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 |  Subject: How to improve your memory  Wed Aug 13, 2008 4:13 am | |
| In 477BC the Greek poet Simonides of Ceos devised a memory technique called the “method of loci”. This entails memorising items along an imagined journey and then mentally retracing one's steps to recall each article.
More than 2,000 years later, the same mnemonic system will be brought into play at the UK Open Memory Championships next weekend in London. Over two days, competitors from across the country will face gruelling mental challenges, from memorising a sequence of 200 random words in five minutes, to remembering the sequence of playing cards in as many decks as possible. The winner will compete at the World Memory Championships in Bahrain in October.
The open nature of the UK competition is something of a misnomer. As Phil Chambers, “chief arbiter” of the championship, explains, anyone untrained in the art of “mind sports” can expect humiliation.
To put it into perspective: on average most of us can recall between five and nine numbers in a row. The eight-times world memory champion Dominic O'Brien, 50, can remember the order of 54 randomly shuffled decks of playing cards - an astounding 2,808 cards. He has turned his memory into a full-time career, running memory workshops and writing numerous books.
The event itself is like an intense exam. This year 26 people will take part. The room is silent; one competitor paints his glasses black, leaving a 1cm hole in the middle, to “cut out peripheral vision”; others wear eardefenders to keep disturbances to a minimum.
For some, this competition is the culmination of months of training. Memory exercises, diet and physical activity all play a part. O'Brien cuts out alcohol for four months before competitions and takes fish oils and Ginkgo biloba. Gunther Karsten, from Germany, the current world champion, follows a regimen of physical and mental exercise and meditation.
Katie Kermode, 30, from Cheshire, a translator (she is fluent in Dutch, French and German), is the only British woman competing in the contest, and says that she cannot resist the challenge. “I get bored easily,” she explains. “I like to think of new ways of challenging my mind. I get a buzz out of it. And I like the competitive element - meeting the other competitors and trying to beat their scores.”
Chart-topping party trick
She has plans to commit every chart-topping pop song to memory. When she hears your date of birth, she will be able to tell you what was No 1 at the time. She is doing this purely for fun. “It will be such a great party trick,” she says. “The charts started in the 1950s so there'll be around 2,500 songs to remember.”
According to scientists, the competitors' skill has not come from any in-built ability; it is simply the result of practice.
When Eleanor Maguire, professor of cognitive neuroscience at University College London, scanned the brains of O'Brien and other mnemonists, she found nothing unexpected in their brains' structure.
The secret of their success lies not so much in how their brains are wired as in how they have trained them. Maguire and her colleagues matched ten memory champions with ten regular people and set them tasks recalling numbers, faces and snowflake patterns. The “normal” controls set about memorising the information as best they could, but with no set system. The experts had failsafe techniques, almost all using the “method of loci”, sometimes called the “journey” or “mental walk” (see box, right).
Using brain-imaging techniques, Maguire found the memory experts made greater use of the areas of the brain associated with spatial navigation - specifically the hippocampus, the area that you use when thinking about which way to walk or drive to a real location. The “journeys” that the experts were taking were vivid enough to feel almost real. By adding colour, emotion and movement to spatial navigation, they had increased their ability to store and retrieve information.
Ben Pridmore, 31, an accountant and reigning UK champion and the world No 2, says: “I don't have a naturally brilliant memory. It's about learning techniques. It's a combination of number-crunching that I do anyway in my job - with added colour.”
Pridmore's system for remembering playing cards involves assigning a different mental picture to each combination of two cards. The ace of diamonds followed by the eight of diamonds is represented by Daffy Duck (Pridmore uses cartoon characters from Looney Tunes cartoons and The Simpsons, as well as random objects) whereas the ace of diamonds followed by the king of hearts is represented by a ladder. There are 2,704 possible combinations. These characters and objects then rapidly interact with each other as they embark on a journey. To recall the information, Pridmore reruns the story; as each character appears, he retrieves the two-card sequences.
Dr Narender Ramnani, reader in cognitive neuroscience at Royal Holloway, University of London, says that most of us spontaneously use a system called “chunking”. If we need to remember a telephone number, we break it up into sets of three or four- number sequences. We rely on the prefrontal cortex, part of the brain used for decision-making and devising strategies. We grapple to find the best way to retain and recall information, while the champs have made the process much more efficient.
