Now that I've switched to the Satellite Method of Spaced Repetition (explained in detail in my article, Using Multiple SRS Decks), I've finally broken a long kanji drought and have started learning new kanji (Chinese characters) again. In order to learn the Chinese characters most effectively, I've learned how imaginative memory works. And now that I understand that, I can take this skill I've gotten from studying Japanese, and apply it to many other areas of life. It applies best to memorizing data which has some sort of underlying structure to it. In the fractal world we live in, that's a lot of stuff.
The fact is, you recall a vivid image much longer than you recall a bunch of words. The more vivid the picture is, the better you remember it. Imaginative memory is when you create an extremely detailed, in-depth scene in your mind. With the unlimited power of human creativity, there's no limit how exotic and mindblowing it can be. And when you make such an amazing image, there's no way you're gonna forget it any time soon.
That's great for making up fantastic dreamscapes and then remembering them, but how do you actually apply it to mundane things you'd care to memorize? For the most part, a Chinese word is not a very neck-turning image. It wouldn't make you turn your head if you saw it while driving on a busy highway. It's just a bunch of squiggles and lines, hence why most Westerners think learning those crazy Asian tongues is so mind-bogglingly difficult.
James Heisig, in his brilliant book "Remembering The Kanji", describes how the structure behind those slanty-eyed hieroglyphs can be exploited to give us a foothold-- or should I say, an imaginationhold. First, each character is assigned a unique English keyword. The keyword has something to do with the actual meaning, but the accuracy isn't actually important-- the name is really just that, a name. Names which lend themselves toward evocative imagery work the best. Next, each character is decomposed into smaller ones. Once that's done, the keys can be used to create a powerful snapshot which will hold strong in your mental hard drive.
For example, the symbol for "beauty" (美) is made up of the symbol for "sheep" (羊) on top of the one for "big" (大). The task for the imaginatory learner is now to create a breathtaking picture that ties together "sheep", "big", and "beauty". Here you have a lot of freedom, and there are infinitely many ways you could proceed. To illustrate, you could picture a bunch of sheep at an ovine beauty contest, and in this imaginary universe, animals all think that big=beautiful, so you see (vividly) a bunch of giant obese lamb-babes strutting their huge folds up on stage while the audience of rams grunt in approval. Or something. I tend to get carried away sometimes, but that's good because it really sticks the creations in my gray matter. And it's fun.
There are plenty of examples of structured data where this technique would apply. Take mathematical formulas, for example. These break into pieces like "x", "square root", "plus sign" and so on. You can give each of these elementary pieces its own "persona", for instance, whenever there's an "x", you can associate it with your favorite hero from the X-men. For "square root", you can think of the root of a strange square tree, and the root always bends at perfect 90 degree angles instead of curving like normal roots do. This is all totally arbitrary and I'm just pulling it out of my butt-- but that's fine, in fact it's encouraged, because whatever you pull out of your butt, tends to be what works best for you.
To get the pythegorean theorem, imagine an X-men character (x) and a wine-glass (y) getting blown up into squares and swirling together to form a giant square-blown-up version of Zorro (z). Voila, x squared plus y squared equals z squared. Maybe throw in something about a right triangle somewhere so you remember the context of the theorem. I know, the event I just described is highly unusual and contrived. That's fine, the important thing is if you saw it while driving down the street, it'd definitely stick in your mind.
A lot of critics confuse imaginative memory with mnemonic devices. A mnemonic device is something like when you use the name "ROY G BIV" to remember the colors of the rainbow- Red Orange Yellow Green Blue Indigo Violet. This is an example of using language to store something. It works ok, but it's slower than visualization and it also takes some serious work to come up with. For the Japanese writing example, I'd need to come up with about 2,000 clever mnemonics like that. No small feat! Visualizations, I have infinite freedom, so I can come up with crap all day long. I don't have to make it rhyme or line up or something.
Applying your mind's eye to cramming stuff into your brain is a lot of fun. There are actually communities where people exchange descriptions of the imagery they come up with, and you can get a real kick out of some peoples' stories. Did you know that Mr. T once stole the wheels from the cars at an old ladies' scrapbook convention? And he had no problems with ethics while doing it. That might sound pretty silly, but it's very easy to paint mentally, and it's given me two free, and otherwise rather complicated, Japanese characters (輪 and 倫 if you have the right fonts installed).
Going through Heisig's strict visual boot camp has also enhanced my visualization skills and creativity in general. If you want to get stronger arms, you go benchpress or do pushups or something. If you want to get more creative, you make up thousands of hilarious outlandish sights to help you remember the vast lexicon of the East. I'd say my creativization power has gone up about three levels just from "Remembering the Kanji" alone. And so can you!!!
FURTHER READING
Wanna be smarter? I mean realworld smarts, not Rubiks cube smarts. Then go out and do something you've never done before. But first, read my article, "Become More Intelligent By Doing New Things".
Here's another visualization technique, of a rather different flavor. This one's a little more on the weird side, so you'll enjoy it ;) I give you: The Sword-Neck Technique.
You'll find some more discussion about deliberately memorizing formulas in my article, Rote Memorization In Mathematics.
