you will be giving your brain a
good workout.
First of all, decide how far in advance you would like your diary to run.
Most people probably don't have appointments more than two months
in advance, but some may be booked up further than that. We will
outline the method for creating a two-month diary, but if you want to
create a three-month or longer diary, simply make the necessary
adjustments.
For our diary we are going to use the method of loci. To create a diary
that runs two months into the future firstly create two separate journeys
each with thirty-one locations. One journey will represent the upcoming
month, the other, the month after that.
Once this has been done, you simply link whatever appointments you
have to the appropriate location. So, for example, let us suppose today
is 1st January. You have a doctor's appointment on 10th January, a
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meeting in London on the 27th January and are flying to Paris on 14th
February.
Pick your first journey and work out what the tenth location is. Simply
link your doctor's appointment to that location in the manner with
which you should now be very familiar. Now travel along your journey
to the twenty-seventh location and link your appointment in London to
that location in the same way.
For the Valentine's Day trip to Paris you will use the second journey and
link it to the fourteenth location on that journey.
As the month progresses you simply walk through the journey,
progressing to a new location each day, and you will be sure that you
won't miss anything. You can always check what is coming up in the
next few days by mentally running through the next few locations. You
can in this manner review everything that you are doing over the next
two months, should you wish to.
If you are not sure which location on the journey represents which date,
you can, as we have already suggested, simply add a marker every fifth
day. You might picture a stone mile marker at every fifth location with a
chalk sign on it marked with a V, an X, an XV and so on.
When you reach the end of a month, you will reuse the journey you
have just completed for the month after next. So the journey you used
for January would be recycled and used as the journey for March.
To ensure that you don't accidentally confuse January's appointments
with those for March, it is important to clear your diary of January's
appointments. This means emptying the journey out. Mentally go
through each day and picture it without any appointments, empty and
uncluttered. Once you have done that you will be able to reuse it for
subsequent months. When you reach the end of February, you will
empty that journey out as well and reuse it for April. And so on,
throughout the year.

Author's Note
For my diary I use a couple of walks through my village. I am going to
outline how I would use them to remember the above appointments.
The tenth location on my first journey is a wooden gate into some
woods. As it is the tenth location there is a milestone with a large chalk
X on it. There is a doctor at the gate with a stethoscope around his neck
and rather oddly, he seems to be trying to examine the gate. Very
!179
strange. I ask him what he's doing and he says, “Obviously I'm trying
get a pulse!”. This strange image suffices to make it memorable. If I
want to know what time the appointment is (and I probably do) I can
simply use the system for remembering numbers outlined in Chapter 7.
So if the appointment were at say 1115 I would use the symbol for 11
(Adam Ant) and the action for 15 (riding on a beam of light). Adam Ant
dressed as a highwayman riding through the scene on his light beam
enables me to recall the time as well.
The twenty seventh location on my diary is a tunnel under a road. I'm
not intuitively sure that this is the twenty seventh location. However, I
have noticed that the twenty-fifth location (a rail by a bridge over a
stream) has a stone place marker marked with XXV, and the tunnel is
two places further on.
Since I am going to London, I simply imagine a tube train running
through the tunnel. As it stops and pulls up, the people that I am
meeting with get off and greet me. I could, as before, add the time of the
meeting by using the technique for remembering numbers. However, on
this occasion I might just imagine that one of those electronic
timetables found in underground stations is showing the time.
In the following month, I am going to Paris on 14th February. For this
date, I will be using my second journey. The fourteenth location on that
journey is a stile over a fence going into a field full of cows. The stile is
painted in the manner of the French impressionists and hanging from
the top are strings of garlic. Each upright post is very, very tall and
looks like the Eiffel tower. The cows are mooing to a tune by Edith Piaf.
I can easily review my diary so that I don't schedule new appointments
on dates that are already booked by mentally walking through the
journey. In this way I can very quickly know when I am free over the
next two months. And each new day I simply mentally walk myself one
page further along the diary.
Of course I must remember to empty the diary at the end of the month
by running through the journey and emptying all the locations.
If you find that you have lots of appointments up to three months in
advance, simply create three journeys rather than two. However, if you
only have a few appointments that far ahead, find a way of
remembering just those specific dates. For example, applying our
system, let's suppose that you are attending a wedding on 14th May, but
it is still January. You can create the date using the number system to
remember 1405 which is Arthur Daley (symbol) on a punt (action).
Perhaps he is punting the bride and groom. You can simply add this at
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the end of the current month and when May comes along, you can add
it to the journey you have created for the month of May.

Diary Exercise
Construct journeys for this month and the following month and then
add the following appointments and events.
This month: -
2nd Meeting at a local office with a colleague at 10am;
13th A friend's birthday;
20th Attending a wedding of two friends in Cambridge;
25th Attending a talk on astronomy;
28th Going to the cinema with some friends.
Next month: -
1st Going to Amsterdam for the weekend;
10th Going to a classical music concert;
15th Attending a conference on the brain;
17th Day trip to Manchester;
25th Mother's birthday.

Remembering Details from Your Life
The approach you take to remembering details from your life will differ
depending on whether you want to remember events from this point
forward or more details from your past.
When recalling events from earlier in your life you will want to set
aside some time. Ensure that you are in as relaxed a state as you
possibly can be. Refer back to the breathing meditation in Chapter 8 to
cultivate the appropriate mental and physical state. Select an early
memory and simply explore it in as much detail as you can. See if you
can bring a particular object (or event) to mind and examine it in detail.
Examine its visual qualities, any sound it makes, notice how it feels
when you pick it up, how it smells and, if appropriate, how it tastes.
Notice whatever associations flow from the object. What was its
history? What did you use it for? When did you first acquire it? What
were your initial thoughts about it?
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Be aware of any other thoughts that are associated with it. For example,
if you remember where it was bought, what kind of shop was it? Ask
yourself the same questions about the shop. Pursue other trains of
thought in the same amount of detail. Make sure that you stay as
relaxed as you can. Actively trying to regain a thought can be counter-
productive. If there is something specific you would like to recall, ask it
to come, but do not force it.
Not everything will necessarily come back to mind on one exploration.
You may be awakening long dormant thoughts and your brain may need
a little time to process them, so go back to them later. You could follow
the review schedule outlined in Chapter 8.
If you want to find particular memories from the past, or even simply
have a wider perspective, discuss your memories with other people who
were there at the same time. They will have noticed things that you may
not have as their interests and perspectives will be different. If you want
to recall childhood memories, speak to your parents, siblings, friends
and other family members. They may be able to remember things that
you had forgotten.
Also, try the exercise in which you change the structure of your
memories which we discussed in detail in Chapter 8. You may find that
this also helps you to recover forgotten memories.
When doing this exercise and recovering dormant memories be wary
that, unless there is some objective way of checking your memories,
you cannot be sure that they are accurate even if you are convinced that
they are. Studies have shown that people can be convinced something
has happened to them when it has not. We mentioned in the
Introduction cases of false-memory syndrome. These usually occur in
situations where a third party has had an input into the discussion. If
you are exploring memories yourself, this is less likely but it is still
possible that you may mix up different memories. Further studies have
shown, for example, that when presented with memories that have been
forgotten but noted at the time in a diary, the person recalling them may
easily mistake details such as the order of the events.
You can also decide to recall the important elements of your life from
this point onward. At the end of each day, mentally review the
important events of the day making a movie of them in your mind's eye.
Because our minds are not limited by the laws of physics, it is possible
to run through a whole day's events in a fraction of the time that it takes
to experience them in real life. As with everything we have discussed
throughout this course, ensure that you use visual images, sounds,
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smells, touch and taste to stimulate as many different aspects of the

brain as possible.
To ensure that each day is firmly stored in long-term memory, stick to
the sequence of reviews following the schedule we outlined in Chapter
8.
You can link each day's events to its date in the calendar so that you can
access them more easily. There are various ways that you might do this,
but one way is to add in one image for the date, one for the month and
one for the year.
For the date, use a journey with thirty-one locations. If the date was the
tenth, you would add in the image of the location at the tenth point on
that journey.
For the month, you could have a symbol that you associate with each
month. One set of images could be the signs of the Zodiac since you
have already learnt them. So January could be a goat (Capricorn),
February would be the water-bearer (Aquarius) and so on.
The year could be linked to the people you use in your system for
remembering numbers. For example, the events from 2013, or '13,
could all be linked with Agatha Christie. Using this system over time
each year would come to be associated with a particular person.
The events of each day would then be linked to a unique set of three
items: the date from your thirty-one item journey, the month from your
twelve signs of the Zodiac, and the year from the appropriate person
from your system for remembering numbers. When reviewing the
events from each day, spend some time reviewing them date first, so
start off with the person (year), then move on to the sign of the Zodiac
(month), and then move onto each location (date). You should find that
this triggers in your mind the events of a particular day.

Remembering Names and Faces
This seems to be an area that a large number of people struggle with.
First, it is important to identify the problem. For most people it is not
recalling faces that is a problem, it is putting a name to a face. For
others it might be a problem simply remembering the face itself. Most
techniques focus on matching a name to a face so we will look at that
first.
Putting a name to a face is most likely to be a problem in the early
stages of a relationship with the person in question, such as when you
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are initially introduced to them and on the first few meetings. After that
you will have built up a network of associations concerning them, and
you should have little difficulty recalling their name. Unless, of course,
you never learn it in the first place and by then you are too embarrassed
to ask what it is! So until then, take some steps to ensure that their face
triggers their name.
The first thing to do is to ensure that you are paying attention when you
are introduced to them. While this might seem obvious there are
occasions where it might be difficult. For instance, if you are meeting
someone at an interview, you might be so concerned with what you
want to say that you are running through that in your mind rather than
paying attention to the introductions. Similarly, if you are meeting a
number of people at a party, you might want to ensure that you have a
witty remark at hand and again might be rehearsing that in your head at
the crucial moment when you are introduced. If so, you may hear their
name but you will not be paying attention to it and so it will not
consciously register.
So pay attention at the introduction stage. If you do not and you fail to
catch their name, you can always ask the person in question to repeat it:
“Sorry I didn't get your name. What was it again?”
Step two is to involve your brain's different systems, such as your
auditory and kinaesthetic systems by repeating their name back to them:
“Nice to meet you, Mary.” Use their name a few times in your
conversation with them as this will strengthen the memory by
repetition.
Motivation is an important factor. Remember in the previous chapter we
asked whether you were more likely to recall the name of someone to
whom you had lent money. If you are interested in them, you are more
likely to remember their name than if you don't care about them. By
taking an interest and by finding out more about them, you will be
creating links to new associations concerning them.
These approaches may help but you may also want to take some further
steps to ensure you remember their name when you meet them again
later.
We process facial images at a deep semantic level and we have access
to many thousands of different images in our heads. So, when you first
meet a person, use your most intuitive association with that person. Do
they look like anyone you know? A friend or someone famous? Also,
how do you feel about them? Do you intuitively trust them? Do they
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look like a policeman, soldier, hippie or waster? Since we want to use

your first impressions it is fine to indulge your prejudices.
Now think of a location that you might expect to see the person you
thought of. If it's a person you know, where might you most naturally
expect to see them? If it's a famous person, where might they be found?
For example, if they remind you of Freddie Mercury, you might picture
them on stage at Wembley stadium, strutting around with a microphone.
It doesn't matter if the resemblance isn't that strong. It merely has to act
as a trigger.
Now to remember their name. Having found a location, find a way of
linking their name to that location. For example, if their second name is
Holmes, you might picture Sherlock Holmes exploring the Wembley
stage with his magnifying glass looking for a clue.
If their first name is Simon, imagine someone you know called Simon
and introduce them to the scene. Perhaps they are playing the guitar. If
you don't know anyone called Simon, use a famous Simon, perhaps
Simon Templar, the Saint, with a halo suspended in the air above him
and picture him playing the guitar on stage.
Since these images are all based on trains of association, they will, with
a little practice, come naturally to you.
If the name is an unfamiliar one and doesn't have any natural
associations, you can break it down into its component syllables and
find associations that way. We explained this in detail in Chapter 6 in
the context of learning vocabulary. So, for example, if the name is
Kowalski, a common Polish surname, you might picture a cow on a set
of skis.
If you are introduced to someone and they do not remind you of anyone
else, you could instead focus on a particular visual feature, and then link
their name to that feature in some way. So if they have a beard, a mole,
a big nose or one arm, use it as a hook to link your mental image to. It
doesn’t matter if the feature is something that they might find
embarrassing, or something you would not mention in polite company,
because only you will know that you are using it as a memory aid.
Again, go with your first impressions. Use whatever jumps out at you.
For example, you meet Mr. Campbell who has a very big beard. You
might imagine someone pouring a bowl of Campbell’s soup over his
head, which clogs up the beard and congeals there with chunks of
vegetables sticking out.
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If you use this method, make sure you associate the name with a
relatively permanent facial feature. Linking their name to a pair of
glasses won't work if the person in question wears contact lenses some
of the time.
What can you do if you find it difficult to remember people's faces as
well as their names? From a practical perspective, if you don't
remember their face, you are likely to struggle with the name as well,
but if you know that on meeting someone for a second time you are
unlikely even to remember their face, what steps can you take?
Again, make sure that you are paying attention to them when you first
meet them. If you are prone to forget faces, make sure that you really
look at them (without staring!).
As we mentioned earlier, we tend to process faces in a different way to
most other objects, so you can involve various different brain systems.
Look at the face as a whole, taking it in completely. But having done
that, also focus in on any details of the face that jump out at you: big
ears, long nose, deep blue eyes and so on. As we tend to remember
visual details, focusing on a number of different features should be
enough to establish a reminder that you have seen the person before.
Immediately strengthen this by learning their name using the techniques
we have discussed above. Link the name to some of these features. This
will create more and stronger associations between the image of the
person, their various visual features and their name.

