
Remembering, as an Extreme Sport - cpeterso
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/05/19/remembering-as-an-extreme-sport/
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Monkeyget
If you are interested in the topic I recommend the book “Moonwalking With
Einstein” mentioned in the article. It's both entertaining and informative. I
particularly liked the parts about mastering a skill as efficiently as
possible.

I tried some memorizing techniques. It's a great feeling to improve 10x at a
(specific) memorizing tasks in very little and effort time by using one weird
trick©.

I used to try to remember random words during my commute and recall them when
coming back. I took a list of random words from /usr/dict and set myself a
timer of a few minutes to remember 30 words using memory palace. I used
various places from the commute itself to store words. It was fun to see the
words pop-up automatically in specific places on my way back. My performance
declined after a while because I wasn't able to erase the previous words.

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drivers99
A how-to book like The Memory Book[1] is good for getting started on the
techniques. When I read Moonwalking With Einstein it sounded like more and
more techniques are being invented all the time, but it didn't go into as much
"how-to" detail. If there's a more up to date how-to book out there, I'd be
interested.

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/The-Memory-Book-Classic-
Improving/dp/0...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Memory-Book-Classic-
Improving/dp/0345337581)

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themodelplumber
I get a smile on my face whenever I see these stories. I read the book "Super
Memory - Super Student" by Harry Lorayne when I was at university, and used
the techniques to memorize an entire exam study book for a film theory course
qualification exam.

The entire exam book was (and to some extent, still is, 12 years later) laid
out in my mind as a large room through which I rode on a rail, visiting the
various locations. Each location corresponded to a set of information.

Final exam score, 104 out of 100 possible points (four extra-credit points).
And this is just using one of many possible techniques!

But alas, you have to decide to use this stuff as it takes some effort and if
you're too excited about it, some fear of success can creep in and keep you
from your studies.

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tzs
How well can these people update things they have memorized?

For instance, suppose they memorized a deck of cards. Then suppose someone
were to call out exchanges ("swap ace of spades and 3 of clubs...swap 2 of
diamonds and 5 of hearts...") to shuffle the deck. Would they be able to
quickly adjust their mental representation of the deck to take this into
account, and so recall the modified deck?

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themodelplumber
I can speak from experience with the memory palace or peg systems. It's pretty
easy to update, especially if you have a sequence of update mechanisms in
mind. For example, the first replacement is an explosion, the second is
melting, etc. If you have an ace of spades (say, pink elephant) that explodes
into little toy killer whales (3 of clubs) then you know that's the first
change. To make these stick in my mind I would engage as many senses as
possible. What did it sound like when the killer whales hit the floor (did
they squeak), what did it feel like in my hands when I picked up a bunch and
squeezed them, etc.

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laxatives
Does the technique still work if you don't have an existing system for it (I'm
guessing this is like a mapping of some sort?). Like, replace the Ace of
Diamonds with the word "gopher" and replace the Queen of Hearts with this
sound?

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JoshMnem
Without an existing system it would be slow, but possible. I often teach
people to memorize the order of black and red in a deck of cards forwards and
backwards within 15-20 minutes, even if they have no previous experience or
system. (The equivalent of 52 random binary digits.) Memorizing binary data is
significantly easier though.

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diggum
Fun. I spent some time with memory-training last year and used it to
successfully impress my 7-year old son and his friends by having them suggest
random words and write them down in a big list (one word per line, legibly -
they had no idea they were secretly practicing penmanship!) and then I'd
recite them from the mental story I'd created from each one after only a few
minutes study. Six months later, I could still recite 50+ out of the 75 words
without hesitation, and for multiple lists.

My "trick" was simply to create a visual story that incorporated each word and
linked it to the next one. As long as I could remember the first word and the
initial plot of the story, it was pretty simple to link to each subsequent
word. In addition, I had great nonsensical stories to tell my kid when he
couldn't go to sleep at night.

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sssilver
Isn't "Extreme Sport" something that has potential to injury/death?

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pessimizer
No, it was branding for when they started showing skateboarding, snowboarding,
and freestyle motocross on television.

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was_hellbanned
For memory techniques, including memory palaces, I can recommend "Quantum
Memory Power" by Dominic O'Brien. He was (is?) a world champion at
memorization, and does pretty well at presenting in his audio book. Some of it
feels a bit out of date (e.g. popular names he uses to help with
memorization), but if you can get past it there's a lot to learn.

"Tricks of the Mind" by Derren Brown also has some basic information on
memorization, along with a host of other interesting topics.

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JoshMnem
+1 for Quantum Memory Power.

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npsimons
While it's more pragmatic and covers broader ground, "Mind Performance Hacks"
by Ron Hale-Evans has its first chapter on memory, and I can recommend it all
around.

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personlurking
Super interesting stuff.

I see the Memory Palace obviously mentioned and the "test, retest and tweak"
(which I'm not familiar with). Are there other techniques?

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JoshMnem
Other memory techniques? Look up: pao system, major system, Dominic system,
number rhymes, number shapes, alphabet pegs, and memory town system.

