Sunday, 18 August 2013

Memory : Effective Associations : Craziness

Many mnemonics rely on making visual associations in your mind. The nature of these visualizations has a lot to do with how well you will remember them.



Making crazy associations in your visualizations will help you remember the information later. If you are trying to associate a dog with a stapler, a poor association would be a dog standing on a stapler. The brain filters out and forgets things that are ordinary. If you get a little crazy, you'll have a more memorable association. Maybe you could picture a dog with a stapler for a mouth! In addition to making the images more interesting, crazy associations tend to take more time to form and thus give you a better chance at getting them into your long-term memory.



Here are two techniques that will help make your associations crazier.



1. Try a substitution. For example, substituting a stapler for a dog's mouth.

2. Try an exaggeration. For example, a giant stapler chasing a scared dog down the street.

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