Remembering Important Numbers
We have already outlined a method for remembering numbers from
00-99 by linking each number to a face and we have expanded that
method into a way of remembering any four digit number from
0000-9999 by linking each face to an action as well.
We also discussed how you could use that method to remember a
sequence of numbers such as a sixteen digit bank card number.
For most people, there are only a few sequences of numbers that are
essential such as important phone numbers, bank card numbers, PIN
numbers and important dates.
However, since training your memory allows you to expand what you
can recall, you might like to think of other sequences of numbers that it
would be useful to have easy mental access to.
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You can use the method for remembering numbers for any sequence of
any length. If you are using it for a specific purpose then make sure it is
associated with that purpose in some way. We have explained how you
might create a scene set in a bank to remember a bank card number. To
remember the phone number of a friend make sure that the scene you
create is one in which your friend is the initial trigger.
Suppose your new acquaintance, Simon Holmes's phone number is
0772 2531 246, you might picture him holding a phone with a very long
cord, which has entwined within it in sequence an organ grinder (07)
choking on a pretzel (72), Billy Elliot (25) lifting some heavy weights
(31) and Bo Derek (24) juggling some sticks (6).
If you want to remember longer sequences of numbers you could
construct a mental journey and then link each set of four digits to a
location on that journey. For example, if you set yourself the mammoth
task of remembering pi to a thousand digits, you could use a journey
with 250 locations on it and store one image/action at each location.
The first four digits of pi are 3.141, so if your journey starts with you
getting out of bed, the first person you encounter in your bedroom
would be Charles Atlas talking with gorillas.

Remembering Facts
A good memory is vital in the education system. Over recent years there
has been an increasing emphasis on skills-based learning and a move
away from knowledge of facts although there now appears to be a move
back the other way.
In reality, for those who are interested in using their minds as
effectively as they can, both are equally important. You cannot analyse
facts without facts to analyse, so a basic level of knowledge is essential.
Having a basic level of knowledge means that hooks are available for
further knowledge to be added, and these associations will lead to
greater understanding. So, for example, you might want to consider
learning certain facts from British history. Perhaps it would be useful to
know the order of the kings and queens of England, not necessarily
because they are important in themselves but because they are part of
the basic geography of British history and a point at which to start
adding further information.
If one wanted to learn more about the kings and queens of England, one
way would be to construct a journey using the method of loci, using one
location for each monarch. The first monarch after the Norman invasion
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is William, the Conqueror. At the first location on your journey, you

could encounter William (a friend called William or a famous William,
engaging you in a game of giant conkers). Dates could be added using
the numbers systems as we have previously discussed. He was king
from 1066 to 1087 so you might associate '66, Steven Spielberg, and
'87, Hermione Grainger, with each year. Major events could also be
added to this location. For example, the Battle of Hastings could be
recalled as a game of conkers between William and Harold. When
Harold gets hit by a conker in the eye he shouts, "Hey that
stings!" (Hastings) and then dies.
As we have already mentioned the deeper you get into your subject the
more associations you will develop, so it is less likely that you will need
to access your journey. But if you simply want an overview, it is a good
starting point and even for experts, it still works as a useful tool to hang
further facts onto.
Make sure that the journey you use is appropriate to the task at hand.
For kings and queens, you might make it a mental journey round a
palace, or a local stately home, or alternatively you could construct a
room in your memory palace full of royal regalia.
Another method of recalling the monarchs of England is to use the
following poem: -
Willie, Willie, Harry, Steve,
Harry, Dick, John, Harry three,
One, two, three Neds, Richard two,
Henry four, five, six, then who?
Edwards four, five, Dick the bad,
Harrys twain and Ned the lad,
Mary, Bessie, James the Vain,
Charlie, Charlie, James again,
William and Mary, Anna Gloria,
Four Georges, William and Victoria,
Edward the Seventh, next and then,
George the Fifth in nineteen ten,
Edward the Eighth soon abdicated,
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And so a George was reinstated,

After Lizzie Two (who's still alive),
Comes Charlie Three and Willie Five.
This demonstrates both the advantages and disadvantages of different
systems. The poem is probably faster to learn than the method we have
just suggested, but it has less flexibility. It only allows you to recall the
kings and queens in order. Further facts cannot be added without
effectively destroying the rhythm of the poem. Of course, you could
learn the poem and also construct a mental journey. Each would then
reinforce the other.
In the Appendix there are a number of mental challenges including
different sets of facts that you can learn to develop your abilities,
building up to the challenge of learning all the countries in the world
and their capitals in alphabetical order. Included there is the author's
link system for remembering countries from A-Z, purely as a
demonstration. If you decide you want to do something similar you
should find your own way of remembering them.

Remembering Vocabulary
We have already discussed in some detail how you can remember
individual words of foreign vocabulary in Chapter 6.
If you are learning a foreign language, as you learn individual words,
you might consider storing them at an appropriate location using the
method of loci. You could use a town that you are very familiar with,
preferably a town from the country in question, if not, a town local to
you.
You could then use appropriate locations within the town to store
words. For example, words related to food could be stored at a
restaurant, words related to the legal profession at the court and words
related to health at the local hospital. If none of those buildings exist,
you can construct them in your head.
Of course, not all words naturally link to a particular location, such as
conjunctions, prepositions and so on (and, for, with, to, at, etc.). You
could store these kinds of words in the town library. Simply be creative
and try to find a method that works for you.
If the language you are learning has different genders, such as French
which has both masculine and feminine nouns or German which has
three genders, masculine, feminine and neuter, you could physically
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separate them. Suppose that there is a river running through the middle
of the town, masculine words could be stored on one side, feminine
words on the other. If there are also neuter words, they could live
outside the ring road.
Using this type of approach it is possible to learn up to 150 words in an
hour.

Remembering Scientific Formulae
If you are studying one of the hard sciences there will be some formulae
that it would be useful to remember. The most well-known formula in
the whole of science is E = mc². Although everybody knows it, not
everybody knows what the formula means or what the symbols
represent. We will use E = mc² as a means of demonstrating how you
might not only memorise a formula, but also include that kind of
information: -
E represents energy, so picture a hot flame, burning brightly in front of
you, giving off lots of energy. Next in the formula comes the equals sign,
which is two parallel lines. Picture the equals sign as a railway track
disappearing off towards the horizon with the flame hovering above it.
The flame starts rolling down the railway track away from you. Follow
it in your mind.
At the far end of the tracks is a McDonald's restaurant. You can see it
from a long way off because you can see the large M of the famous
golden arches. The letter m represents mass, so picture lots and lots of
overweight people inside the McDonald’s. Picture the flame hitting the
restaurant and setting it on fire.
The next symbol in the equation is the letter c. Behind the restaurant is
the sea. The fire brigade arrive and using the sea (the letter c), fill up
their hoses to squirt out seawater at a very, very high speed, so fast that
you can barely see it. The letter c stands for the speed of light, which is
the fastest speed that anything can travel.
The water puts out the fire and the fire chief stands in front of the ashes
of the restaurant, with hands on hips, making a square shape. He says,
“That's squared away.”
The moral of this story is that the energy of the fire consumes the mass
of the McDonald’s restaurant, converting it into energy. This will help
with the overall meaning of the equation, which shows the equivalence
between mass and energy and that mass can be converted into energy.
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With a little imagination you should be able to use a similar approach to

remember any other formula. If you have a number of different
formulae to remember, you could store one on each location of a
journey using the method of loci. We have included a number of
scientific formulae in the Appendix for you to practise on.

Remembering Legal Cases
The important points to remember from a legal case are its name, the
relevant facts, the outcome of the case and related cases that came
before or after. All of these elements can be caught by a memory system
if you are creative. If you wanted, you could add further images to help
you recall the citation and the court in which it was heard.
One of the most famous cases in English and Scots law is Donoghue v
Stevenson, a foundational case in the law of negligence. The facts of the
case were that a Mrs. Stevenson purchased a bottle of ginger beer from
a cafe which contained a snail (the bottle not the cafe!). She fell ill as a
result of drinking it and successfully sued the manufacturer because the
manufacturer owed her a duty of care as a neighbour.
The facts of the case are inherently memorable and this is so with a
large proportion of important legal cases. Here is one scenario that
could be used to remember the important points.
The scene takes place on a train pulled by Stevenson's Rocket where an
old lady is buying a bottle of ginger beer from the onboard shop. The
shopkeeper is named Donoghue (picture the American chat show host,
Phil Donahue) and he makes the beer using his own machine
(indicating he is the manufacturer).
She drinks it, swallows the snail contained in the beer, spits it out and is
sick. When she recovers she is so angry with Donoghue she challenges
him to a fight, which she wins. Picture her celebrating with her arms in
the air (the fight represents the legal case and her celebration indicates
her victory). As she celebrates she starts singing the theme tune from
Neighbours, indicating that the reason she won was that she was in a
sufficiently close relationship with Donoghue to be considered a
neighbour.
The whole sequence of events could be linked to a particular location
on a journey. Subsequent cases could then be located further along the
journey, indicating the order in which they occur. At each location, you
might have a symbol to indicate which court the case was heard in. For
example, if it was heard in the House of Lords (now the Supreme
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Court) you might picture a collection of sleepy old men sitting at the
appropriate location. If it were the Crown Court, you might picture a
crown at the location instead.
If you are a law student, consider for yourself how you might also add
case citations using this method.

