Introduction

For many years, I have been developing memory techniques (mnemonics) to assist learning. I learned from popular psychology text books and went on to develop my own individual memory system. Here at NakedScience.com is where I present my old work (the newer site is MemoryBloke.com).

My current system is inspired by the advantages and disadvantages of previous systems.

I hope that educationalists pay attention to the potential of memory techniques to make education in schools and colleges a lot more relevant and fun.

Note: If you just want some quick facts about the Major System and Ben Pridmore then click here because my memory course is different.

Memory techniques and memory technicians

There are some very simple techniques which can be learned quickly and which help you to prepare small revision notes - those small notes prompt you your bigger notes.

Besides that, there are techniques which involve visualising stories and the representation of common ideas in an alien way - which takes some getting used to.

The simple techniques and the complex techniques can both be described as being 'mnemonics': memory techniques. I pronounce 'mnemonics' as if the beginning 'm' is absent: nemonics.

There is a community of memory enthusiasts. Some of them enter into memory competitions. Others enjoy playing with memory techniques as a hobby or as a tool for learning the information that actually interests them.

Some people's names are associated with particular memory techniques because these people have written books where they have said that these techniques are part of their 'system'. So, different people have different memory systems: a toolkit of memory techniques for handling memory challenges. And these people are 'memory technicians'. They do not necessarily have great memories; indeed, they might often find themselves locked out of their homes; however, they can learn new material efficiently (even if they forget it soon after the exam where it is needed).

It is difficult to say which system is better than another system. When choosing a tool, it makes sense to choose the appropriate tool for the job. If you are cramming for exams right now then the more complex techniques would not be much good to you since they take a long time to learn. Also, different systems can often be grouped together by their similarities.

The system which I am developing is still evolving; although some features of it have not changed since the 1980s and early 1990s; or they have gone out of vogue and then come back into fashion within my view of which memory techniques are good. I attempt to design memory techniques for different kinds of memory challenges. For instance, learning the colours of flags (or 'colors' in American english). Sometimes, I am so impressed by a new technique that I will discard the system which I used to favour and adopt the new method. This was especially true in April 2007 when I decided that I had seen sufficient benefits in a new system to significantly redesign my overall system. I also took the opportunity to design a new layout for my web site so that the old archived work would not clutter the new material.

You are reading my work from around January 2009 and it is an extremely powerful memory system. On 20th February 2010, I took a major part of the system, named the '100 syllable' system, and began rewriting it. So a better system is coming soon - perhaps on a sister site named MemoryBloke.com [which I recommend you to use rather than NakedScience.com].

I have many other ideas but this is most of the system which I developed. I would like to publish more but in a book or multimedia course rather than online.

If you have any suggestions or feedback then please email me: memorybloke AT yahoo DOT com [I write it like that to avoid primitive email-grabbing software].

You can go to the next article by clicking below OR first be entertained by video of memory performances.