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science has discovered two exactly two
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ways to memorize things mnemonic cues
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and spaced repetition
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when i say mnemonic q i mean an
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association like a story
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when you do this properly what happens
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is that you see the symbol
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and then that causes you to recall the
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story that you told yourself or whatever
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and the story causes you to recall the
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other piece of information that you were
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trying to attach to that symbol
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let me give you an example when i was in
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graduate school at the university of
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cambridge in the united kingdom i had a
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friend who was writing her dissertation
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on
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human memory she had this study and she
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asked us a group of her friends to come
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in and participate in the study the only
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condition for participating in this
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study was that we didn't already know
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korean i didn't know korean so i go into
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this laboratory room and there's a
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screen and on the screen they show me
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some korean words and then the the
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english definitions
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this was about 12 years ago and at the
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time i didn't know korean quite
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obviously i still don't know korean so i
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apologize if i've written these symbols
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incorrectly but what happened was they
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would show me these symbols for like
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five seconds
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along with the english definitions like
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this is the symbol for umbrella and this
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is the the word in korean the symbol for
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mango the fruit they would show it to me
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for five seconds and i had to learn it
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and they would do this for a dozen
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symbols and then at the end they gave
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they gave me a quiz to see how much i
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could retain how much i could memorize
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now it just so happened that right
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before
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i participated in this study
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i had learned about mnemonic cues for
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example when i was shown this word in
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korean i noticed right here that this
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part of the of the word it sort of looks
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like a roof you know it's like a pointy
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thing it looks like a roof or sort of
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like an umbrella here i'll write it in a
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different color
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during my five seconds i i noticed that
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part i i picked up on it and then i
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imagined that there was you know a
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little stick going here you know the
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handle of the umbrella with a little
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curve at the bottom and i imagine this
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opening and closing like an umbrella it
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opened up looked just like an umbrella i
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just i just imagined this i i i made a
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little movie in my head during those
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five seconds when i was trying to learn
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that this was the korean word for
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umbrella and then the five seconds were
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over and that symbol disappeared
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when you first think about it this whole
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imagining thing shouldn't work like you
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start off with two things you start off
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with the korean word and you've got the
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english
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synonym the word that means the same
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thing in english you've got these two
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things
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and according to this method
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apparently
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the way to make it easier to learn you
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know and memorize these two things is to
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add a third thing which is the story you
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would think that adding something else
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an additional thing that you need to
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remember that would make it harder but
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it doesn't that's just not how the human
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mind works the human mind
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remembers things it encodes things based
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on stories and points of connection and
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so actually it turns out that if you do
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this sort of thing you can remember
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things and not just you know the
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definitions of words you can do this for
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all sorts of things if you have to
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memorize the gdps of a whole bunch of
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countries on a map or the labels for all
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the different bones in the human body or
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or the names of a whole bunch of
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students in a classroom like i do at the
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beginning of most semesters you just
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make up little stories little
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associations with those things right so
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when i learn all of the names of you
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know 50 students in a lecture classroom
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i look at the student i ask them their
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name they're in the classroom in front
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of everyone else they say what their
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name is
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and then i take their name maybe their
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name sounds like something i don't tell
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them all this out loud also they look
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weird they're some weird looking student
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everybody looks weird if you look at
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them and think about it everybody has
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some weird thing about them you focus on
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that weird thing you think about their
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name you imagine their name dripping
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over their their head with one of the
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letters dripping around over their big
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ear or whatever it is you you do some
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little thing you tell some little story
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you make some little animation in your
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mind um you imagine some sound coming
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out of their head even though that sound
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isn't coming out of there right you do
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something like this
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that's a mnemonic cue and it just works
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let's move on to spaced repetition the
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idea here is that you have to memorize a
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whole bunch of things some of them you
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already know better than the other ones
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or they're just coming more easily right
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the ones that you know really well you
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you
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defer them to later but the ones that
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you don't know you repeat them
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within a shorter space the old-fashioned
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way to do this is with index cards
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here's a stack of index cards that i
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brought as a prop here's how you would
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use the index cards to implement some
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kind of spaced repetition technique you
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need to learn some words or some labels
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or something or some facts there's the
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prompt on one side that is the thing
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that you're gonna see and then there's
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on the back there's whatever you want to
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show up in your brain
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as soon as you see the thing on the
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front okay here's what you do you test
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yourself right you look at one side of
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the card and you you see if you know
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what what's going to be on the back if
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you know it you put it at the back of
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the pile what that means of course if it
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goes in the back is that you're not
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going to see it for a while because
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you've got to go through this whole
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stack before you ever see that one again
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that's why you put at the back the ones
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that you already know you test yourself
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on a card and you don't know it if you
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don't know it you slide it into the
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middle
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that way you're going to get it more
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frequently at a shorter space a shorter
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distance and you keep doing this over
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and over again and you can do it you
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know as a matter of degree right if you
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don't know one
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but you feel like oh you're kind of
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getting closer to knowing it then you
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put it in the middle if you don't know
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it and you had no clue or whatever you
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could put it really close to the front
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here see so you'll get it really quickly
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really soon again you do this over and
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over again and you'll memorize stuff it
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just works there are different fancy
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methods for doing this one of the famous
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ones is the lightner method named after
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some guy named lightner maybe i'll find
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his full name his photo on google or
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something like that anyway it's some
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method named after some guy it doesn't
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matter they're all basically variations
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on this very simple thing and you can
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find software you know apps for your
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phones or whatever
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that'll that'll refresh the cards in
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whatever order they think is the best
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order but i think the simplest best way
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is to use index cards the way that you
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use the index cards matter right if you
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just put every card at the back of the
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pile then there's
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it's not efficient it's not going to be
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an efficient way to memorize because if
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you take the cards that you really need
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to learn because you don't know them yet
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and you put them in the back you're not
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going to get to them for a long time and
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if you take the and if and if they come
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just as frequently as the cards that you
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already know you're just seeing these
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symbols that you already know over and
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over again you're not it's just not
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efficient so spaced repetition is the
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efficient way
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to
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get a whole bunch of stuff in front of
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you and to get it to stick in your
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memory it's amazing how well
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both of these methods work and
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continually throughout my academic
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career since i was an undergraduate all
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the way through college and then a
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master's degree and then a phd and now
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i'm a faculty member at a university and
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have been for several years like it's
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amazing
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how infrequently people use these when
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they want to memorize things when they
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want to sink them into their brains okay
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time for a pop quiz back when i was
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telling you about mnemonic cues i put up
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the korean words for mango and umbrella
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here's your quiz
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which symbol means mango and which
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symbol means umbrella
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i bet you can find the one that means
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umbrella right here it is
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it's this one but the one that means
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mango one of these is the korean word
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for mango and and that symbol was up on
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this board with the definition for just
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as long as
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as the word umbrella was with the
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definition of umbrella the difference is
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that
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i walked you through a mnemonic cue
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with this word umbrella right i bet that
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when you were looking for the word
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umbrella you looked for this thingy
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remember this you looked for that
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you told yourself that little story or
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if you didn't even need to tell yourself
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the story because of the story you knew
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to look for this little pointy thing
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right because it looks like an umbrella
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the answer by the way is this one this
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is the korean word for mango
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the point is
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this stuff works the next lecture in
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this series is about how to take notes
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you