Remembering Speeches and Poetry
Being able to give a speech without notes can be hugely impressive,
allowing you to adapt what you are saying to the mood of your
audience and moreover enabling you to maintain eye contact with
audience members. From the audience's perspective this is infinitely
preferable to listening to someone who is constantly looking down at
their written notes, trying to ensure that they have not lost their place.
If you want to remember a speech you should first decide whether you
wish to remember it verbatim or whether you simply wish to cover the
important points.
If the latter, spend some time examining the speech in detail and
identify each of the important points that you wish to cover. If you
regularly make speeches you might already use cards with a bullet point
on each card or something similar. Each bullet point could represent a
point that you wish to make in the speech.
Using the method of loci, assign each point in the speech to a location
on the journey, in the order that you wish to make them. As before,
simply walk the journey and identify each point on the journey as you
go through it. Practise in private using this method before giving a
speech without notes, and until you are confident, consider using cards
or whatever other means you currently use as a backup. Remember to
practise in a context similar to that in which you will deliver the speech.
If you want to remember speeches or poetry verbatim, then it is possible
to do the same thing assigning one location to each word. For words
that it is difficult to picture, such as and, the, of, in, etc., you could
consider using visual symbols as substitutes for the word. You might
alternatively use a word that rhymes, such as tea for the and sand for
and.
A drawback with this method is that can give you a very long journey to
learn and worse, by assigning a symbol to each word, it deprives the
speech of its actual meaning so that while you may be able to remember
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it, you might not understand it, and if you propose to discuss the speech
afterwards, this could be problematic.
Another approach to learning a speech verbatim is to do it from a
semantic perspective. We have already shown how our brain likes to
sort, categorise and put information into hierarchies. Using this method,
make an effort to really understand the speech at every level,
understanding the overall thrust of what is happening right down to the
tiniest detail. For example, if you are learning a speech in a play,
understand what happens throughout the play as a whole and then focus
down on ever increasing detail. Suppose you are learning a part from
King Lear, your thinking might go as follows: -
You know some of the themes of the play are ageing, madness, betrayal
and redemption. Examining the play in detail, you will know that it
starts with an assembly of courtiers, waiting for King Lear to enter, who
are speculating about what is going to happen. Lear enters saying he
wants to divest himself of his kingdom “to shake all cares and business
from our age.” He tells his courtiers that he intends to divide his
kingdom between his three daughters. We know he is looking to be
flattered, so we should be expecting him to invite his daughters to tell
him, “Which of you shall we say doth love us most”.
Of his three daughters, we know that the first two to reply are both
scheming villains. We know that their replies will be insincere and
flattering. And so they are. Goneril says, “I love you more than word
can wield the matter.” We know that Regan, the second daughter, will
try to outdo Goneril in her flattery. Regan: “I find that she names the
very deed of my love; only she comes too short.” Cordelia, the third
daughter is open, direct and honest and on being asked what she can say
to win a bigger prize says, “Nothing, My Lord.” Lear expecting flattery
is shocked and doesn't know how to respond, “Nothing shall come from
nothing: speak again”.
As your understanding grows, you will perceive deeper and deeper
levels until each line naturally follows because your understanding is so
great that it makes absolute sense to you that the character is compelled
to say what they do, as nothing else would be appropriate in the context.
You can further augment this method by giving yourself auditory
reminders. You can probably recall extracts from some of the most
famous historical speeches in your head by mentally listening to them:
“A day that will live in infamy”, “This was their finest hour”, “Luke, I
am your father”, “We're going to need a bigger boat!”
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If you take a semantic approach to learning speeches, since speeches are

auditory, it might be best to learn them in an auditory manner. Rather
than read them off the page, listen to a recording of them or make your
own. You can then begin to appreciate rhythm, rhyme, timbre and
cadence, all of which will provide further context when you come to
recall them.
If you want to learn a speech in this manner, you can still use the bullet
point / method of loci technique as a backup so that if you do
momentarily forget a word or a line, you can use that to help remind
you what comes next.
We have included some famous speeches and poetry for you to practise
on in the Appendix. When you have learnt these, you can, if you want,
memorise further speeches or if you have speeches of your own to give,
practise learning those so that you can give them without notes.

Remembering Procedures
The principles for remembering a procedure are exactly the same as for
the other areas within this chapter. Whether it is a series of physical
steps or a series of mental steps, it is important to break it down into its
constituent parts and make an image for each one. To ensure that you
can recall each step in the correct order, the method of loci is probably
the most appropriate memory system to use as it allows you to place
multiple steps in a particular order.
Use a mental journey that is related to the subject at hand. For example,
if you were memorising a series of pre-flight checks on an aeroplane,
you might make your journey around an airfield, around a hangar or
even around the aircraft in question itself. If you do, make sure that you
are very familiar with the route before you add in the items that you
have to recall.
Identify each step and make a mental image of it. Then simply link your
image to the appropriate point on the journey.
We have only included one procedure as practice in the Appendix, the
first aid procedure for dealing with someone who is unconscious and
not breathing. Most procedures will be specific to you and your needs.
If you have any procedures that are important to you at work or in your
extracurricular activities, you could use these as practice.

!194
Remembering a Pack of Cards

The principle behind memorising a shuffled pack of cards is very
similar to what we have described above. Since cards are quite abstract,
each card should be represented by an image. That will make them
easier to remember. Using the method of loci and a journey with
twenty-six locations, the images representing two cards are stored at
each location.
Famous people work well as images for cards. For example, to
remember the Queen of Hearts, you might use the image of Diana,
Princess of Wales, who was also known as the Queen of Hearts. You
will need one image for each of the fifty-two cards in a pack. To make it
easier to remember the images you have chosen, you could use different
themes based around the different suits.
For example, hearts could be people that you love, or people famous for
being good; spades could be famous bad guys; diamonds could be rich
people, and clubs could be people famous for partying, or people that
belong to a particular club, such as a football club.
An alternative is to adapt the code from the system for remembering
numbers. This can be used for the non-face cards, those numbered from
one to ten.

Hearts Code Clubs Code Diamo Code Spades Code
nds
1H AH 1C AC 1D AD 1S AS
2H BH 2C BC 2D BD 2S BS
3H CH 3C CC 3D CD 3S CS
4H DH 4C DC 4D DD 4S DS
5H EH 5C EC 5D ED 5S ES
6H SH 6C SC 6D SD 6S SS
7H GH 7C GC 7D GD 7S GS
8H HH 8C HC 8D HD 8S HS
9H NH 9C NC 9D ND 9S NS
10H OH 10C OC 10D OD 10S OS
!195

Using this code, the Ace of Hearts would be AH, and looking at our
table for numbers this would be Adolf Hitler, the two of clubs would be
BC or Bill Clinton, the three of diamonds would be CD or Christopher
Dean, the four of spades would be DS or Delia Smith. Every card
numbered from Ace to ten from each suite can be linked to a particular
person's image in this way.
As well as using the person's image you can also use the associated
action. So, if the first two cards you draw are four of spades and three of
diamonds, then you would picture Delia Smith dancing on ice at the
first location on your journey. This way you can easily store two cards
at every location on your mental journey.
For the picture cards, use any associations that come to mind such as
Princess Diana for the Queen of Hearts, the Devil for the King of
Spades and Cleopatra for Queen of Diamonds. Again, use an action that
you associate with each person so that you have both an image and an
action. So, if you drew the Queen of Hearts and then the King of
Spades, you might picture Princess Diana prodding demons with a
pitchfork (an action associated with the Devil). You would then store
that image at a particular location.
Using this technique you will eventually be able to memorise an entire
pack of cards. As you become more adept you will find you are able to
remember them more quickly. You could then focus on trying to
remember one pack of cards as quickly as you can or try to remember a
number of packs. Getting faster will help you form images and then link
them to the appropriate location more quickly. Remembering more
packs will help you to remember ever greater sequences of items.

End Word
This is, of course, not an exhaustive list of the types of things that you
might want to memorise but we have covered a number of different
memory areas and by now you should be able to adapt the various
systems to suit your own wants and needs. As with any skill it will take
time and practice for you to master, but if you do practise, you should
make rapid progress. There is no quiz for this chapter, but in the
Appendix we have included a number of different sequences for you to
practise on, covering a variety of areas. Make use of these and when
you have exhausted them find other things to learn to stimulate your
memory. In the final chapter we say a little more about practice and
learning.
!196
ELEVEN

ONGOING PRACTICE AND IMPROVING
PERFORMANCE

Improving the quality of your memory will take time and practice. In
the Appendix there are a variety of different areas such as numbers,
facts, formulae, speeches and procedures for you to memorise.
Simply learning these is not enough. The approach you take is vitally
important as well. If you were to attempt to memorise, say, the kings
and queens of England simply by repetition, you will probably
eventually learn them, but your ability to memorise will not have
improved. Instead, you should apply the memory techniques that we
have discussed and demonstrated throughout this course.
Spend some time each day working on your memory and set yourself
the task of learning a new set of facts, a new speech or exploring a
memory from your past. Try not to focus exclusively on one type of
task. You might spend one day working on your ability to recall
speeches, another on faces, another on facts and so on. So do not limit
yourself exclusively to learning what is in the Appendix. For things like
overcoming absent mindedness, you will need to establish new habits
and you should therefore make sure you spend some time every day
developing your ability to concentrate and focus. To develop your skills
with names and faces you will have to find ways of meeting new
people.
When you practise do your best to ensure that you are in an
environment where you are unlikely to be disturbed and where you can
cultivate the relaxed state of mind appropriate to high mental
performance. Experiment with different environments for both learning
and recall and discover for yourself how much the context in which you
learn something affects your ability to recall it.
Make sure that you follow the review schedule we suggested in Chapter
8 to convert short-term memories into long-term ones.
!197
Over a relatively short period of time, you will see your ability to
memorise improve dramatically.

Expert Performance
As you practise, you may find that over time your improvement levels
off and you reach a plateau where you do not seem to be making any
further gains. This can be a consequence of your attaining a level of
performance that you are happy with and falling into the state of flow
that we discussed in Chapter 8. If you are satisfied with your level of
performance, then this is clearly not a problem. However, it is unlikely
that you will have reached the upper limits of your ability.
If you wish to improve further you can emulate the techniques of expert
performers. Experts engage in deliberate practice designed to take them
back out of the state of flow. They do this by focusing hard on their
technique, staying goal oriented, and ensuring that they get constant and
immediate feedback on their levels of performance.
For example, an expert piano player will focus on the difficult parts of a
piece whereas a good amateur performer will simply focus on playing
the same piece as well as he or she can.
How you practise is more important than the time you spend practising.
Time spent practising correlates only weakly to levels of performance.

Your Comfort Zone
To raise your performance still further you should force yourself out of
your comfort zone. One way of doing this, assuming that it is safe to do
so, is by cultivating failure. In many areas of human activity failure is to
be avoided, but in practice situations, failure can be a good way of
learning.
Force yourself into a situation where mistakes are likely. Skilled typists
who had reached their comfort level were able to improve their speed
by deliberately having words flashed up at them ten to twenty per cent
faster than normal. While they initially made mistakes, after a few days
they had worked through the areas that they struggled with and were
able to type with the same level of accuracy at the new, higher speed.
Another way of moving out of your comfort zone is to emulate an

expert's way of thinking. If you want to get better at chess, attempt to
!198
put yourself into the mind of a chess master. You could do this by
working through classic grandmaster level games and working out why
particular moves were made rather than others. Over time you might
start to develop an intuition as to which is the best move. Studies have
shown that expert players select the move that they are likely to make
very quickly. They do not, as might be expected, spend their time
working through endless combinations of moves. In fact, most of the
time spent thinking about moves is checking the move already selected.
Over time you might find yourself developing the same intuitions. Time
spent studying grandmaster level games is correlated to success to a
much greater extent than time spent playing.
How can you apply this to memory? You could deliberately practise
with playing cards. Once you are able to memorise one pack, try to
speed up the time that it takes you to do so. Monitor how long it takes
you to form the image associated with the card, and also how long it
takes to link an image to a location on your journey. This way you will
improve your speed forming images across all different types of
memory area.
Force yourself to consistently make images as quickly as you can by

using a metronome to maintain a set rhythm. When you are able to
memorise a whole pack of cards at a particular speed, increase the speed
of the metronome.
So, for example, if your first effort to memorise a pack takes eight
minutes, challenge yourself to improve that. Set the metronome ten per
cent faster. When you are able to memorise a whole pack at the higher
speed, increase the speed further still.
Constantly review your performance. If you find that an image

associated with a particular card is taking longer to form than others,
consider replacing that image with something else. At the end of each
practice session, review your performance.
Also, notice whether you are stronger in some memory areas than
others. You may find that memorising names and faces is relatively easy
for you, whereas sequences of numbers are more difficult. The
principles are broadly the same, so if you find that this is the case, do
your best to establish why such a difference might exist. Is it, for
example, a question of motivation? You might find that you are simply
more excited about recalling faces than sequences of numbers. If so,
perhaps consider exercises to increase your motivation.
!199
At some point you may reach a physical barrier to speed. It doesn't

seem realistic, for example, to expect that you would be able to
memorise a pack of cards in just one second. However, many of the
barriers we set ourselves are more likely to be psychological rather than
physical.
Until 1954 no one had successfully run a mile in under four minutes
despite many people having come close. Then Roger Bannister, a
student doctor at Oxford, managed to break the barrier by a fraction of a
second, running a mile in 3:59.4. This record lasted a mere forty-six
days before it was beaten by the Australian, John Landy. Within a few
years four-minute miles were commonplace amongst elite athletes
suggesting that the four-minute barrier was as much psychological as it
was physical. As of 2013, the record is 3:43.13, nearer 3:30 than four
minutes.

Memory Grandmaster
A memory challenge similar to the four minute mile that you could set
yourself is to become a memory grand master. The standard required for
this is to learn one thousand random digits in one hour, ten shuffled
packs of cards in one hour and one shuffled pack of cards in under two
minutes. At the time of writing there are just over one hundred people
who are recognised as memory grand masters.

Effective Study for Exams: Using a Study System
If you are studying for an exam or a similar situation in which you will
have to perform effectively under pressure, the memory techniques we
have outlined throughout this book will, of course, help you to raise
your levels of mental performance.
In addition you can enhance your performance still further by adopting
a deliberate system of study. There are many such study systems, but
the following one makes effective use of the various memory
techniques we have discussed. It is known as SQ3R (survey, question,
read, recite, review) system.

