Derek Sivers

Your Memory - by Kenneth L.

Higbee
ISBN: 1569246297
Date read: 2014-04-11

How strongly I recommend it: 2/10

(See my list of 200+ books, for more.)

Go to the Amazon page for details and reviews.

Read the book “Moonwalking With Einstein” instead. Most of the same info, but this is
more academic than entertaining. Written for students taking exams.

my notes
Three stages:
1. Acquisition or encoding is learning the material in the first place.
2. Storage is keeping the material until it is needed.
3. Retrieval is finding the material and getting it back out when it is needed.

Chunking can increase the limited capacity of short-term memory. 376315374264 can be
remembered as 12 separate digits, but it is easier to remember as four chunks of 3 digits
each: 376 - 315 - 374 - 264.

One of the main determinants of how easy something is to learn is how meaningful it is to
the learner. If it doesn’t make sense, it will be hard to learn.

Rhyme can be used to impose meaning on material that is not inherently meaningful.

Cookies, grapes, cheese, can opener, chicken, pie, butter, bananas, bread, pork, gum.
Reorganize the items by categories: dairy - butter, cheese; bakery goods - cookies, pie,
bread; meat - chicken, pork; fruit - grapes, bananas; and other - can opener, gum.

Items in the middle part of a list will take longer to learn and will be harder to remember
than will items at the beginning and end of the list.

If the items you are learning do not have to be in a certain order, arrange them so that the
more complex, less meaningful items are at the ends of the list and the simpler, more
meaningful items are in the middle.

In motels you enter your room directly from the outside, but in hotels you enter your room
from the hallway.
Continue learning beyond the point of bare mastery or of mere recall.

Anxiety can interfere with memory even without a specific stressful situation being
involved.

French verbs that are conjugated with the helping verb “to be” is the name of a lady, MRS.
VANDERTAMP (Monter, Rester, Sortir, Venir, Aller, Naître, Descendre, Entrer, Rentrer,
Tomber, Arriver, Mourir, Partir).

Mark Twain would actually draw the pictures representing his ideas, for remembering his
speeches.

We need only about 125 basic words to communicate in a new language. Then build
interlocking chains of new words by linking them to the 125 basic words and increase your
vocabulary until you become fluent in the language.

The Link system: two steps. First, form a visual image for each item in the list to be
learned. Second, associate the image for each item with the image for the next item.

The Story system is a variant of the Link system in which you weave the items into a
connecting story.