Master of Memory: Accelerated learning, education, memorization - MMem 0300: Reprise: Can I do better on “remember what you see” games?

Episode Date: May 1, 2015

Today Timothy revisits the question on how to do better on “remember what you see” games, with some extra comments on how he would change his answer today. What do you want to learn? Leave your question at http://MasterOfMemory.com/. Music credit: Maurice Ravel’s String Quartet, 2nd movement, performed by the US Army Band.

Today we're doing a reprise episode of episode 26 about visual memory. Now, I actually really like this episode as it was originally delivered, so there's nothing in particular I would change about the information here. Essentially, you're breaking down an image into parts and making those parts correspond with the memory palace, which can work very well. So here's the episode as it was originally delivered almost a year ago in April. Welcome to Master of Memory. I'm Timothy, and I'm here to answer your accelerated learning questions every day and

to inspire and empower you to learn anything you want to learn faster than ever. Brandon asked a question about those remember-what-you-see games. You know, those games that test your photographic memory, as they say, or how well you can remember what you see games. You know, those games that test your photographic memory, as they say, or how well you can remember what you see. Typically, these games show you a picture, let you look at it for about a minute, and then afterwards ask you a few questions about what was in the picture. Of course, I think we're all interested in improving our visual memory, so I thought this would be an interesting topic to take up here on the podcast. I think that the normal approach when people come to these games is they try to look at the picture and just, you know, look around

it and try to absorb everything in it somehow visually. And they think that it's going to burn a picture in their heads so that they can remember when they look at the picture afterwards. And that's also what people think about photographic memory too. They think that people who claim to have photographic memory will look at something and they'll just automatically remember everything without actually thinking about it. But in the first place, I haven't found any conclusive evidence that there is such a thing as photographic memory in this way. It seems that the people who are the strongest visual learners are the ones who have either strong mnemonic tactics or some sort of synesthesia, which is basically sort of a mnemonic device that's built into your mind already. So a good approach to this type of game is to be proactive and try to

remember what it is that they're going to quiz you on. Look at the details that you think they're going to quiz you on and try to remember those things. And at the same time as you do this, you'll find that your visual memory of the scene is going to improve. Now I'm going to use an example, but of course I can't really show you the picture over this audio podcast. So if you want to see the picture that I'm talking about, go to masterofmemory.com slash images where I've written about how to remember things visually. But basically what you're going to do is in three steps. First, as soon as you look at the picture, try to segment it so that you're dividing it into about five or ten parts or regions. You'll do this

so that you can remember facts about each of those areas. And in the picture that I use as an example at masterofmemory.com slash images, I have a scene where there are two fields on two sides of a river, and then there are mountains in the background and a sky. So I've divided it into five parts. First the sky, then the mountains, then the land on the left side, then the river, and then the land on the right side. And I've just, you know, divided it into those regions in my head. The second step is to memorize facts as quickly as you can based on those regions. And what you're going to do is first quickly associate each of those regions with a memory palace or with the

locations in a memory palace that you're already familiar with. So for me, the sky is my bedroom. The background mountains are my bathroom. The left shore is the dog cage. The river is the dining room table. And the right shore on the right side of the page is the kitchen. So keeping in mind what kinds of things I'm going to be likely to be quizzed on, I try to remember as many facts as possible about each of these regions. First of

all, the sky is blue without clouds. So I imagine that my bed sheets are blue, but they fade to yellow on one side because that's how the sky is shaded. And then second, the mountains are brown and they have three peaks. So in my bathroom, I imagine that there are three brown mountain peaks. Third, there's a boy jumping up and down and there's a mother duck with two ducklings. So I imagine that the boy is jumping up and down on top of the dog cage and the duck with her two ducklings are stuck inside the cage. And then they're surrounded by three tall trees, which are also on the left side of the river. Then, as far as the river itself goes, there are two boats in the river. So I imagine that one boat is on top of the dining room table, and another boat is exactly underneath it, underneath the dining room table. And in each

boat, there's a boy and a girl. And then I imagine that on the two chairs, there are two yellow ducklings sitting in red inner tubes on the chairs. And that's a fairly easy picture to remember, a boat on top of and underneath the dining room table and two ducks in inner tubes on the chairs. And then on the right side, on the right shore, what I'm going to do is I'll imagine that there's a yellow tent on top of my kitchen counter sitting really close to an open flame because there's a campfire in the picture. And then there are three tall trees that are blocking entry to the pantry. And then there's a girl standing in the sink with a little duckling

trying to peck at her feet. So all I've done is I've memorized a few basic facts about each of these regions. But with these facts, you'll be able to answer a lot of questions, such as how many boats are in the picture? Is there any blue sky or are there any clouds? And how many ducklings are in the picture? That's, you know, these are the typical questions that you would be asked. How many trees are there on the left side of the river and things like that. For more details on this particular technique, you can go to masterofmemory.com slash images and it'll show

you this picture and how you could memorize it pretty quickly. But anyway, the third step is to reconstruct the image in your mind and build on it. So once you have these basic facts memorized for each region, you'll find that it's actually pretty easy to remember exactly what the picture looks like. If you have time within the time frame during the game, you know, when you're trying to memorize this image, if you have extra time, go back and forth a few times, just remembering the image in your head and then looking at the image itself and trying to add details as they come up. So basically you're going to look away or close your eyes and see if you can remember details about the picture and then look back. If there's a detail that stands out, just

add that detail to that part of the memory palace. You'll be able to add all sorts of details to the picture and then every time you look away, the picture will become clearer and clearer to your mind. Again, you're not just absorbing it visually, but you're actually thinking about facts, and those facts turn into visual realities in your mind's eye. Alright, I hope you've enjoyed this reprise episode. For anyone who has any questions about learning or memorizing anything faster than ever, feel free still to leave a message at masterofmemory.com slash question, Thank you. masterofmemory.com slash Spanish. Or if you want to follow my adventures in Argentina or wherever else I might happen to be, you can do that at timothymoser.com.