Survey
Survey whatever it is you are studying. If it is a book, survey the book
itself to gain an overview of it. Reading a summary of it at this first
!200
stage is preferable to going into too much detail. You will become
aware of the general shape of the material. Given the brain's preference
for hierarchies, this sets up the most general levels of the hierarchy
allowing us to add more detail at a later stage.
When surveying a book examine the front and back covers, the contents
and the introduction. These will give you a good overview of the
material. You can also survey the detail of the relevant chapters by
scanning them at high speed, at about a page a second. This will show
you the layout of the chapter, the headings of different sections, pictures
and diagrams.

Question
Before reading the detail of a particular chapter ensure that you are fully
engaged in the material. Two ways of doing this are by asking yourself
questions concerning the material. Establish what your goals are for
reading it, what information you hope to gain and attempt to fulfil those
goals and answer these questions during the reading. You might also
spend a few minutes brainstorming your current knowledge. This will
ensure that the appropriate hooks are set up to receive new knowledge
and make new associations.

Read
For the material that you want to read in detail, read it through once or
twice without taking notes. First, read it through to give yourself an
overall view of the text. On the second reading, if you spot something
that you think is important, highlight it in some way. For example, use a
soft pencil and make a mark on the appropriate line.
A way of maintaining interest and focus on the material is to
deliberately take the opposing point of view to that taken by the author.
Examine the assumptions they make and the conclusions they reach to
see if they are well founded.

Rehearse
For study reading, roughly half the time should be spent in active
rehearsal. For more detail on how to rehearse material in an effective
manner, refer back to Chapter 3 and Chapter 8.
!201
Review
Review is vital to ensure that material is transferred into long-term
memory. For how and when to review, refer back to Chapter 8. Conduct
active reviews using notes or mind maps. Additionally, check your
goals. Has the reading you have done helped you to reach the
knowledge goals you set yourself? Are you now able to answer the
questions that you set yourself? Brainstorm your knowledge again. You
should now have a higher level of knowledge.

Reducing Interference
If you are studying for multiple exams, there are certain steps you can
take to ensure that the material you learn for one exam does not
interfere with what you learn for another.
The more thoroughly material is learned and the better it is understood,
the less likely there is to be any interference. Once you completely
understand the material you have been studying it is unlikely that other
material learned later will interfere with it at all.
The amount of intervening activity between study time and when you
sit an exam can have an impact on the amount recalled. The more
intervening study, the greater the likelihood of interference. If you do
study for other exams, do your best to ensure that what you study is as
different as possible. If the material is very different it is less likely to
interfere with what you have already learnt.
In Chapter 9 we discussed immunising yourself against context
dependence. You can take similar steps to ensure that learning for one
exam does not interfere with learning for another. You could study
different subjects in different rooms or use different coloured inks for
different sets of notes. If you have to study different subjects in the
same day, ensure that you take breaks between sessions.

Learning Large Amounts of Material
Mass Learning or Distributed Learning
When learning large amounts of material, such as say vocabulary on an
ongoing basis as part of learning a foreign language, it is far better if it
the learning is broken up into smaller amounts and spaced out. Learning
relatively small amounts over time is more likely to be effective than
learning large amounts in one single session.
!202
For learning to be effective, it is vital to be paying attention and if you

spend a very long time studying your attention is almost certain to
wander. Conducting shorter sessions with breaks in between them is
much more preferable. It prevents your attention from wandering and
allows consolidation of memories during the breaks between sessions.
The total amount of time spent studying will be less than if it is done in
a single session.
Study periods should be shorter for difficult tasks, for inexperienced
learners and for those at an early stage of learning in their particular
subject.
On certain occasions, mass learning or extended study may be
appropriate. For example, it is better for tasks that take a lot of
preparation or involve complicated problem solving where you need to
maintain a mental narrative throughout.

Breaking Up What You Are Learning
Whole or Part?
Suppose you have to learn a speech or a musical piece, should you learn
it as one complete part or break it up into smaller sections?
To some extent this depends on the experience of the learner. As we
discussed in Chapter 2, the more deeply enmeshed you are in your
particular subject, the greater your natural chunk size will be and the
more information you will be able to store in short-term memory. If this
is the case you will be able to learn larger pieces in one go. The
advantage of learning a piece as a whole is that you will gain an
understanding of it as a complete piece and appreciate how the different
parts relate to each other.
However, breaking up material into different sections can have its
advantages. It allows you to devote greater attention to each part and
provides you with feedback on your progress sooner. There is a
likelihood of diminishing returns with this process. For example, if you
break up a speech you are learning into four parts, the first quarter will
be learnt more quickly than the second, which will be learnt more
quickly than the third and so with the fourth. By contrast, learning the
speech as a whole would not lead to decreased recall of the fourth
quarter in comparison with the first to the same extent.
For longer material, learning it by breaking it up into sections is
generally more effective, but the time taken to learn it will be
!203
disproportionately longer. So, if you are learning two speeches and one
is twice the length of the other, the longer one will generally take more
than twice the time to learn.
Because we tend to pay attention to outstanding factors and differences,
the greater the difference between parts, the more effective the part
method will be.
If you are dividing your learning over a number of different sessions
(distributed learning rather than massed learning), then the whole
method is to be preferred, so in each session you should attempt the
whole piece. If on the other hand, you are attempting to learn the item
in one session only, the part method is preferable.
If the learner is more knowledgeable in their subject area, or is a more
mature or intelligent learner, then the whole method will be more
effective.
Another approach is to combine both methods using what is called the
progressive part method. So, for example, if you were learning a
speech, you would learn the first quarter, then the second quarter and
then review both first and second quarters together. You would then
move onto the third quarter. Once you had learnt this, you would review
the first three quarters together, and then move on to the final quarter.
This way you would gain understanding on a cumulative basis and get
some of the benefits of both methods.

Overlearning
If you have ever studied for an exam, you have probably experienced
the situation where, once the exam was over, you forgot everything that
you had learnt very quickly. This is because you probably did just
enough to ensure that you got through the exam. Material is likely to be
recalled much more effectively if it is overlearnt. Overlearning is when,
having learnt the material, you carry on learning it. Studies show that
the more you overlearn material, the more likely it is to be recalled and
retained in long-term memory. If it is vital that you recall certain
information, don't simply stop learning it once you can just about recall
it. Continue studying it and you will ensure that you recall it more
effectively and for longer.
!204
Quiz

1. What should you do to ensure memory practice is effective? 

2. What sort of environment is best for practice? 

3. How do expert performers ensure they constantly improve? 

4. How might you emulate an expert playing a piano piece? 

5. Which is more important - how you practise or how long you
practise? 

6. Name two ways of improving performance by getting out of
your comfort zone. 

7. What device could you use to help you memorise cards more
quickly? 

8. What could you do if you find some memory areas improve
more easily than others?  

9. Are barriers to improvement in performance more likely to be
physical or psychological? 

10. What are the steps in the SQ3R study system? 

11. How can you ensure that learning material from one subject
area doesn't interfere with material from another? 

12. When learning large amounts of material, is it better to learn it
in one session or in different sessions? 

!205
13. In what circumstances would it be better to learn material in

one session? 

14. What advantages are there to learning a piece as a whole rather
than in parts? 

15. If you are learning something over a number of different
sessions, is the part or whole method of learning generally
better? 

16. If you are learning something in one session only is the whole
or the part method generally preferable? 

17. How can you combine the benefits of both the whole and the
part method of learning? 

18. What can you do to ensure you don't forget information soon
after you have learnt it?
!206
Answers

1. What should you do to ensure memory practice is effective?
Make sure that you practise using all the memory techniques we
have outlined in this course. 

2. What sort of environment is best for practice?
A quiet environment where you are unlikely to be disturbed 

3. How do expert performers ensure they constantly improve?
By focusing on technique;
By receiving constant and immediate feedback;
By staying goal oriented. 

4. How might you emulate an expert playing a piano piece?
You might focus on the difficult parts rather than simply playing
the piece as a whole. 

5. Which is more important - how you practise or how long you
practise?
How you practise. 

6. Name two ways of improving performance by getting out of
your comfort zone.
Go faster than you are comfortable with;
Emulate an expert's way of thinking. 

7. What device could you use to help you memorise cards more
quickly?
A metronome. 

8. What could you do if you find some memory areas improve
more easily than others?
!207
Check your motivation. 

9. Are barriers to improvement in performance more likely to be
physical or psychological?
Psychological. 

10. What are the steps in the SQ3R study system?
Survey, question, read, rehearse, review. 

11. How can you ensure that learning material from one subject
area doesn't interfere with material from another?
Learn it as thoroughly as possible;
Understand it completely;
Learn different material in different locations;
Use different coloured ink;
Take a break between sessions. 

12. When learning large amounts of material, is it better to learn it
in one session or in different sessions?
Generally it's better to learn it in small amounts in different
sessions. 

13. In what circumstances would it be better to learn material in
one session?
If there is a particular problem that demands extended
continuous attention;
If a lot of preparation is required before you can start. 

14. What advantages are there to learning a piece as a whole rather
than in parts?
It provides an understanding of the whole piece and how the
different parts relate to each other. 

!208
15. If you are learning something over a number of different

sessions, is the part or whole method of learning generally
better?
The whole method. 

16. If you are learning something in one session only is the whole
or the part method generally preferable?
The part method. 

17. How can you combine the benefits of both the whole and the
part method of learning?
Use the progressive part method. 

18. What can you do to ensure you don't forget information soon
after you have learnt it?
Overlearn material by continuing to learn it even when you
already know it.

!209
!210
Appendix: Memory challenges

Pi
The first thousand digits of Pi in groups of four.
3.
1415 9265 3589 7932 3846 2643 3832 7950 2884 1971
6939 9375 1058 2097 4944 5923 0781 6406 2862 0899
8628 0348 2534 2117 0679 8214 8086 5132 8230 6647
0938 4460 9550 5822 3172 5359 4081 2848 1117 4502
8410 2701 9385 2110 5559 6446 2294 8954 9303 8196
4428 8109 7566 5933 4461 2847 5648 2337 8678 3165
2712 0190 9145 6485 6692 3460 3486 1045 4326 6482
1339 3607 2602 4914 1273 7245 8700 6606 3155 8817
4881 5209 2096 2829 2540 9171 5364 3678 9259 0360
0113 3053 0548 8204 6652 1384 1469 5194 1511 6094
3305 7270 3657 5959 1953 0921 8611 7381 9326 1179
3105 1185 4807 4462 3799 6274 9567 3518 8575 2724
8912 2793 8183 0119 4912 9833 6733 6244 0656 6430
8602 1394 9463 9522 4737 1907 0217 9860 9437 0277
0539 2171 7629 3176 7523 8467 4818 4676 6940 5132
0005 6812 7145 2635 6082 7785 7713 4275 7789 6091
7363 7178 7214 6844 0901 2249 5343 0146 5495 8537
1050 7922 7968 9258 9235 4201 9956 1121 2902 1960
8640 3441 8159 8136 2977 4771 3099 6051 8707 2113
4999 9998 3729 7804 9951 0597 3173 2816 0963 1859
5024 4594 5534 6908 3026 4252 2308 2533 4468 5035
2619 3118 8171 0100 0313 7838 7528 8658 7533 2083
8142 0617 1776 6914 7303 5982 5349 0428 7554 6873
!211
1159 5628 6388 2353 7875 9375 1957 7818 5778 0532
1712 2680 6613 0019 2787 6611 1959 0921 6420 1989

!212
Facts: Astronomy: Planetary Information

Planet Diameter Max. Min. Length of Length of
(miles) distance distance year day
from Sun from Sun
(million (million
miles) miles)
Mercury 3,031 43 29 88 days 58d 16hr
Venus 7,521 68 67 225 days 243 days
Earth 7,917 95 91 365 days 23h 56m
Mars 4,220 155 128 687 days 24h 37m
Jupiter 86,881 507 460 11.9 yrs 9h 55m
Saturn 74,980 942 841 29.5 yrs 10h 34m
Uranus 31,800 1867 1,707 84.3 yrs 17h 14m
Neptune 30,800 2829 2766 164.8 yrs 16h 6m
!213
Facts: Calendar: Wedding Anniversaries

