Required memory reading (7/29)

[Xenkylm]

That being said, I do have a completely antithetical capacity to remember long strings of numbers (I remember them in 'bunches' somehow, a phenomon partially explained by the recent article in Scientific American: 'Secrets of the Expert Mind').

That's how I remembered the first 40 digits of Pi, actually, which is very easy if you bunch things into groups or patterns. There happen to be quite a few pallendromes in the first 40 digits or so:

3.1415926535897932384626433832795028841971

It gets a lot harder near the end, but once you remember the first set of patterns, plus the fact that for the first couple, there's only an 8 in between them, it's easy!

One of the fun things about remembering long strings of numbers is that after a while, it's like a song. I can get through those 40 digits every time, because it's more of a song lyric than a number now. And just like song lyrics, I can't start from mid-way through

Since this is a memory thread, there should be more talk about mnemonics. They're so powerful, and some are so useful that I get the feeling I'll never forget certain things (like types of clam chowder. Manhatten is the Big Apple, and apples are red). SohCahToa is similarly potent, unless you're in a US History class covering colonial america.

[missbitesalot]

But anyone can take advantage of mnemonics. By that I mean to say that I don't think they can offer much insight into actual memorization. I personally feel that if you can memorize the mnemonic device then you can also just memorize what it's for...but then I admit to rarely using them, so maybe they are more helpful than I'm giving them credit for.

What other M.D.s are there?

"Double the "C," double the "S," and you will always have 'success'." is a really common one.

[Xenkylm]

But anyone can take advantage of mnemonics. By that I mean to say that I don't think they can offer much insight into actual memorization.

That's true, but they do offer a little bit of a fun philosophical insight. Specifically, by memorizing a mnemonic device, you are one step abstracted away from an actual memory. The truly interesting mnemonics, from that standpoint, are the ones that have no relationship with the memory they represent. "Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally" is a classic, both because it's easy to remember, and doesn't really provide any info about math. I suspect that this is one of the reasons that people don't always use mnemonics... you have to remember the info AND something to reference it (more effort than just remembering one thing!). Of course, we know that they work so we sometimes go that extra mile.

Is it possible that we could find someone who can't use mnemonics? Someone who isn't able to abstract from one memory to another? That's tricky, because we don't know a lot about how memories are actually formed on a physiological level (despite what a lot of people write!). Maybe if someone had hippocampal damage, since that's involved with memory formation, though I'm not aware of any studies of brain-damaged people that doesn't involve complete anterograde amnesia.

People with lobotomies have trouble with some higher-level cognitive functioning, so maybe they'd be good candidates for this (any volunteers? Ken?)

[rkd]

Mnemonics were a big topic in pedagogical theory a few years ago and may still be. Here's one randomly chosen link ... http://www.k8accesscenter.org/training_ ... monics.asp . The application of mnemonics of the type described in that link seem far too complicated and tenuous for me.

As Xenkylm notes, studies of people completely unable to use mnemonics might provide insight into how memory is stored, encoded, and retrieved. I'd also be interested to see a study which compares people who have learned something via a mnemonic versus people who have learned it through a different path. (Given that they're a big topic in education, such studies have presumably been done.) For instance, as a former quizbowl player, I've got a lot of random things stored via "mnemonics," with the mnemonic sometimes being just a made-up word consisting of the first letters. Like COSDCP ... those are the periods of the Paleozoic Era ... Cambrian, Ordovician, Silurian, Devonian, Carboniferous, and Permian. I had only a superficial knowledge of geology when I came up with that, and it helped. However, I find that when trying to answer a question on a given period, I have trouble unless the question mentions either the period before it or after it. If I'd initially learned from a chart with dates and descriptions of the periods and such things ... either I might have known the material better, or I might not have learned it at all.

Another problem, as Xenkylm notes again, is remembering what the letters or words stand for. To stay with the geology theme, I used PEOMP for the epochs of the Tertiary Period ... Paleocene, Eocene, Oligocene, Myocene, and Pliocene. But it's tough to keep from mixing up the Paleocene and Pliocene -- "paleo" implies older, so that's how I keep it straight. A mnemonic (which I don't want to reprint here) used for resistor codes is also difficult in that respect, since black, brown, and blue all start with the same letter, as do green and grey. And I'd imagine that problem gets worse as the connection gets more abstract and tenuous ... or maybe not. Maybe there's a point at which the absurdity of the connection would make the connection more memorable. ... OK, perhaps not.

