The title of this entry is a sort of experiment which is described more fully in the book "Moonwalking with Einstein," a New York Times bestselling book that came out in 2011, so way out of the public consciousness now, but just as important for people who want to enhance their memory capacity. Moonwalking with Einstein, as well as other books about memory, all agree on one simple: the more ridiculous and vivid a memory is, the easier it is to remember. For example, an image of Albert Einstein, the famous scientist, doing the Michael Jackson-inspired moonwalk, is hard to get out of your head just due to how ridiculous it is, (and probably helped to improve sales of the book and vault it into NY Times Bestseller status) but it can also improve memory by linking long strings of numbers or facts with it, which is why we came up with mnemonic devices like "My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas." Which I just learned recently stood for the nine planets of the solar system (there's only 8 now without Pluto, so a slight adjustment of the sentence is needed). But it's a rock-solid way of remembering them because the human brain might forget the names of Uranus, Mercury, Venus, or get them wrong in some way if just ingesting them all in one big gulp, but with the image attached to it, can't go wrong.
I realized after reading that I've been practicing this kind of "visual" memory technique my whole life without knowing about it, and the times I do employ it (subconsciously, without even knowing it) worked better than the times I didn't. For example, MJ and I have been to the Philadelphia Art Museum multiple times and there's a lot of art works there by a painter named Thomas Eakins, a 19th century artist who was born and died in Philadelphia. I associated his last name with the 1st-generation Pokemon snake "Ekans" (google it if you need to), and whenever I need to remember Thomas Eakins's name there's a photo of a snake with a paintbrush, and I get "Eakins." This obscure fact came up in Jeopardy Masters on a high-level (harder) question and I got it without even blinking, getting a shot of dopamine in the process which I'm sure keeps me coming back to the show over and over again.
Memory experts also agree: the other great way to improve memory is to PAY ATTENTION. The No. 1 reason we likely don't remember people's names in a large group of new people is because we're not 100% focused on this one person we're shaking hands with. That happens to me too: I greet someone, I shake their hand and say I'm Robert, that person then says their name, but I'm often nervous because I'm in public and want to make a good impression, wondering if I tucked in my shirt, hoping my breath doesn't smell bad, wondering what I should say next after the obligatory introductions are over. I'm often NOT paying attention to the actual content of the name, just remembering that I should ask someone's name to seem polite, then move on to the next topic or move on to the next person and adhere to social etiquette. I'm not 100% focused when I absorb the name, and definitely not paying enough attention to digest the name, give a funny picture to it so it sticks. It's easy to forget a "David" or "John" or "Sarah" or "Kara," and again this is where the best memories are graphic memories are important: It's important to give some distinguishing feature to the person: "David with the purple tie," or "Sarah with the gold bracelet around her wrist," even better if it was alliterative to help remember like "David from Deloitte with dope dots on his purple tie" or something like that. So many ways to improve memory.
Of course, making mental pictures and visual cues seems a little too tedious at times, and there's only so much effort I want to put into stuff. Putting things into songs definitely helps for me, the musical element, but also saying something out loud and repeating to myself. I do this all the time for phone numbers: I see 7-digit number I need to remember to call, I say the numbers out loud to them, and up to 1 minute later I can hear myself saying those words and can repeat them back. Sometimes just the memory of me saying those phone numbers out loud can trigger the memory, like creating a "save point" in a video game. Memory experts often say to create something like that, something out of the ordinary course of events, that helps it stick out in a generally bland pattern of life, and pattern of trying to remember stuff. Sometimes this is easy, like I learned the first British submarine was named DREADNAUGHT, and I love saying DREADNAUGHT, so I said it to myself over and over again until it became a memory of myself saying that word repeatedly. Memory experts suggest throwing something random against a wall, something you would never do, when you put your cell phone/keys/something you lose frequently away, because then when you have to find your phone next time you'll remember the last time you had it was when you threw that random thing against a wall.
Memory! Tricky, but easily manipulated to do what we want it to do and remember what we want to remember! Also writing random facts on this blog helps trigger memories when I go back and remember them! Okhost Sea! Sakhalin Island is the largest island in Russia! Ants emit formic acid! Seaborgium is abbreviated Sg and atomic number 106 and the way I remember that is picturing 106 little blue Glenn Seaborg-looking smurfs running around with Sg on their shirts!
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