1 Paper
2 Cotton
3 Leather
4 Fruit and Flowers
5 Wood
6 Sugar
7 Wool or Copper
8 Bronze or Pottery
9 Pottery or Willow
10 Tin
11 Steel
12 Silk and linen
13 Lace
14 Ivory
15 Crystal
20 China
25 Silver
30 Pearl
35 Coral
40 Ruby
45 Sapphire
50 Golden
55 Emerald
60 Diamond
65 Blue Sapphire
70 Platinum
!214
75 Gold or Diamond
!215
Facts: Calendar: Birthstones

Month Birthstone
January Garnet
February Amethyst
March Bloodstone or Aquamarine
April Diamond or Rock Crystal
May Emerald or Chrysoprase
June Pearl or Moonstone
July Ruby or Carnelian
August Sardonyx or Peridot
September Sapphire or Lapis Lazuli
October Opal
November Topaz or Citrine
December Turquoise or Tanzanite
!216
Facts: Geography: Largest Islands by Area

Island Area (sq. miles)
1 Greenland 822,000
2 New Guinea 303,000
3 Borneo 289000
4 Madagascar 227,000
5 Baffin Island 196,000
6 Sumatra 185,000
7 Honshu 88,000
8 Victoria Island 84,000
9 Great Britain 80,000
10 Ellesmere Island 76,000
11 Sulawesi 70,000
12 South Island (NZ) 56,000
13 Java 54,000
14 North Island (NZ) 43,000
15 Luzon 42000
16 Newfoundland 42,000
17 Cuba 40,000
18 Iceland 39,000
19 Mindanao 37,000
20 Ireland 33,000
!217
Facts: Geography: Highest Peaks by Continent

Continent Peak Height Range
(ft.)
Africa Kilimanjaro 19,341 Monarch
Antarctica Vinson Massif 16,050 Ellsworth
Asia Everest 29,029 Himalayas
Europe, East Elbrus 18,510 Caucasus
Europe, West Mont Blanc 15,781 Alps
North Mount McKinley 20,320 Alaska Range
America (Denali)
South Aconcagua 22,837 Andes
America
Australia Kosciuszko 7,310 Great Dividing
Range
!218
Facts: Geography: US State Capitals

No. State Capital No. State Capital
1 Alabama Montgom 2 Alaska Juneau
ery
3 Arizona Phoenix 4 Arkansas Little

Rock
5 California Sacrament 6 Colorado Denver

o
7 Connecticut Hartford 8 Delaware Dover
9 Florida Tallahasse 10 Georgia Atlanta

e
11 Hawaii Honolulu 12 Idaho Boise
13 Illinois Springfiel 14 Indiana Indianapolis

d
15 Iowa Des 16 Kansas Topeka

Moines
17 Kentucky Frankfort 18 Louisiana Baton

Rouge
19 Maine Augusta 20 Maryland Annapoli

s
21 Massachusetts Boston 22 Michigan Lansing
23 Minnesota St Paul 24 Mississippi Jackson
25 Missouri Jefferson 26 Montana Helena

City
27 Nebraska Lincoln 28 Nevada Carson

City
29 New Hampshire Concord 30 New Jersey Trenton
31 New Mexico Santa Fe 32 New York Albany
!219
33 North Carolina Raleigh 34 North Dakota Bismarck
35 Ohio Columbu 36 Oklahoma Oklahom

s a City
37 Oregon Salem 38 Pennsylvania Harrisburg
39 Rhode Island Providenc 40 South Carolina Columbia

e
41 South Dakota Pierre 42 Tennessee Nashville
43 Texas Austin 44 Utah Salt Lake

City
45 Vermont Montpelier 46 Virginia Richmon

d
47 Washington Olympia 48 West Virginia Charleston
49 Wisconsin Madison 50 Wyoming Cheyenne
!220
Facts: Geography: Countries of the World

Afghanistan Kabul Czech Republic Prague
Albania Tirana Denmark Copenhagen
Algeria Algeria Djibouti Djibouti
Andorra Andorra la Dominica Roseau
Vella Dominican Republic Santo
Angola Luanda Domingo
Antigua & Barbuda St John’s Ecuador Quito
Argentina Buenos Aires Egypt Cairo
Armenia Yerevan El Salvador San Salvador
Australia Canberra Equatorial Guinea Malabo
Austria Vienna Eritrea Asmara
Azerbaijan Baku Estonia Tallinn
Bahamas Nassau Ethiopia Addis Ababa
Bahrain Manama Fiji Suva
Bangladesh Dhaka Finland Helsinki
Barbados Bridgetown France Paris
Belarus Minsk Gabon Libreville
Belgium Brussels Gambia Banjul
Belize Belmopan Georgia Tbilisi
Benin Porto-Novo Germany Berlin
Bhutan Thimphu Ghana Accra
Bolivia La Paz Greece Athens
Bosnia & Herzegovina Sarajevo Grenada St George’s
Botswana Gaborone Guatemala Guatemala
Brazil Brasilia City
Brunei Bandar Seri Guinea Conakry
Begawan Guinea-Bissau Bissau
Bulgaria Sofia Guyana Georgetown
Burkina Faso Ougadougou Haiti Port-au-
Burundi Bujumbura Prince
Cambodia Phnom Penh Honduras Tegucigalpa
Cameroon Yaounde Hungary Budapest
Canada Ottawa Iceland Reykjavik
Cape Verde Praia India New Delhi
Central African Republic Bangui Indonesia Jakarta
Chad N’Djamena Iran Tehran
Chile Santiago Iraq Baghdad
China Beijing Ireland Dublin
Colombia Bogota Israel Jerusalem
Comoros Moroni Italy Rome
Congo, Democratic Republic Kinshasa Jamaica Kingston
Congo Brazzaville Japan Tokyo
Costa Rica San Jose Jordan Amman
Cote d’Ivoire Abidjan Kazakhstan Astana
Croatia Zagreb Kenya Nairobi
Cuba Havana Kiribati Bairiki
Cyprus Nicosia Korea, North Pyongyang
!221
Korea, South Seoul Qatar Doha

Kuwait Kuwait City Reunion Saint-Denis
Kyrgyzstan Bishkek Romania Bucharest
Laos Vientiane Russia Moscow
Latvia Riga Rwanda Kigali
Lebanon Beirut St Kitts and Nevis Basseterre
Lesotho Maseru St Lucia Castries
Liberia Monrovia St Vincent & Grenadines Kingston
Libya Tripoli Samoa Apia
Liechtenstein Vaduz San Marino San Marino
Lithuania Vilnius Sao Tome & Principe Sao Tome
Luxembourg Luxembourg Saudi Arabia Riyadh
Macedonia Skopje Senegal Dakar
Madagascar Antananarivo Serbia Belgrade
Malawi Lilongwe Seychelles Victoria
Malaysia Kuala Sierra Leone Freetown
Lumpur Singapore Singapore
Maldives Male Slovakia Bratislava
Mali Bamako Slovenia Ljubljana
Malta Valletta Solomon Islands Honiara
Marshall Islands Majuro Somalia Mogadishu
Mauritania Nouakchott South Africa Pretoria,
Mauritius Port Louis Bloemfontein
Mexico Mexico City Cape Town
Micronesia Palikir South Sudan Juba
Moldova Chisinau Spain Madrid
Monaco Monaco Sri Lanka Colombo
Mongolia Ulan Bator Sudan Khartoum
Montenegro Podgorica Suriname Paramaribo
Morocco Rabat Swaziland Mbabane
Mozambique Maputo Sweden Stockholm
Myanmar Rangoon Switzerland Bern,
Namibia Windhoek Lausanne
Nauru Yaren Syria Damascus
Nepal Kathmandu Tajikistan Dushanbe
The Netherlands Amsterdam Tanzania Dodoma
New Zealand Wellington Thailand Bangkok
Nicaragua Managua Timor Leste Dili
Niger Niamey Togo Lome
Nigeria Abuja Tonga Nuku’alofa
Norway Oslo Trinidad & Tobago Port of Spain
Oman Muscat Tunisia Tunis
Pakistan Islamabad Turkey Ankara
Palau Koror Turkmenistan Ashgabat
Panama Panama City Tuvalu Funafuti
Papua New Guinea Port Moresby Uganda Kampala
Paraguay Asuncion Ukraine Kiev
Peru Lima United Arab Emirates Abu Dhabi
Philippines Manila United Kingdom London
Poland Warsaw United States Washington
Portugal Lisbon DC
!222
Uruguay Montevideo Vietnam Hanoi

Uzbekistan Tashkent Yemen Sana’a
Vanuatu Vila Zambia Lusaka

Venezuela Caracas Zimbabwe Harare 
!223
Facts: Geography: Countries of the Word Link System Mnemonic

I get up out of bed and since it's cold I don an Afghan coat
(Afghanistan). I bump into my friend Al who for some reason has turned
into a werewolf and is baying like a wolf (Al-ba-nia). I go downstairs
and the sun comes up. This causes Al to turn back to normal, cheering
him up: Al cheers (Al-geria). There is a knock at the front door. I open it
to find Ann & Dora standing there (An-dorra). At that precise moment a
French man on a bike wearing a stripy jumper and with onions hanging
round his neck cycles up. He taps Ann on the shoulder and points across
the road, saying Ann, go là (An-go-la). He is pointing at a tea shop. Ann
goes and has tea (An-ti-gua), then pays for it using some silver, or
argent (Argent-ina). We all then hear a military parade coming along
the road and see an army for some reason marching on their knees
(Arme-nia). When the parade has passed, a friend called Oz who is
working as a waiter in the tea shop, collects some trays and carries
them back to the shop (Aus-tra-lia), but the trays are stacked too high
and he can’t see where he’s going so he bumps into a tree (Aus-tri-a).
Hiding behind the tree is a bison which chases everybody away (Azer-
baijan).
As a result we all run away and decide to go on holiday to the Bahamas
(Bahamas). Unfortunately, the weather is awful. I say, “Bah!
Rain!” (Bahrain). Then I hear the noise of thunder – Bang!
(Bangladesh). Among the people and animals on the beach are a sheep,
a wolf and Homer Simpson. At the sound of the thunder they all make
an exclamation: baa, bay, d'oh (Barbados). We then hear a bell ringing
but it sounds very rusty (rusty bell - Belarus). I go and put some gum on
the bell to silence it (bell gum - Belgium). And then I put oil on the bell
to ease its movement (Belize). Into the bell tower comes my friend Ben
(Benin). He has some very large boots on (Bhutan). He takes them off
and pours out olives from inside them (Bolivia). Then my old boss turns
up. He is a nasty piece of work. He knees Ben in the groin (Bosnia). He
then abuses the various people in our group. He smacks one on the bot
(Botswana), then flicks the bra strap of another (Brazil) and pokes
another one in his brown eyes (Brunei). Then having done his bullying
he decides to make amends and buys everyone off with some Bulgar
Caviar (Bulgaria). As the waiters are laying the trays out some berk
comes along and knocks them all over with his knees (Burkino Faso).
Everyone gets mad and the whole island decides to chase him. They get
their best runner, who somewhat strangely is Princess Diana, to chase
him away. They all shout out, “Run Di” (Burundi).
!224
She chases him all the way to Cambodia (Cambodia), where the band
Maroon 5 are giving a concert (Cameroon). The song they are playing
is a song from the South Park Movie, Blame Canada! (Canada). When
they finish the lead singer reveals a super hero streak, puts on a cape
(Cape Verde) and jumps into his super hero car, which has the letters
CAR (Central African Republic) written on the side. He drives across
the sea to Florida to rescue the US elections which are going awry
because of hanging chads (Chad). He takes the culprits who were
attempting to steal the election and smears them with chillies as
punishment (Chile) and then puts them in a big urn as a prison. The urn
is made of China (China). He puts the urn at top of a big column
(Colombia). There is a snake at the top of the column which swallows
its own snail. This is known as an ouroboros (Comoros). The snake
descends the column to find a large crowd voting on whether to do a
conga (Democratic Republic of Congo). They vote yes and do a conga
(Congo). They are doing it because the people at the front have just got
married and so everyone throws rice over them (Costa Rica). As a
wedding present they are presented with a coat made of ivory (Cote
D’Ivoire). Unfortunately, a crow has seen this and wants it. He flies
down to steal the coat (Croatia) and then flies away but is forced to
drop something else that he was carrying – a big cube shaped device
(Cuba). Before the cube hits the ground its Cypres fires releasing a
parachute (a Cypres is a device skydivers use to open parachutes
automatically) (Cyprus). When the cube lands it becomes apparent that
it is in fact a safe. The safe opens and a big cheque falls out (Czech
Republic).
Two guys called Den and Mark turn up (Denmark) and start fighting
over the cheque, but jub-jub bird sneaks up and flies off with it
(Djibouti). It flies away and as it's flying it sees an arrangement of
dominoes (Dominica) set up to break a world record. It drops the
cheque on the dominoes and they start toppling over. One path of the
dominoes goes through a pub (Dominican Republic).
They carry on through the Equator (Ecuador) all the way to the
Egyptian pyramids (Egypt). Napoleon is there (Egyptian campaigns)
and mistaking them for an attacking force, he fires a salvo at them (El
Salvador). Unfortunately, all that comes out of his cannons are coins -
Guineas - which miss and land back at the equator (Equatorial
Guinea). Napoleon's men, who are eating, get annoyed with him for his
rashness. They throw their trays upon the ground (Eritrea), and then
they start stoning him (Estonia). However, Theo turns up and shields
him (Ethiopia).
!225
Theo is wearing a Fijian skirt (Fiji). He then runs into the sand, up to
the Nile, where he develops a fin on his back (Finland) and swims all
the way to France (France), where he meets up with a large number of
French people who are all gabbling on with each other people (Gabon).
Since he is in France, he decides to head to Monte Carlo and gamble
(Gambia). There, he meets up with Georgia (Georgia) who is gambling.
She starts sneezing and notices her body is covered with germs
(Germany). She shouts at the germs to, “Begone!” (Ghana). This
doesn't work, so she covers her body with grease (Greece) and all the
germs slide off. To kill them all off, she throws a grenade at them
(Grenada). Then she looks down at her chest which the germs have
made swell up into gigantic melons (Guadeloupe). She looks up into the
sky and there is a skydiver whose parachute hasn't opened properly.
Georgia shouts out, “He’s got a mal!” (Guatemala), and then makes
her way over to the slot machines where she wins a large amount of
money. The slots pay out in guineas (Guineas). She puts the guineas in
a piggy bank which looks like a big sow (Guinea Bissau). Then she goes
for a curry with her friend Ana, who likes her curries covered in Ghee
(Guyana).
At the curry house they see their friend Idi Amin and both shout out,
“Hi Idi” (Haiti). They have their curry then Idi says that he’s won a
motorbike at the casino, a Honda (Honduras). They all get on and go
for a ride ending up in Hong Kong (Hong Kong). When there they
decide that they are hungry again (Hungary), so they decide to go to the
supermarket, Iceland (Iceland) to buy some food.
They decide to have another Indian (India), but unfortunately the food
is off so they get food poisoning (Indonesia – Indian-esia). I am
watching all this and since they are all very sick and a bit revolting I
ran away (Iran). I end up somewhere where there is war going on,
although I'm not sure which one. First it looks like (Iraq); I close my
eyes and shake my head and look around again. It still looks like
somewhere with a war going on – perhaps it is Ireland (Ireland); I do
the same again and this time I am sure it is Israel (Israel). Just as I am
getting adjusted to my new surroundings an army comes stomping
through the scene, but it is an army of Roman soldiers (Italy).
Because of all this war, I decide I need a long holiday. First I go
somewhere where there is a beach and where I can watch some cricket
– Jamaica (Jamaica). Then because that is very relaxing, I go
somewhere contrasting, somewhere high tech and bustling, Japan,
(Japan) and finish off with somewhere very old, Jordan (Jordan). I go to
Petra, when a friend of mine Kate, or Kaz (Kazakhstan) turns up riding
!226
on an African elephant from Kenya (Kenya); she says hop on and we go