Anyway, I think studies of the effectiveness of mnemonics can indeed provide some insight. They could even be an analog of how the brain itself acquires a foundation for information and then builds on it. I find that I can learn concepts from a given field much more readily after I've built a foundation of basic terms. And in at least some cases, I can remember the terms themselves more quickly via mnemonics. Perhaps the noggin does the same.

--Raj Dhuwalia, mostly just repeating Xenkylm's post

[sidnelle]

I use mnemonics to remember simple everyday things. Maybe it's because I'm getting older (I'm 58) but I find myself forgetting little things a lot more easily these days, like going into the grocery store and forgetting what I wanted to buy! So I have found that making a little sentence like Bring Back Tomatoes My Chickadee helps me to remember Bread, Butter, Tomatoes, Milk and Cheese. Somehow it is easier, in the short term, to remember the mnemonic than to remember the list items. The only problem I run into is forgetting, sometimes, what the B stands for. I always remember the sentence. I also have a password made up of random letters which I made a mnemonic for years ago and which I never forget.

[Xenkylm]

I use mnemonics to remember simple everyday things. Maybe it's because I'm getting older (I'm 58) but I find myself forgetting little things a lot more easily these days, like going into the grocery store and forgetting what I wanted to buy!

One of the problems with getting older, as everyone knows, is that your 'memory starts to go.' But interestingly enough, your memory isn't the problem (at least, not the whole problem)! Cognitive aging is a huge and well-funded area of research, possibly because the government would like to have a ton of cognitively agile seniors instead of a bunch of 90-year old sitting around watching Jeopardy! all day. Anyway, one of the big findings in cognitive aging is that as you get older, the speed of processing in your brain decreases, and you lose some of your "executive control," which basically is the little man in your head that lets you do two tasks at once, or to ignore irrelevant information. Tim Salthouse at the University of Virginia does a lot of this research.

Seniors almost always score better than college students or middle-aged people on tests of long term memory, like vocabulary or history facts, but they completely stink when it comes to performing day-to-day tasks. When you (sidnelle and other eventual-seniors) make mnemonics, you are associating some of your long-term memory (which is still good) to a single chunk of info to store temporarily, easing the burden on your working memory (which is starting to get very bad). It's similar to the ease of remembering a word like "BRAT" instead of a series of letters like "A B R T," even though the information stored is the same. When you forget parts of the mnemonic, it's likely because part of its meaning was also being stored in working memory.

I'll cut this post short, but to sum up, when you get older:
-Your memory doesn't really get that much worse, BUT
-Your brain slows down a little bit
-You can't multitask very well
...which adds up to poorly-functioning working memory, and possibly some crazy implausible stories about when you and Steven Spielberg were 8 and stole onions from farmer Murphy.

To avoid getting into trouble when you're much older (like 75 - 95):
-use mnemonics (good sidnelle!)
-write things down!
-finish important tasks before moving on to other things, and
-set up your environment so important things (like taking medicine) occur in non-distracting environments.

good luck!

/and sorry for the long post!

[Robert Hutchinson]

I had/have a weird relationship with "King Philip Calls Out For Green Spinach". I'll remember the mnemonic, but be uncertain that I have it exactly right--so I'll check my work with the actual list, to see if it "sounds right".

[WendellWit]

HEY! No fair quoting mnemonics without stating what they're mnemonics FOR...

[Azuma]

I had/have a weird relationship with "King Philip Calls Out For Green Spinach". I'll remember the mnemonic, but be uncertain that I have it exactly right--so I'll check my work with the actual list, to see if it "sounds right".

I always thought it was "King Philliip Could Order from Great Sordino's" !!!

[jaclyn]

HEY! No fair quoting mnemonics without stating what they're mnemonics FOR...

I think it's the classifications from biology: kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species.

Must be a good mnemonic, because I had never heard it, and I didn't know the list either, but it just seemed to fit.

[rkd]

I had/have a weird relationship with "King Philip Calls Out For Green Spinach". I'll remember the mnemonic, but be uncertain that I have it exactly right--so I'll check my work with the actual list, to see if it "sounds right".

I've heard at least four different versions of this one ... the one I learned in middle school (presumably not from the teacher) was Kings Play Chess on Fat Girls' Stomachs. I remember another one involving Fried Green Spinach. And my students a few years ago had a different one which I can't remember.

[Ken Jennings]

In junior high, we learned that his majesty Came Over From Germany Swimming.

[Robert Hutchinson]

HEY! No fair quoting mnemonics without stating what they're mnemonics FOR...

It's the quizzing spirit, sir!

[sidnelle]

.

To avoid getting into trouble when you're much older (like 75 - 95):
-use mnemonics (good sidnelle!)
-write things down!
-finish important tasks before moving on to other things, and
-set up your environment so important things (like taking medicine) occur in non-distracting environments.


