Memorization method

[ShenLi]

A topic near and dear to my heart...

When I was in Uni, I had friends who had photographic memories. They could read text books and cite references telling you down to the exact page and paragraph the information was on. Back then, I had always assumed that it was just something they were born with - in other words, you either had it or you didn't and I didn't so I had to learn things the hard way.

When I met my husband, I learned about auditory memory. He had the most amazing ability to recall things that were said verbatim even when it looked as if he wasn't paying attention. Since he qualified for Mensa, I, again, assumed it was genetics - he was born with it..

When I heard about right brain education, I was intrigued because they promoted the idea that everyone has the potential of a photographic memory. If we trained our brains the right way, we can access the photographic memory function. After attending classes with my sons, I do believe it can be done because I have seen snippets of images before my eyes after the image has been removed. My only problem is that I can't hold the image long enough in my mind to see it clearly. I guess if properly trained, one would be able to retain the image as long as required which is what people with photographic memories do.

The more I learn about the mind, the more I believe that it can be trained. Even if we never fully get to the point of perfect memory, some enhancement of memory is better than none. If we could retain more of what we learned by training our brains, then that has got to be a useful skill to develop.

If this is a skill that can be trained, then how? As far as I understand, looking at rapidly flashing images and practicing the soft eye focus (like what you would do if you were trying to view a 3D stereogram) helps.

[DadDude]

Shen-Li, are you familiar with research about training photographic memory? This has always intrigued me, but, well, I have a lot of questions. 

[jc1]

Hi Everyone,
(First of all, greetings to you all since this is my first post at BrillKids Forum.)  I don't know if my following experience below fit in what DadDude is looking for as an example of the memorization method. We don't do any of them intentionally, but I'd like to share that the repetitive review method did work for our kids.

Example #1:  We read Bible stories to our kids every night ever since they were babies. First, we started with the baby version, then the toddler, then the younger children version, then the older children version. We just loop with the same book until we determine that they are ready to move on to the next version. Despite the different versions, all the books discuss the same stories and characters. My 6-yr-old knows by heart all these stories and characters.

Example #2: My 6-yr-old's piano school makes all the kids listen to CD's of the pieces that they're going to learn in the next 2-3 years (Suzuki and Bastien pieces). So, we listen to those songs 20-45 minutes a day since she was 4.  This was passive listening, meaning she's not allowed to wear a headset to listen to those songs. We mostly do this listening assignment during meal, quiet/rest or play time. Again, she knows these songs by heart, and it leads her to learn a new piece a week effortlessly.

In summary, I have no doubt that the method that Dr. Jones described would work. It’s just a matter of whether we as the parents have the time, energy and consistency in applying the method. For me, it was a burden already to remember to play my daughter’s piano CD’s every day. I can’t imagine if I have to make my own CD and update it. (Remember: there will be times when we’re done with one set of info to memorize, and need to move on to the next set.)  For now, I’m happy with just focusing on the daily Bible stories and piano CD.

As for adding the mind map to the recording, there is the cool iPad app for teachers where you can record your voice and drawing at the same time for the students to play later. (I don’t remember what it’s called since I don’t have my iPad with me.) But, I’m sure that will be a fun tool to combine both audio and visual inputs for our little ones.

[Sharpie]

This is a fascinating topic.

Prior to being a stay-at-home-mom, I worked in an area where I needed to be able to understand and recall vast amounts of very dry information.  It was extremely difficult for me because I have auditory processing disorder, which means, as the name implies, it can be next to impossible to process information that I hear.  And if I can't process it and understand it, I certainly cannot remember it because I never had it to remember.

In an effort to overcome this extremely irritating impediment, with microphone and recording software in hand, I started recording everything I had to learn and would listen to it in the car during my lengthy commute.  I became absolutely amazed that via repetition, I was suddenly not only able to understand, but also remember vast amounts of information in great detail.  Constantly recording new information was certainly very time-consuming, but it changed my productivity immensely, thus improving my quality of life, as well.  Not to mention, I'm sure it helped keep me gainfully employed! 