“This ability is not beyond anyone”
Chambers, who organises the championships, believes that the competitors have found a way to convert “semantic memory” (data and numbers) into “episodic memory” (memory associated with our experiences). The neuroscientists say it is less clear-cut.
“What is clear is that there is nothing special about these people. It is a remarkable ability but it is not beyond anyone. These people have trained their neural system to work very efficiently,” Dr Ramnani says.
Apparently, any of us could do the same. Just this week a study in the journal Science revealed that our visual memory is more flexible than previously thought. And a study published in the journal NeuroRehabilition earlier this year by Dr Karen Sullivan, a psychologist from Queensland University of Technology, Australia, tested commercial memoryimprovement programmes and found significant improvements among people using visualisation techniques.
However, motivation is key, Dr Ramnani says, and when it comes to committing more than 1,000 numbers to memory, not many of us have the patience or inclination.
The UK Open Memory Championships will be held at Simpson's in the Strand, London, 16th-17th August.The event includes a half-day seminar on memory. Tickets cost £80. For details visit: worldmemorysportscouncil.com
Events at the UK Open Memory Championships, August 16-17
SATURDAY
Random words - sequence of 200 random words. Memorised for 5 min; 10 min to recall in the same order.
Binary numbers 990-digit sequence of 0 and 1, randomly mixed. Memorised for 5 min;15 min to recall.
Names and faces - 60 random faces with names. Memorised for 5 min; 10 min to match the names and faces.
Numbers - sequence of 1,000 numbers. Memorised for 15 min; 30 min to recall.
Cards - order of cards memorised in as many decks as possible. Memorised for 10 min; 20 min to recall.
SUNDAY
Speed numbers - sequence of 1,000 numbers. Memorised for
5 min; 15 min to recall.
Abstract images - sequence of 150 random blobs. Memorised for 5 min; 30 min to recall.
Historic dates - 110 fictional events with dates. Memorised for 5 min; 15 min to match the events with the dates.
The events below are “sudden death” - one mistake and a competitor is eliminated
Spoken numbers 1 - 1 digit read aloud per second. Memorised for 100 sec (that is, 100 digits); 5 min to recall.
Spoken numbers 2 - 1 digit read aloud per second
(200 digits). Memorised for
200 sec; 10 min to recall.
Speed card trials 1 & 2 - order of cards in one deck memorised in as short a time as possible. Maximum: 5 min; 5 min to recall.
TOP TIPS FOR BOOSTING MEMORY
Recalling sequences Tony Buzan, the mind guru, uses vivid stories. To remember the order of the planets, he pictures a thermometer next to the Sun; the Sun gets so hot that the thermometer bursts, leaking mercury (Mercury); a beautiful goddess comes to see what has happened (Venus); she picks up a globule of mercury and hurls it into the ground (Earth), and so on.
This memory-link system uses both hemispheres of the brain: the left for order, logic and reasoning and the right for imagination, colour and emotion.
Eventually the neural pathways associated with this type of memorising become strengthened, making recall easier.
Recalling numbers Remember this sequence: 2, 1, 9, 0, 4, 1, 10, 99, 72, 31, 22, 0, 2, 5, 7. How many numbers could you recall? Probably no more than seven.
Now try this technique devised by Dominic O'Brien: Think of the 2 as a swan, 1 a telephone pole, 9 a balloon on a string, 0 a football, 4 a sailboat. For 10 think of the Prime Minister, for 99 think of Mr Whippy. When you get to 72, break the number down into letters corresponding to their place in the alphabet. 72 is G and B, the initials of George Bush. Do the same for the rest of the numbers, then invent a story in sequence: a swan bumps into a telephone pole, at the top of the pole is a balloon on a string, it has a picture of a football on it, and so on.
Recalling lists Use the Method of Loci: imagining a familiar journey, place or building and creating a story around it. Mentally position the things you want to remember at points along the journey, then link them together in your mind. You could use rooms in your house. If you need to remember milk, bread and sausages, visualise the milk spilling out over your doormat, soaking an enormous loaf of bread in the hallway. Haul yourself up the stairs using a string of sausages and so on. Retrace your steps to recall each item.
Recalling faces Use visual associations. If the person is called Taylor, picture them with a tape measure around their neck. If the first name is Carol, imagine them singing Away in a Manger...
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