Thanks so much for the wonderful explanation of aging and memory and the advice which followed it. I cut and pasted it into a document so I wouldn't forget it!

[WendellWit]

Thanks so much for the wonderful explanation of aging and memory and the advice which followed it. I cut and pasted it into a document so I wouldn't forget it!

What? Did somebody have some good advice? About what? What were we talking about? What is this place? Can anybody tell me where I can find Ken Jeopardy? Or Alexander the Beck? Or Regis? Yeah, that's it. Regis Flavin, I think he's Ribo's brother.

[Xenkylm]

Thanks so much for the wonderful explanation of aging and memory and the advice which followed it. I cut and pasted it into a document so I wouldn't forget it!

Thanks! I hope the info comes in handy (though hopefully you won't really need it for another 20 years or more).

[TheConfessor]

Basketball legend Jerry Lucas used to be a frequent guest on Johnny Carson's show, performing amazing feats of memory and promoting his books on the subject. As I recall, he would meet each person in the audience before the show and then identify them by name when he came out as a guest. I, on the other hand, can forget a person's name the second after I hear it, while I'm still shaking hands with someone I meet.

Here's a link to the classic memory book by Jerry Lucas. I recommend buying it together with "Brainiac" by Ken Jennings.

[gvonk]

I had/have a weird relationship with "King Philip Calls Out For Green Spinach". I'll remember the mnemonic, but be uncertain that I have it exactly right--so I'll check my work with the actual list, to see if it "sounds right".

I've heard at least four different versions of this one ... the one I learned in middle school (presumably not from the teacher) was Kings Play Chess on Fat Girls' Stomachs. I remember another one involving Fried Green Spinach. And my students a few years ago had a different one which I can't remember.

In my High School Biology class, it was "Kings Play Cards On Fat Green Stools". There are quite a few variants of this one, it seems.

Did everyone else learn "My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pies (or Pizzas)?

[Lilly]

Did everyone else learn "My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pies (or Pizzas)?

I learned that one, and "My Very Educated Mother Just Sat Upon Nine Pins." I also learned one for math order of operations...Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally (Parentheses, Exponents, Multiply, Divide, Add, Subtract). I always have a harder time remembering the sentence than I do just remembering the list!

[Max Power]

I had/have a weird relationship with "King Philip Calls Out For Green Spinach". I'll remember the mnemonic, but be uncertain that I have it exactly right--so I'll check my work with the actual list, to see if it "sounds right".

There was a challenger on Jeopardy recently whose story was that his daughter won a prize for inventing a mnemonic for Kingdom, Phylum, Class, etc. First of all, how lame is it that your best story is about something your college-age daughter did, and worse yet, I don't even think it was that original!

[John]

Since you mentioned Sacks, I'll chime in with a plug for "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat." This book is probably in my Top 20 Nonfiction List ("probably" because I never get around to actually making the list). There are some chapters that deal with cognitive disorders relating to memory. One "memorable" one deals with the man who had a good memory up to a cetain point, at which all long term memory stopped. His short term memory was fine and he could play checkers. He couldn't play chess because the length of the game exceeded short term memory capacity. His brother visited him weekly at the institution and he always remarked about how quickly his brother had aged. He was somewhere in the 50's at which time alcohol abuse had brought an end to his long term memory. We learn a lot about how the normal mind works by examination of the abnormal.

That reminds me of node theory in cognitive psychology. The theory goes that IQ is how many connections each node has. A node is one bit of information, which is useless by itself. For example, "circle" is a node, "wheel" is a separate node. Node theory believes that how many connections a person has to "circle" or "wheel" determines intelligence. When you think of "wheel", do you instantly think of a tire, or a steering wheel, or something else? The theory continues that more connections between nodes requires less energy in recall, which makes recall easier.

[Professor John]

Makes sense to me. When I "nodes" something...I feel really smart.

[kmkat]

(Chiming in very, very late because I just found Ken's blog.) If you are interested in a fictional approach to the function of memory, I recommend "Spilling Clarence" by Anne Urso, the story of what happens in a college town when an industrial accident causes people to remember everything. It's an intriguing concept and the book is decently-written.

[Ken Jennings]

Also late to the party here, but I just finished In Search of Memory by Eric Kandel, who won a Nobel Prize for his work on memory. What's amazing about Kandel's book is that, I would assume, he knows as much about the mechanics of memory as anyone on earth...and he's still working, practically, on cell-level basics. Lots more to know.

[cemoore333]

There's another really good one, but I forget what it was called. It had a picture of a turtle in a suit. Or maybe a bird.