The fact is, you recall a vivid image much longer than you recall a bunch of words. The more vivid the picture is, the better you remember it. Imaginative memory is when you create an extremely detailed, in-depth scene in your mind. With the unlimited power of human creativity, there's no limit how exotic and mindblowing it can be. And when you make such an amazing image, there's no way you're gonna forget it any time soon.
That's great for making up fantastic dreamscapes and then remembering them, but how do you actually apply it to mundane things you'd care to memorize? For the most part, a Chinese word is not a very neck-turning image. It wouldn't make you turn your head if you saw it while driving on a busy highway. It's just a bunch of squiggles and lines, hence why most Westerners think learning those crazy Asian tongues is so mind-bogglingly difficult.
James Heisig, in his brilliant book "Remembering The Kanji", describes how the structure behind those slanty-eyed hieroglyphs can be exploited to give us a foothold-- or should I say, an imaginationhold. First, each character is assigned a unique English keyword. The keyword has something to do with the actual meaning, but the accuracy isn't actually important-- the name is really just that, a name. Names which lend themselves toward evocative imagery work the best. Next, each character is decomposed into smaller ones. Once that's done, the keys can be used to create a powerful snapshot which will hold strong in your mental hard drive.
", describes how the structure behind those slanty-eyed hieroglyphs can be exploited to give us a foothold-- or should I say, an imaginationhold. First, each character is assigned a unique English keyword. The keyword has something to do with the actual meaning, but the accuracy isn't actually important-- the name is really just that, a name. Names which lend themselves toward evocative imagery work the best. Next, each character is decomposed into smaller ones. Once that's done, the keys can be used to create a powerful snapshot which will hold strong in your mental hard drive.For example, the symbol for "beauty" (美) is made up of the symbol for "sheep" (羊) on top of the one for "big" (大). The task for the imaginatory learner is now to create a breathtaking picture that ties together "sheep", "big", and "beauty". Here you have a lot of freedom, and there are infinitely many ways you could proceed. To illustrate, you could picture a bunch of sheep at an ovine beauty contest, and in this imaginary universe, animals all think that big=beautiful, so you see (vividly) a bunch of giant obese lamb-babes strutting their huge folds up on stage while the audience of rams grunt in approval. Or something. I tend to get carried away sometimes, but that's good because it really sticks the creations in my gray matter. And it's fun.
There are plenty of examples of structured data where this technique would apply. Take mathematical formulas, for example. These break into pieces like "x", "square root", "plus sign" and so on. You can give each of these elementary pieces its own "persona", for instance, whenever there's an "x", you can associate it with your favorite hero from the X-men. For "square root", you can think of the root of a strange square tree, and the root always bends at perfect 90 degree angles instead of curving like normal roots do. This is all totally arbitrary and I'm just pulling it out of my butt-- but that's fine, in fact it's encouraged, because whatever you pull out of your butt, tends to be what works best for you.
To get the pythegorean theorem, imagine an X-men character (x) and a wine-glass (y) getting blown up into squares and swirling together to form a giant square-blown-up version of Zorro (z). Voila, x squared plus y squared equals z squared. Maybe throw in something about a right triangle somewhere so you remember the context of the theorem. I know, the event I just described is highly unusual and contrived. That's fine, the important thing is if you saw it while driving down the street, it'd definitely stick in your mind.
A lot of critics confuse imaginative memory with mnemonic devices. A mnemonic device is something like when you use the name "ROY G BIV" to remember the colors of the rainbow- Red Orange Yellow Green Blue Indigo Violet. This is an example of using language to store something. It works ok, but it's slower than visualization and it also takes some serious work to come up with. For the Japanese writing example, I'd need to come up with about 2,000 clever mnemonics like that. No small feat! Visualizations, I have infinite freedom, so I can come up with crap all day long. I don't have to make it rhyme or line up or something.
Applying your mind's eye to cramming stuff into your brain is a lot of fun. There are actually communities where people exchange descriptions of the imagery they come up with, and you can get a real kick out of some peoples' stories. Did you know that Mr. T once stole the wheels from the cars at an old ladies' scrapbook convention? And he had no problems with ethics while doing it. That might sound pretty silly, but it's very easy to paint mentally, and it's given me two free, and otherwise rather complicated, Japanese characters (輪 and 倫 if you have the right fonts installed).
Going through Heisig's strict visual boot camp has also enhanced my visualization skills and creativity in general. If you want to get stronger arms, you go benchpress or do pushups or something. If you want to get more creative, you make up thousands of hilarious outlandish sights to help you remember the vast lexicon of the East. I'd say my creativization power has gone up about three levels just from "Remembering the Kanji" alone. And so can you!!!
FURTHER READING
Wanna be smarter? I mean realworld smarts, not Rubiks cube smarts. Then go out and do something you've never done before. But first, read my article, "Become More Intelligent By Doing New Things".
Here's another visualization technique, of a rather different flavor. This one's a little more on the weird side, so you'll enjoy it ;) I give you: The Sword-Neck Technique.
You'll find some more discussion about deliberately memorizing formulas in my article, Rote Memorization In Mathematics.
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