off to the opera.
Singing at the opera is Kiri Te Kanawa (Kiribati). Unfortunately, opera
is seen as elitist by some so the army of the only communist country left,
North Korea (N Korea) comes along to try to put a halt to it. Their
enemies South Korea (South Korea) decide to engage them in a battle.
As they are fighting a huge explosion takes place throwing everyone to
the source of a large amount of oil, (Kuwait). Since everyone is now
rich (from all the oil) we decide to relax and have a drink of Kirsch
(Kyrgyzstan).
Oz (the waiter from the tea shop) is serving the drinks. Kate fancies him
and says, “I’d like to lay with Oz” (Laos), especially as he’s working
out on a gym machine, working out his lats (Latvia). Suddenly all
around us a load of trees spring up, Cedars of Lebanon (Lebanon), and
two guys turn up who kidnap us all. We all shout that we want our
liberty returned (Liberia), but they take us to (Libya) to meet Colonel
Gaddafi. He offers us beer in a big Stein glass (Liechtenstein). The beer
makes our lips swell up so that we all lisp (Lithuania). He says that he
now has to punish us and offers us a fate worse than death – he’s going
to send us to Luxembourg! (Luxembourg).
As he’s about to do that, a bird, a macaw (Macau) descends with a
mace in its mouth (Macedonia) and goes absolutely mad, attacking
Gaddafi (Madagascar). Then my friend Mal arrives, dressed up as a
barrister – he thought there was a fancy dress party (Malawi). He’s
come a long way, so he decides to lay down (Malaysia), and then when
he’s rested he goes diving (Maldives), with his buddy Lee (Mali). At end
of dive they drink some malt whisky in the evening having swum to
Malta (Malta), which is being run a dictator, Marshall Stalin, (Marshall
Islands). He is drinking too. He drinks martinis (Martinique), and when
he has finished he summons his retainer and demands more, saying,
“More, Retainer!” (Mauritania). The retainer is called Richard so
everyone shouts out, “More, Richard!” (Mauritius). Richard doesn't
stand for this. He quits and goes on holiday to Mexico (Mexico). He is
surprised to see that everyone has very small knees, you could even call
them micro-knees (Micronesia). On closer inspection all the people
there have mould all over them, (Moldova), and the only way to get rid
of the mould is to drive very, very fast in the Monaco Grand Prix
(Monaco), so that’s what they do. Unfortunately, the Grand Prix is
invaded by Mongol hoards on horseback (Mongolia), and a big fight
ensues. When over, the survivors repair to Rick’s Bar in Casablanca for
a drink, (Morocco). After that bar they move onto Mo’s bar from the
!227
Simpsons (Mozambique), where he has a new feature at the back, a

mine (Myanmar).
I'm there too and I venture inside the mine to find a load of old people
wearing beards. They are Vietnam veterans, who tell me all about their
time in ‘Nam (Namibia). After that I notice that they’re fighting
characters from Winnie the Pooh; Roo is waiting to shoot at the
veterans and Winnie shouts, “Now, Roo!” (Nauru). They go and hide
behind a very large mountain, Everest, which is located in Nepal
(Nepal).
This whole scene is being watched by Peter Pan, who then flies off to
Neverland (The Netherlands). While flying he sees an island with a
flagpole in the middle and on the flagpole, instead of a flag, is a pair of
knickers (Nicaragua). He descends and sees a man called Nigel
(Niger). He says that he's come to the island to get away from
everybody because people keep jeering at him (Nigeria).
The reason he keeps getting jeered at is that his lips have swelled up
into the shape of a big “O” (Oman).
He’s carrying a big pack and he takes out a number of things: a curry
smothered in pilau rice (Palau), a big panama hat (Panama), and a
guinea fowl (dinosaur shaped) which he throws up in the air and which
flies away (Papua New Guinea). Finally he gets out a parachute, which
he gives to me, since I am a skydiver - a para-guy (Paraguay). I get on
a 'plane and the first person I see onboard is Paddington Bear. He says,
“I’m from darkest Peru, you know” (Peru). Next to him is Prince Philip
(Philippines). As the plane takes off he offers me a polo (Poland), and a
glass of port as he’s a bit posh (Portugal). We reach jumping height and
as the door opens, we notice the Spanish word for door written above it,
puerta (Puerto Rico) and just as I’m about to jump out I give a big
snort as I have catarrh (Qatar).
I jump out and land in the jungle somewhere. All my friends are there.
When I ask what is happening they say that they are having a school
reunion (Reunion). One friend is dressed as a Roman (Romania),
another is dressed as Ian Rush (Russia). A whole load of other friends
have come dressed as gorillas (Rwanda). Acting out a scene from
Planet of the Apes the gorillas start to hunt the rest of us.
Just as we are all about to be caught, three sainted angels descend and
put the gorillas to flight. The first angel is holding a kitten (St Kitts), the
second is holding an ear of one of the gorillas, a loose ear (St Lucia)
and the third is holding a painting by Van Gogh which shows a cocktail
(St Vincent and Grenadines). As we are all relaxing my dog (Sam)
!228
comes up to me and says that we are all going to go sailing and need to
go to the marina (San Marino). We get on the boat and onboard it is a
huge tome called principles of sailing (Sao Tome and Principe). On the
boat is a man sitting on a flying carpet from Arabia (Saudi Arabia), but
he turns into an eagle practising Zen Buddhism (Senegal). The eagle is
practising the principles of balance: in one claw he’s holding a seashell
(Seychelles) and in the other a vast picture showing a mountain range
full of lions (Sierra Leone). Apu from the Simpsons comes aboard as
he’s a Buddhist too and wants to study Zen. The eagle says that to
obtain his Buddha nature he needs to sing and says, “Sing
Apu” (Singapore).
Apu starts to sing but he sings too fast and the eagle tells him to slow
down twice (Slovakia, Slovenia). Apu says to the eagle that he is a very
wise eagle and since he is wise, two women, who are fighting over a
baby, arrive out of the blue and ask him to decide whose baby it is. He
tells them in jest to cut it in half, because he is the reincarnation of King
Solomon (Solomon Islands). He gives the baby a drug called soma
which sends it to sleep (Somalia) and then says to put it on a table to do
the job. Still joking he says it has to be a special table at the top of a
mountain, a Table Mountain (South Africa). Leaving the baby there
where both women decide to look after it, we all go on a sailing holiday
and end up in Spain.
In Spain, we see a pill on a beach which has the words, “eat me!”
written on it. This pill makes us all shrink (Sri Lanka), and as a result
the beach looks like a desert, like the Sudan (Sudan). There is a sign
which points South (South Sudan).
We are worried about being in this desert until a knight in armour
draws up. He says, “I am a knight and I have a name, and my name is
'Name' so you can call me Sir Name” (Suriname). He says I am going
to take you to a land where everybody dances and sways (Swaziland)
and there you will find some beautiful girls singing songs by Abba
(Sweden) who will be happy to serve you Swiss roll (Switzerland)
covered in syrup (Syria).
After the meal of Swiss rolls we decide we need to look good. We each
put a tie on (Taiwan) and then a dinner jacket, but inside out
(Tajikistan). We then remove these clothes to go to a tanning booth
(Tanzania). I realise that we've lost all the ties, so we must go to a shop
that sells ties. This shop is called Tie Land (Thailand). When we get
there, they have a section which also serves coffee. We buy coffee, “to
go” (Togo). Then we notice that the shop also sell togas (Tonga). We
decide to have a toga party and invite Trinny and Susannah who bring
!229
a bag each (Trinidad and Tobago) so they can judge who has the best
toga. I win and take all my friends on holiday to Tunisia (Tunisia).
When we get there, the place is filled with turkeys (Turkey), but after a
while the turkeys all turn into men – turkey men (Turkmenistan). When
they change into turkey men they all have an urge to go to the toilet and
say that they need to go, “to the loo” (Tuvalu).
As they are going to the toilet they are all chased out by some male
geese, ganders, (Uganda) that are already there and who are jealous at
the turkeys' conversion from birds to men. Fed up with this
ridiculousness, we decide to go and watch some football instead. We go
to see West Ham United in the east end of London. This is the area run
by the Kray twins (Ukraine) and we have to go past them to get into the
ground. Inside the crowd sing, “United,” three times (United Arab
Emirates, United Kingdom, United States).
Graham Norton and Julian Clary come onto the pitch and the crowd
start singing, “You are gay” (Uruguay). The two men don't like being
abused like this and take out some uzis that they had hidden away
(Uzbekistan) and fire into the crowd.
They get into a van to escape (Vanuatu) and decide to drive to the top of
a tepui (a flat top mountain found in Venezuela) to hide (Venezuela).
However, the Krays are after them riding in helicopters. In the
background “Ride of the Valkyries” can be heard, from the Vietnam
War film Apocalypse Now (Vietnam).
The helicopters are helicopter gunships and the Krays start firing at the
van shouting, “Yeah Man” (Yemen). The van is completely destroyed,
but there is a car there, an old Yugo (former Yugoslavia). Norton and
Clary get into the Yugo and drive down the side of the mountain. As
they reach the bottom, there is a finishing line with a tape across it. On
the tape is the letter Z, twice: Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Constructing a system like this might seem needlessly complicated, but
when actually learning it, it is much more fun, more engaging and much
faster than simply learning it by rote.
Occasionally new countries come into existence and old ones disappear.
If this happens, simply amend the story as necessary. For example, there
used to be three countries beginning with the letter Z: Zaire, Zambia
and Zimbabwe, but Zaire became the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The finishing tape formerly had three Z's. Now it has two and there is
now a vote on whether the conga takes place.
!230
Facts: History: British Prime Ministers

