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Sample Excerpt
Excerpt from
Equip Your Memory Tool Chest
Memory tools help
you learn and store information for recall. There is nothing complicated or
demanding about these tools; they are simply the natural abilities involved
when you collect memory traces.
The
next phase of your memory project is to become conscious of your own memory
tools in action, to hone them a bit, and to decide to use them more often.
Making this process an ongoing habit will improve your memory and enrich
the quality of your everyday life.
Valuable memory tools are: sensory awareness mental images words
and messages making associations and connections grouping repetition rehearsal and review spacing
using memory aids as reminders.
Your basic five senses of sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell, along
with a kinesthetic sense from your body movement and an intuitive sense
resulting from an inner perception of knowing, can supply a great deal of
information in a short time.
The
more you are conscious of what your senses are detecting, the more memory
traces you collect, and the easier the experience will be to recall. For
instance, when introduced to a stranger:
Your eyes can observe
the shade, style, and texture of hair; the color, shape, and expressions of
eyes; unusual facial features; body size, shape, carriage and gestures, and
style of clothing.
Your ears can note
the name and the qualities of the persons voice.
Your nose can smell
perfume, soap, shaving lotion, or other odors.
Your touch and
kinesthetic senses can feel the handshake. Is it tense or relaxed, cool or
warm, firm or soft?
Your intuition may
tell you that the person is outgoing or reserved, energized or passive,
enthusiastic or bored.
Sensory awareness of any moment is often the
critical tool for recalling that moment.
Seeing a fine color
photograph of Lake Tahoe may bring back your first sight of the intense
blue of the lake from Echo Summit and the awe you felt at that moment.
A song at a concert may
bring tears to your eyes as you recognize it as the same one your mother
sang to you when you were a child. You feel again a little of the warmth of
her tender care.
The smell of an ocean
breeze may cause you to recall the surge of excitement evoked by the first
whiff of salt air when you were a youngster going to the beach.
A tiny baby grasping
your finger may remind you of another child reaching out to you.
The spicy crunch of a
bread and butter pickle may remind you of grandma in her white, bibbed
apron canning pickles on the old wood stove at the farm, even though this
occurred forty years ago and three thousand miles away.
People tend to vary in their reactions to sensory information. Some tend to
notice visual sensations. Others respond more to the auditory aspects of an
experience. For many people, the sense of smell is an unusually powerful
reminder, and they can recognize individual people and places by their own
unique odors. Ask yourself what types of sensory stimulation you respond to
most readily.
A mental image forms in your minds eye when you recall a person, place, or
thing which you have either actually seen or imagined. Such a mental
picture is a useful memory tool because it is explicit, like a persons
face, rather than abstract, like his name.
Mental images are personal and individual. If someone speaks of Katherine
Hepburn, everyone present may remember her differently, perhaps as a young
actress, a mature film star, or during her retirement years as she appeared
in occasional interviews.
Forming a mental picture of a stranger as you are introduced, and recalling
this image from time to time will help you recognize him in the future.
This image also should include the context in which you met. In recalling a
man you met in a clubhouse setting, you might think: I can see us standing
in front of the fireplace and wondering where the manager got such fine big
logs. Now what was his name? Oh, yes, it was Dave Perez. Imagining a
name tag on his lapel with "Dave Perez" written on it will create
another memory trace to support the visual, auditory, and kinesthetic
traces you collected during your conversation with him.
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