[Mandabplus3]

@seastar thank you for elaborating. I actually remember on more than one occasion drawing the diagrams that came with my biology textbook, during an exam, so that I could remember the missing piece of info. I had forgotten about this. I will teach this mind mapping technique to my daughter today! Thank you!I I can see she will benefit from this greatly in years ahead.
@shenli. Thanks for sharing. Could you tell us more about the classes your kids attended? Was it a tweedlewink course? What activities did they do and how old were your childen? Interesting to see you also got some results, they often say parents who attend with their children get some benefit too. I can see after imaging reasonable clearly ( simple shapes) but only in black and white so far. I can hold the image for  two seconds and occasionally longer. I find that fascinating and intend to work with memory magic games to improve it along with my kids (waiting for disk, postman has a snail truck!) from the little research I could actually find their games should work at improving sequential memory and potential photographic memory as well as retina deveolpment. Until I actually see how high the game levels go I can't say if they will be fully successful or not. But it will be a good place to start. If you are interested they are a product partner, check it out. It must have been so frustrating to have friends at uni who had photographic memories! Intriging but frustrating! 
@jc1 welcome to the forum!
Thank you for sharing your experience. A big thank you for the piano tip! I will use this my daughters method books they use from school have discs of music we have never played them  Know that I think about it, it would help greatly with their ear training! They use softmozart at home also and we always play the piece first! I will request a CD be made of the soft Mozart music on their forum next!!! Gosh I can't believe I missed that one! Thank you.
I would love the name of that app, if you don't mind. It sounds interesting. I am a little challenged when it comes to digital audio  it may make it possible for me
The bible stories are great for repeat readings especially since they get more complicated for different ages. We read them too but my kids only want the ones with pictures! I have noticed the same thing with fairy tales. My kids can easily retell the three little pigs ect. Based on that I assume if you got a leveled series of science readers from basic to complex and built up the knowledge year by year, the kids would retain and add information accurately.
@sixteen Charlotte How did you get a photographic memory? Was it always there or did you train to it?
@ everyone else sorry for hijacking the post 

[DadDude]

Welcome, @jc1!

@Sharpie, fascinating support. If anybody was not an "auditory learner," it was you, who presumably had an actual, scientifically diagnosable condition that in an objective sense made it difficult for you to process information you heard, and yet you managed to record information you heard and through repetition learn it!  Well done!

Anyway, update about H. He has told me every day for the last five days that he loves this new scheme, and he has said twice that he is grateful to Dr. Jones for suggesting it. (I am not kidding--and I didn't suggest that he say this or anything!) While he can be very articulate and expressive when he wants to be, he doesn't usually go out of his way to express how happy he is with a new book or educational technique or whatever. I told him about the problem I anticipate, that we might end up listening to these audio files for 30-60 minutes per day, if we went whole hog with the method, and he said he would like to do that. Of course, he is five and he has no way to know that. But so far he has listened very patiently to recordings that were 7.5, 12, and 7.5 minutes long and has said that he loves them, because they remind him of what he has learned.

@jc1 is of course very right that the challenge will be for both me and H., and soon enough E. too, to keep this up. So far, I've been religiously keeping the recorder in my shirt pocket and this has been very little trouble. Obviously we're going to have to change up some stuff if we want to add a half hour of listening every day, though.

[Skylark]

Fascinating, truly fascinating!

You probably would be interested in  the story I am about to share.

My dad, had a life-long habit of keeping a note of most important points of what he had learned, and reviewing it "a day, a week, a month and a year later". He did not do recordings ( there was no easy option for that in those days). But he kept notebooks, amazingly organized with pretty sophisticated system of reminders. A lot of notebooks.

He was considered to be a genius by some, he entered University before he was 15 years old ( it was NOT common in Soviet Union), he graduated before his 18th Birthday. He was an engineer ( his passion and his education) with line of inventions. But he was working in the government, as a science advisor. He spoke and read literature in some of the most complicated languages, which he taught himself as a hobby!!

When I was in school ( and I attended an advanced math school as a child), I only needed to ask him anything from my math, physics or chemistry lessons, he would sit next to me and just explain it, with no review, jogging his memory, nothing. It sounded like something he just always knew. I thought it is normal, till years later, when I was trying to help some homeschoolers with their algebra work.   I had to really refresh myself, and I was good with it when I did study. However since I have not reviewed or used it, I simply did not remember it. It did not take me long to review, but I had to review, and I think that is the point -- he did not have to.

Just realized, as I am typing it, it is his birthday today and he would have been 60 years old.

All that to say, that the method you have described all of as sudden helped me to make sense of an amazing ability that my dad possessed and what most people referred to as "genius". Now I wonder -- if that truly the secret, or should there be some other factors involved?

DadDude, does Dr Jones has testimonials like that and would he attribute an accomplishment like that to following the method you have described or some additional factors?