No. Name Term Party
1 Sir Robert Walpole 1721-1742 Whig
2 Sir Spencer Compton 1742-1743 Whig
3 Henry Pelham 1743-1754 Whig
4 Thomas Pelham-Holles 1754-1756 Whig
(Duke of Newcastle)
5 William Cavendish 1756-1757 Whig
(Duke of Devonshire)
6 Thomas Pelham-Holles 1757-1762 Whig
(Duke of Newcastle)
7 John Stuart (Earl of 1762-1763 Tory
Bute)
8 George Grenville 1763-1765 Whig
9 Charles Watson- 1765-1766 Whig
Wentworth (Marquis of
Rockingham)
10 William Pitt the Elder 1766-1768 Whig
(Earl of Chatham)
11 Augustus Fitzroy 1768-1770 Whig
(Duke of Grafton)
12 Lord Frederick North 1770-1782 Tory
13 Charles Watson- 1782-1782 Whig
Wentworth (Marquis of
Rockingham)
14 William Petty- 1782-1783 Whig
FitzMaurice (Earl of
Shelburne)
15 William Cavendish- 1783-1783 Coalition
Bentinck (Duke of
Portland)
!231
16 William Pitt the 1783-1801 Tory

Younger
17 Henry Addington 1801-1804 Tory
(Viscount Sidmouth)
18 William Pitt the 1804-1806 Tory
Younger
19 William Wyndham 1806-1807 Coalition
Grenville
20 William Cavendish- 1807-1809 Tory
Bentinck (Duke of
Portland)
21 Spencer Perceval 1809-1812 Tory
22 Robert Banks 1812-1827 Tory
Jenkinson (Earl of
Liverpool)
23 George Canning 1827-1827 Tory
24 Frederick John 1827-1828 Tory
Robinson
25 Arthur Wellesley (Duke 1828-1830 Tory
of Wellington)
26 Charles Grey (Earl 1830-1834 Whig
Grey)
27 William Lamb 1834-1834 Whig
(Viscount Melbourne)
28 Arthur Wellesley (Duke 1834-1834 Tory
of Wellington)
29 Robert Peel 1834-1835 Conservative
30 William Lamb 1835-1841 Whig
(Viscount Melbourne)
31 Robert Peel 1841-1846 Conservative
32 John Russell (Earl 1846-1852 Whig
Russell)
!232
33 Edward Smith-Stanley 1852-1852 Conservative

(Earl of Derby)
34 George Hamilton- 1852-1855 Conservative
Gordon (Earl of
Aberdeen)
35 Henry George Temple 1855-1858 Liberal
(Viscount Palmerstone)
(Earl of Derby)
37 Henry John Temple 1859-1865 Liberal
38 John Russell 1865-1866 Liberal
(Earl of Derby)
40 Benjamin Disraeli (Earl 1868-1868 Conservative
of Beaconsfield)
41 William Ewart 1868-1874 Liberal
Gladstone
42 Benjamin Disraeli (Earl 1874-1880 Conservative
of Beaconsfield)
Gladstone
44 Robert Arthur Talbot 1885-1886 Conservative
Cecil (Marquis of
Salisbury)
Gladstone
46 Robert Arthur Talbot 1886-1892 Conservative
Cecil (Marquis of
Salisbury)
Gladstone
!233
48 Archibald Primrose 1894-1895 Liberal

(Earl of Rosebery)
49 Robert Gascoyne-Cecil 1895-1902 Conservative
(Marquis of Salisbury)
50 Arthur Balfour (Earl of 1902-1905 Conservative
Balfour)
51 Henry Campbell- 1905-1908 Liberal
Bannerman
52 Herbert Henry Asquith 1908-1916 Liberal
(Earl of Oxford)
53 David Lloyd George 1916-1922 Coalition
(Earl of Dwyfor)
54 Andrew Bonar Law 1922-1923 Conservative
55 Stanley Baldwin (Earl 1923-1924 Conservative
Baldwin of Bewdley)
56 Ramsay MacDonald 1924-1924 Labour
57 Stanley Baldwin (Earl 1924-1929 Conservative
Baldwin of Bewdley)
58 Ramsay MacDonald 1929-1935 Labour
59 Stanley Baldwin (Earl 1935-1937 National
Baldwin of Bewdley)
60 Neville Chamberlain 1937-1940 National
61 Winston Churchill 1940-1945 Coalition
62 Clement Attlee 1945-1951 Labour
63 Winston Churchill 1951-1955 Conservative
64 Anthony Eden (Earl of 1955-1957 Conservative
Avon)
65 Harold Macmillan 1957-1963 Conservative
66 Alec Douglas-Home 1963-1964 Conservative
!234
67 Harold Wilson (Lord 1964-1970 Labour

Wilson of Rievaulx)
68 Edward Heath 1970-1974 Conservative
69 Harold Wilson (Lord 1974-1976 Labour
Wilson of Rievaulx)
70 Leonard James 1976-1979 Labour
Callaghan (Lord
Callaghan of Cardiff)
71 Margaret Thatcher 1979-1990 Conservative
(Baroness Thatcher of
Kesteven)
72 John Major 1990-1997 Conservative
73 Tony Blair 1997-2007 Labour
74 Gordon Brown 2007-2010 Labour
75 David Cameron 2010 – Coalition
!235
Facts: History: Kings and Queens of England

Monarch Reign
William I 1066 – 1087
William II 1087 – 1100
Henry I 1100 – 1135
Stephen 1135 – 1154
Henry II 1154 – 1189
Richard I 1189 – 1199
John 1199 – 1216
Henry III 1216 – 1272
Edward I 1272 – 1307
Edward II 1307 – 1327
Edward III 1327 – 1377
Richard II 1377 – 1399
Henry IV 1399 – 1413
Henry V 1413 – 1422
Henry VI 1422 – 1461
Edward IV 1461 – 1483
Edward V 1483 – 1483
Richard III 1483 – 1485
Henry VII 1485 – 1509
Henry VIII 1509 – 1547
Edward VI 1547 – 1553
Mary I 1553 – 1558
Elizabeth I 1558 – 1603
!236
James I 1603 – 1625

Charles I 1625 – 1649
Interregnum 1649 – 1660
Charles II 1660 – 1685
James II 1685 – 1688
William III (& Mary) 1689 – 1702
Anne 1702 – 1714
George I 1714 – 1727
George II 1727 – 1760
George III 1760 – 1820
George IV 1820 – 1830
William IV 1830 – 1837
Victoria 1837 – 1901
Edward VII 1901 – 1910
George V 1910 – 1936
Edward VIII 1936 – 1936
George VI 1936 – 1952
Elizabeth II 1952 –
!237
Facts: History: US Presidents

President Party Term
1 George Washington Independent 1789 – 1797
2 John Adams Federalist 1797 – 1801
3 Thomas Jefferson Republican 1801 – 1809
4 James Madison Republican 1809 – 1817
5 James Monroe Republican 1817 – 1825
6 John Quincy Adams Republican 1825 – 1829
7 Andrew Jackson Democratic 1829 – 1837
8 Martin van Buren Democratic 1837 – 1841
9 William Henry Harrison Whig 1841 – 1841
10 John Tyler Whig 1841 – 1845
11 James Knox Polk Democratic 1845 – 1849
12 Zachary Taylor Whig 1849 – 1850
13 Millard Fillmore Whig 1850 – 1853
14 Franklin Pierce Democratic 1853 – 1857
15 James Buchanan Democratic 1857 – 1861
16 Abraham Lincoln Republican 1861 – 1865
17 Andrew Johnson Union 1865 – 1869
18 Ulysses Simpson Grant Republican 1869 – 1877
19 Rutherford B. Hayes Republican 1877 – 1881
20 James A. Garfield Republican 1881 - 1881
21 Chester A. Arthur Republican 1881 – 1885
22 Grover Cleveland Democratic 1885 – 1889
23 Benjamin Harrison Republican 1889 – 1893
!238
24 Grover Cleveland Democratic 1893 – 1897

25 William McKinley Republican 1897 – 1901
26 Theodore Roosevelt Republican 1901 – 1909
27 William Howard Taft Republican 1909 – 1913
28 Thomas Woodrow Wilson Democratic 1913 – 1921
29 Warren G. Harding Republican 1921 – 1923
30 Calvin Coolidge Republican 1923 – 1929
31 Herbert Hoover Republican 1929 – 1933
32 Franklin D. Roosevelt Democratic 1933 – 1945
33 Harry S. Truman Democratic 1945 – 1953
34 Dwight D. Eisenhower Republican 1953 – 1961
35 John F. Kennedy Democratic 1961 – 1963
36 Lyndon B. Johnson Democratic 1963 – 1969
37 Richard M. Nixon Republican 1969 – 1974
38 Gerald Ford Republican 1974 – 1977
39 Jimmy Carter Democratic 1977 – 1981
40 Ronald Reagan Republican 1981 – 1989
41 George H. Bush Republican 1989 – 1993
42 William Clinton Democratic 1993 – 2001
43 George W. Bush Republican 2001 - 2009
44 Barack Obama Democrat 2009 - 2013
!239
Facts: Mythology: The Twelve Labours of Hercules

1. The killing of the Nemean lion 
Hercules beat and throttled the lion. He used its own claws to
skin it and then wore its pelt to make himself invulnerable.
2. The killing of the Lernaean Hydra 
Hercules chopped off each of its nine heads.
3. The capture of the Hind on Mount Ceryneia 
Hercules spent a year chasing the hind, taking its golden horns
and bronze hoofs. He blamed Eurystheus for its capture, so that
the wrath of the gods did not fall on him.
4. The capture of the Boar of Mount Erymanthus 
Hercules brought the boar to Tiruns, and Eurystheus hid in an
urn when he saw it.
5. The cleansing of the Augean stables 
Hercules diverted the rivers Alpheus and Peneus through the
stables, cleaning them.
6. The killing of the Birds of Lake Stymphalos 
Hercules scared the birds from the trees using castanets and
then shot them down with arrows.
7. The capture of the Cretan Bull 
Hercules captured the bull and then took it back to Greece.
8. The capture of the Mares of Diomedes 
Hercules killed Diomedes and fed him to the mares, thus
taming them.
9. The capture of the Girdle of Hippolyta 
Hercules slew Hippolyte, Queen of the Amazons, and took her
girdle to give to Eurystheus’s daughter.
10. The capture of Geryon’s Cattle 
Hercules killed Geryon and took his cattle back to Greece.
11. The capture of the Apples of the Hesperides 
Hercules slew Ladon, the dragon guarding the apple trees and
took the Golden Apples.
12. The capture of Cerberus 
Hercules entered the Underworld and captured the three-
headed dog.
!240
Facts: Science: Chemical Elements

Atomic Element Symbol Form
Number
1 Hydrogen H Gas
2 Helium He Gas
3 Lithium Li Metallic solid
4 Beryllium Be Metallic solid
5 Boron B Metallic solid
6 Carbon C Non-metallic
solid
7 Nitrogen N Gas
8 Oxygen O Gas
9 Fluorine F Gas
10 Neon Ne Gas
11 Sodium Na Metallic solid
12 Magnesium Mg Metallic solid
13 Aluminium Al Metallic solid
14 Silicon Si Metallic solid
15 Phosphorous P Non-metallic
solid
16 Sulphur S Non-metallic
solid
17 Chlorine Cl Gas
18 Argon Ar Gas
19 Potassium K Metallic solid
20 Calcium Ca Metallic solid
21 Scandium Sc Metallic solid
!241
22 Titanium Ti Metallic solid

