The chapter we were assigned from James this week
talks about memory. I have always been interested in memory, and so I
found this week's information and readings interesting. After performing
the short-term memory tasks last week and realizing that I don't have a great
short-term memory, I began wondering, how does one improve their memory?
James says,
"The 'secret of a good memory' is thus the
secret of forming diverse and multiple associations with every fact we care to
retain . . . of two men with the same outward experiences, the one who thinks
over his experiences most, and weaves them into the most systematic relations with
each other, will be the one with the best memory” (p. 61).
I read this chapter, and then I watched the video Shanshan posted about feats of memory; as soon as I listened to the speaker talk about the art of remembering as simply making a whole lot of connections, I remembered this passage, and all the lectures we have had about making associations (I think James would have liked this video). The speaker mentioned elaborative encoding, or finding new and creative ways to make information meaningful, which is also what James is describing in this passage. This got me thinking about how I do this in my own life, and I began picking out different times in which I had to memorize things, and how I did it. For instance, in the eighth grade we had to learn the Preamble to the Constitution, and our teacher taught us the School House Rock song- and I can still sing it! Making the connection between the words and a tune is helpful, as are mnemonic strategies such as PEDMAS (Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally) for order of operations.
My question is, how can one constantly creatively make connections that can be easily remembered?
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