Main Body
Memory Magic
Click play on the following audio player to listen along as you read this section.
Dave Farrow is a Canadian recorded in the Guinness Book of World Records for Greatest Memory. As a student, Dave had a learning disability called dyslexia. He found ways to improve his memory in order to do well in school despite his struggles with reading and writing. In 2008, he set a world record by memorizing the order of 59 decks of playing cards in two days.
How did his brain store all this information? Dave says anyone’s brain can do it, but it helps to understand how memory works. The information enters your sensory memory, which can hold lots of information, but only for a few seconds. If you pay attention to the information, it goes into your short-term memory. This is why learning to pay attention is an important first step. To help the brain focus, Dave recommends breaking big tasks down into smaller tasks. He sets a timer and works as hard as he can for short periods of time until the timer goes off. Then he takes a small break. This keeps his focus strong.
Your short-term memory can only hold information for 15 seconds to a few minutes. In addition, short-term memory can only hold about seven things at a time. Memory champions like Dave have to hold long lists of information in their short-term memory at one time. To do this, they use different tricks.
One trick is to look at the first letter of each word in the list you want to memorize. Then, make a word or phrase using all those letters. This is called an acronym. For example, if you want to remember all the colours in the rainbow, try remembering the name Roy G. Biv. Each letter in Roy G. Biv matches the first letter of a colour: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. When you want to remember the colours of the rainbow, just think of Roy G. Biv and you will have an easier time.
Another trick is to organize information into chunks. For example, when you try to remember a telephone number, your brain usually remembers it in chunks. You remember the area code as one chunk, the next three numbers as a chunk, and the final four numbers as a chunk. This way, your brain only has to remember three things instead of 10. This works for words as well as numbers. Say you want to improve your vocabulary. When you learn a new word, study words that share the same meaning. This way, you learn several new words at one time and you only need to memorize one definition. This is called a synonym. For example, these words mean big: huge, enormous, gigantic, large, and massive.
A third memory trick is to use visualization. Say you want to memorize how people developed from wormlike creatures into human beings. First, create a picture in your mind for each stage (I can see a worm, a fish, a monkey, and a human). Then, think of a path you regularly walk along. For example, I often walk from the sidewalk, into my house, and into the kitchen. For instance, in the garden I can see a wo