23 Vanadium V Metallic solid
24 Chromium Cr Metallic solid
25 Manganese Mn Metallic solid
26 Iron Fe Metallic solid
27 Cobalt Co Metallic solid
28 Nickel Ni Metallic solid
29 Copper Cu Metallic solid
30 Zinc Zn Metallic solid
31 Gallium Ga Metallic liquid
32 Germanium Ge Metallic solid
33 Arsenic As Metallic solid
34 Selenium Se Non-metallic
solid
35 Bromine Br Non-metallic
liquid
36 Krypton Kr Gas
37 Rubidium Rb Radioactive
semi-solid
38 Strontium Sr Metallic solid
39 Yttrium Y Metallic solid
40 Zirconium Zr Metallic solid
41 Niobium Nb Metallic solid
42 Molybdenum Mo Metallic solid
43 Technetium Tc Non-metallic
solid
44 Ruthenium Ru Metallic solid
!242
45 Rhodium Rh Metallic solid

46 Palladium Pd Metallic solid
47 Silver Ag Metallic solid
48 Cadmium Cd Metallic solid
49 Indium In Metallic solid
50 Tin Sn Metallic solid
51 Antimony Sb Metallic solid
52 Tellurium Te Non-metallic
solid
53 Iodine I Solid
54 Xenon Xe Gas
55 Caesium Cs Metallic liquid
56 Barium Ba Metallic solid
57 Lanthanum La Metallic solid
58 Cerium Ce Metallic solid
59 Praseodymium Pr Metallic solid
60 Neodymium Nd Metallic solid
61 Promethium Pm Solid
62 Samarium Sm Metallic solid
63 Europium Eu Metallic solid
64 Gadolinium Gd Metallic solid
65 Terbium Tb Metallic solid
66 Dysprosium Dy Metallic solid
67 Holmium Ho Metallic solid
68 Erbium Er Metallic solid
69 Thulium Tm Metallic solid
!243
70 Ytterbium Yb Metallic solid

71 Lutetium Lu Metallic solid
72 Hafnium Hf Metallic solid
73 Tantalum Ta Metallic solid
74 Tungsten W Metallic solid
75 Rhenium Re Metallic solid
76 Osmium Os Metallic solid
77 Iridium Ir Metallic solid
78 Platinum Pt Metallic solid
79 Gold Au Metallic solid
80 Mercury Hg Metallic liquid
81 Thallium Tl Metallic solid
82 Lead Pb Metallic solid
83 Bismuth Bi Metallic solid
84 Polonium Po Radioactive solid
85 Astatine At Solid
86 Radon Rn Gas
87 Francium Fr Radioactive
liquid
88 Radium Ra Radioactive solid
89 Actinium Ac Solid
90 Thorium Th Metallic solid
91 Protactinium Pa Solid
92 Uranium U Metallic solid
93 Neptunium Np Solid from
plutonium
!244
94 Plutonium Pu Solid from

uranium
95 Americium Am Solid from
plutonium
96 Curium Cm Solid from
plutonium
97 Berkelium Bk Solid from
americium
98 Californium Cf Solid from
cerium
99 Einsteinium Es Solid from
plutonium
100 Fermium Fm Solid from
plutonium
101 Mendelevium Md Solid from
einsteinium
102 Nobelium No Solid from
cerium
103 Lawrencium Lr Solid from
californium
104 Rutherfordium Rf Synthetic metal
105 Dubnium Db Solid from
californium
106 Seaborium Sg Transition metal
107 Bohrium Bh Synthetic
transition metal
108 Hassium Hs Synthetic
transition metal
109 Meitnerium Mt Synthetic metal
110 Darmstadtium Ds Synthetic metal
111 Roentgenium Rg Synthetic metal
!245
112 Copernicium Cn Synthetic metal

113 Ununtrium Uut Unknown
114 Flerovium Fl Unknown
115 Ununpentium Uup Unknown
116 Livermorium Lv Unknown
117 Ununseptium Uus Unknown
118 Ununoctium Uuo Unknown
!246
Science: Scientific Formulae

Pythagorean Theorem
a2 + b2 = c2
states that for a right angle triangle the square of the length of the
hypotenuse c2 is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides
(a2+b2).

Ohm's Law
V=IR
relates voltage to resistance, stating that V (voltage) is equal to I
(current) multiplied by R (resistance).

Newton's Second Law
F=ma
states that the force on an object (F) is equal to the mass of the object
(m) multiplied by its acceleration (a).

Drake Equation
N= R*.fp.ne.fl.fi.fc.L
estimates the likelihood our being able to detect life elsewhere in the
galaxy.
N= the number of civilisations in the Milky Way galaxy with which we
may be able to communicate;
R* is the average number of stars forming per year in our galaxy;
fp is the fraction of stars that have planets;
ne is the average number of planets that can support life for every star
with planets;
fl is the fraction of planets that could support life that actually develop
life;
fi is the fraction of planets with life that develop intelligent life;
!247
fc is the fraction of planets with intelligent life that release evidence of

their existence (such as radio signals);
L is the length of time for which they release detectable signals.
!248
Speeches: Gettysburg Address (Abraham Lincoln, 1863)

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this
continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the
proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or
any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met
on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of
that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that
that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should
do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we
can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who
struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or
detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here,
but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather,
to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here
have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated
to the great task remaining before us - that from these honored dead we
take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full
measure of devotion - that we here highly resolve that these dead shall
not have died in vain - that this nation, under God, shall have a new
birth of freedom - and that government of the people, by the people, for
the people, shall not perish from the earth.
!249
Speeches: Soliloquy from Hamlet Act 3, Scene 1.
To be, or not to be, that is the question: 

Whether 'tis Nobler in the mind to suffer 
The Slings and Arrows of outrageous Fortune, 
Or to take Arms against a Sea of troubles, 
And by opposing end them: to die, to sleep 
No more; and by a sleep, to say we end 
The Heart-ache, and the thousand Natural shocks 
That Flesh is heir to? 'Tis a consummation 
Devoutly to be wished. To die to sleep, 
To sleep, perchance to Dream; Aye, there's the rub, 
For in that sleep of death, what dreams may come, 
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, 
Must give us pause. There's the respect 
That makes Calamity of so long life: 
For who would bear the Whips and Scorns of time, 
The Oppressor's wrong, the proud man's Contumely, 
The pangs of despised Love, the Law’s delay, 
The insolence of Office, and the Spurns 
That patient merit of the unworthy takes, 
When he himself might his Quietus make 
With a bare Bodkin? Who would Fardels bear, 
To grunt and sweat under a weary life, 
But that the dread of something after death, 
The undiscovered Country, from whose bourn 
No Traveller returns, Puzzles the will, 
And makes us rather bear those ills we have, 
Than fly to others that we know not of. 
Thus Conscience does make Cowards of us all, 
And thus the Native hue of Resolution 
Is sicklied o'er, with the pale cast of Thought, 
And enterprises of great pitch and moment, 
With this regard their Currents turn awry, 
And lose the name of Action. Soft you now, 
The fair Ophelia? Nymph, in thy Orisons 
Be all my sins remembered.

!250
Poetry

If . . .
By Rudyard Kipling
If you can keep your head when all about you 
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, 
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, 
But make allowance for their doubting too; 
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, 
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies, 
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating, 
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise: 
 
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master; 
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim; 
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster 
And treat those two impostors just the same; 
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken 
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, 
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, 
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools: 
 
If you can make one heap of all your winnings 
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, 
And lose, and start again at your beginnings 
And never breathe a word about your loss; 
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew 
To serve your turn long after they are gone, 
And so hold on when there is nothing in you 
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!” 
 
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, 
Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch, 
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, 
If all men count with you, but none too much; 
If you can fill the unforgiving minute 
!251
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run, 

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it, 
And - which is more - you’ll be a man, my son!
!252
Procedures: First Aid: Unconscious and Not Breathing – Adult

St. John's Ambulance First Aid Advice
1. Look for
To confirm if someone is unconscious and not breathing complete the
steps of the primary survey – Danger, Response, Airway, Breathing
(DRAB); if an AED is available refer to the steps for using an AED.
2. Check for danger
Are you or they in any danger? if you have not already done so make
the area safe and then assess them; if a person is drowning, only enter
the water to rescue them if it is safe to do so, and they are unconscious.
If you are not alone dial 999/112 for emergency help immediately for
drowning victims.
3. Check for response
Shout a command at them: “Can you hear me?”, “Open your eyes”;
gently shake their shoulders; if they respond, refer to St John's treatment
for someone unconscious but breathing; shout for help.
4. Open the airway
Help them to breathe by opening the airway; to do this, place one hand
on the forehead and using two fingers lift the chin.
5. Check breathing
Position your cheek close to their mouth; look, listen and feel for no
more than 10 seconds: look to see if the chest is rising and falling, listen
for breathing, feel the breath against your cheek; if they are not
breathing commence cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR).
6. Call for help
If you have someone with you, send them to dial 999 or 112 for an
ambulance immediately; if you are on your own, go and call for help
and then return, reassess and continue with CPR; if unconsciousness is
due to drowning, you should give five initial rescue breaths and
perform CPR before making the call.
!253
7. Give 30 compressions
Place heel of your hand in the centre of the chest; place other hand on
top and interlock fingers; keeping your arms straight and your fingers
off the chest, press down by five to six centimetres and release the
pressure, keeping your hands in place; repeat the compressions 30
times, at a rate of 100-120 per minute (about the speed of Nelly the
Elephant, Staying Alive or Another One Bites the Dust).
8. Give 2 rescue breaths
Ensure the airway is open; pinch nose firmly closed; take a deep breath
and seal your lips around their mouth; blow into the mouth until the
chest rises; remove your mouth and allow the chest to fall; repeat once
more.
9. Continue CPR
Continue resuscitation, 30 compressions to 2 rescue breaths.
Do not stop unless: emergency help arrives to take over; they show
signs of recovery such as coughing, opening eyes, speaking or moving
purposefully and breathing normally; you become so exhausted you
cannot carry on.
!254
!255
!256
!257

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OXFORD CENTRE FOR THE MIND: MASTER YOUR MEMORY

Master Your Memory

remember everything that you need to know.

About the author

"Excellent - best course I have been on in ages - thought

4. The Power of Association 58

5. Developing Sensory Memory 75

6. Creating New Memories 106

7. Memory Systems 123

9. Factors Affecting Memory 176

10. Applying Memory Principles 193

11. Ongoing Practice and Improving Performance 217

12. Appendix: Memory Challenges 231

specifics of each event, is actually an important part of learning and

The English philosopher John Locke (1632-1704) suggested that our

taken seriously if he or she isn't familiar with the fundamentals of their

instances, quite possibly apocryphal, is that of the Greek lyric poet

memory skills have made them formidable card-counters. There is,

greater attention to your surroundings, you will start to remember more

frequently. This way your mental muscle will be consistently stimulated

ironically forgotten with the advent of external ways of storing our

7. Cardinal Mezzofanti learnt to speak how many languages

6. Training your memory can have financial advantages.

perfectly - there is a scene in the film Amadeus where on one hearing of

Areas of Human Activity

Procedural or Skills Memory

8. If you can see an image of your parents in your mind's eye,

6. Which area of memory would you be using when packing a

have different structural qualities. In due course, we are going to show

Virtually everyone gets handbag. Why?

training it will enable you to compose a song, ride a bicycle, paint a

This associative and non-linear structure of memory prevents us from

do unconsciously and in an undirected way. We are now going to

This is what the author came up with on doing this exercise.

The purpose of this exercise is twofold.

Try the same with the following words: -

11. It is easy to keep one's mind completely empty of ideas. True /

Answer: (b) overlapping with everybody else's.

Connecting the two hemispheres is a bundle of neurons known as the

Instead, certain subjective techniques are employed which ensure that

So for someone skilled in visualisation they are not remembering an

imagination is able to fully engage and is not distracted by changes in

movement. Think of a time when you were watching a sports match

Most people have an excellent memory for matters to do with sex. If

In the following chapter, we will examine how to create vivid new

Visual Memory Exercise Part 2

because there are cues suggesting its presence.

House (Spanish) Casa

12. Why is immersing yourself in the culture of the language you

8. When learning a foreign word, why do you not need to use an

Italian for bread? Pane.

Another well-known mnemonic is used to distinguish between

Using a physical mnemonic to remember the number of days in each month.

Method of Loci Exercise

The next location is my garden gate, which consists of two wooden

Taurus, the Bull;

dominatrix hitting people with a handbag. A nun (representing virtue)

argent (Argent-ina). We all then hear a military parade coming along

A System for Remembering Numbers

No. A-Z Character Associated Action

28 BH Benny Hill Driving a milk float

56 ES Ebenezer Scrooge Counting money

85 HE Harry Enfield Saying, "You don't want to do that," while

11. Ongoing Practice and Improving Performance 217 

6. Training your memory can have financial advantages.  

Check your motivation. 