[DadDude]

Skylark, thanks very much for your inspirational and very interesting story!

Well, I don't think this is "Dr. Jones' method." I think it is a common memory technique. I guess I (or any of us) could ask him for pointers! I guess I will.

[Skylark]

DadDude, please do, I am very interested to hear more on that! And thank you for sharing it with us here in the first place!

[Chris1]

This list of flashcard software might be useful for those wanting to include images and video in their reviews.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_flashcard_software

These systems use algorithms for scheduling spaced repetition.

Chris

[TheyCan]

I would love to know if anyone finds an iphone app to help with this method of memorization!!  I did a little bit of searching, but didn't really find what I was looking for - maybe someone here knows of one (or wants to make one...). I have an iphone 4S and tell "Siri" to take notes for me all the time (voice to text).  It works really well and almost always translate what I say correctly.  It would be great if, at the end of every day, the notes for the entire day were compiled and then an appointment was automatically setup on my calendar for 1 day, 1 week, 1 month, and 1 year to read that day's notes.  Any ideas?  Thanks!!     

[ShenLi]

Sorry DadDude... I don't have access to research. Much of what I know is annecdotal at best... If there were research then it would be easier to pinpoint exactly what activities promote photographic memory development. If you have questions, please ask them. I'm no expert but perhaps if we all contribute to the discussion we might come away knowing more.

Mandabplus3 - my boys attended both TweedleWink and Heguru. We also have the entire TweedleWink program at home (and Wink - which we haven't done actively because Wennie advised us not to start too early). I can get the after image with simple pictures, too, but I think the reason why we "adults" have a harder time about it is because our instinct is to follow our own methods of memorisation and they interfere. For instance, to memorise a number, I usually repeat it over and over in my head. One time, when I wasn't really trying to remember the number, I stared at it for a while and after it was removed, I could see it very clearly as if it was still in front of me and then it disappeared. It was the first time I've ever memorised the number as an image rather than the audio version playing itself over and over in my head. Unfortunately, it was also the last time it's happened. I guess because my instinct is still to repeat the number rather than try to capture it as an image.

Both boys are still attending classes. They are 2 and 5. I can't say much about my 2 year old, but I have seen "results" from my 5 year old. My 5 year old appears to have that photographic memory ability - he can remember stuff he's read and is able to pinpoint the exact page and paragraph (he's done this with his dinosaur encyclopedia). Unfortunately, it appears that his memory only works with stuff he likes. If I get him to read a book about a subject he isn't interested in, he doesn't seem to remember much. And when he offers information, it's usually of his own volition. It cannot be me quizzing him about it - which he absolutely hates and it's the fastest way to make him shut down.

The activities they do in class are the usual stuff linked with right brain classes - mandala, linking memory, space memory, rapid flash cards, speed listening. There are other stuff, but I've only linked afterimaging with photographic memory because it's the one activity that I have seen a direct linking effect for myself. As for my son, as much as I want to test him to understand better what's working and what isn't, I find he's not very cooperative in that department. So rather than put him off, I try to test myself instead :-p can't say I'm making a lot of headway (largely because I dont' practice enough).

[jc1]

Thanks for the warm welcome, Everyone.

@Mandabplus3 and @TheyCan: The app that I mentioned in my post is called Educreations. Unfortunately it's only on the iPad, not on the iPhone.

[Scruff]

Greetings everyone

This is an interesting thread.  I also used similar methods to others when studying at school.  If I couldn't remember something straight away, I would think about where it was in my file and "re-read" the paragraph.  I could often remember the section where the information was and then had to jog my mind to get the exact information out.

Funnily though even though I have better visual memory, Mind maps didn't work for me.  It's also interesting that I have a great "photographic memory" when it comes to reading and studying but something like remembering a movie is not something that I do.  (Perhaps this comes down to interest because I'm more a reader than a TV fan).

I'm keen to follow the feedback on this thread so that I can hopefully "teach" my daughter to learn in a similar way.  Unfortunately I have no idea how I learnt to learn like that.  I also "visualise" numbers when remembering a phone number or something.

[Mandabplus3]

great stuff
Shenli, testing requires the left brain to logically interpret...likely your son is still very right brained with all that training. so testing would be very difficult for him. Also its interesting to note he remembers what he is interested in...I remember reading about the love and excitement of education being important for memory retention and stress and bordom being the anti education! SO maybe if the info was presented in a more interesting way?
OK so now I am off to try and visually remember my banking login number! Something that interests me greatly!!!   

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