Remember, Remember…

Science Writer Competition for the Daily Telegraph by Tony Clohesy

Everyone remembers the 5^th of November, and most of us can work out how many days in October if we’re given a few seconds to think. But why do we find it so difficult to memorize a shopping list? Some people can’t remember their own phone number while others can recite the first thousand digits of pi. Global competitions are held every year to see how many shuffled packs of cards can be recalled correctly after only one sighting. The record is 54 – that’s over 2,800 cards! Is it all to do with heredity? Does it depend on the way you are brought up?

Memory has been a hot topic as long as anyone can remember; Ancient Greece produced some of the earliest and most talented memory scientists, or mnemonists. Ever wondered why people say “In the first place…” and “In the second place…” during speeches? Apparently it began in Greece and relates to the Locus method of remembering things: Objects, phrases or ideas are mentally stored in a locus – a place – such as a house or a palace, and to retrieve them you only need to work your way mentally through the rooms and pick up what you left. This system works on the principle of association (“That reminds me…”). The better the association, the easier it is to remember. ‘Rabid werewolf’ is longer than ‘Lethologica’, but unless you know what it means, lethologica will be promptly forgotten while the rabid werewolf will be breathing down your neck when you next think of the principle of association. The recognition of this principle is credited to Hedwig von Restorff who published her results in 1933.

The theory of associations is backed up by the physical structure of the brain. In the ‘gray matter’, the cerebral cortex, millions of synapses (junctions) link nerves together. When we make associations of ideas, new synapses are created to link a stimulus in one part of the brain with others and provoke new responses. Nerves carry information by electrical charge, doing a similar job to wires in a computer circuit, making synapses the equivalent of logic gates. Associations linking the left side (logic, patterns) to the right side (pictures, ideas) also help.

Image to illustrate how much of the brain is occupied with memory, arguably its most important function [1]

People noted for amazing memory take advantage of this fact by making even the most mundane objects stand out in their mind. They give them outrageous characteristics, making them large, ridiculous, or strongly emotive. Appealing to more than one sense also increases the number of new associations. If deprived of one sense, the brain links memories more strongly with another. Helen Keller, struck blind and deaf at age 2 once said:

‘Smell is a potent wizard that transports you across thousands of miles and all the years you have lived.’

[2]

A Russian called Solomon Veniaminovich Shereshevsky had an extreme form of the condition known as synaesthesia which forces vivid visualization of practically everything. Physical stimulation of one sense causes multiple stimulation of all the others. Whatever he saw or heard was translated into a complex pattern including sight, sound, smell, texture and taste. When he heard a single musical note, he said:

‘It looks something like fireworks tinged with a pink-red hue. The strip of color feels rough and unpleasant, and it has an ugly taste -- rather like that of a briny pickle... You could hurt your hand on this.’

[3]

Reading was difficult for him because he would visualize things in too much detail, only to have them contradicted later on even in the same sentence.

Phenomenal memory starting to sound less desirable? One man who lost an almost photographic memory after an accident at age ten says:

‘There are definite advantages to being able to forget certain things.’

[4]

I interviewed Paul Szauter, a professional mnemonist. He has, among other things, memorized 5200 digits of pi in a grid in order to recall the position of any particular ten digit block. He says:

‘The core of all of this is translating numbers to letters…Everything is visualization with action…’

[5]

Paul has a naturally good memory, but this isn’t always an advantage:

‘We don’t watch television at all at home, because I can’t get the lousy shows and stupid characters out of my mind…television seems to be written for people who aren’t paying attention and who won’t remember it.’

[5]

Many great mnemonists have expressed similar problems. Alexander Craig Aitken couldn’t rid himself of the memory of his horrific experience of the first world war. Although being able to remember better would be great in some ways, maybe forgetfulness is just as essential in its own way. By the way, lethologica is the temporary inability to remember a word – the ‘tip of the tongue’ phenomenon. Will you remember that?

Bibliography

[1]

Diagram of the brain used with permission from the University of Colorado; www.colorado.edu.

[2]

Helen Keller (1880 – 1968) quotation thanks to www.quotationspage.com.

[3]

The Mind of a Mnemonist: A Little Book about a Vast Memory, A. R. Luria (trans. L. Solotaroff) Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1968.

[4]

Extract from an answer to a question on memory taken from the public domain of Google Answers; answers.google.com.

[5]

Paul Szauter (www.memoryelixir.com). Many thanks for your comprehensive and insightful communications.

(789 words excluding captions & bibliography)