Lecture #10: How to Memorize Anything - EFFICIENTLY
Summary
TLDRThe transcript discusses two effective memory techniques: mnemonic cues and spaced repetition. Mnemonic cues involve creating associations or stories to remember information, as demonstrated by the speaker's experience with learning Korean words. Spaced repetition involves reviewing information at increasing intervals to enhance retention. The speaker emphasizes the underutilization of these methods in academic settings and concludes with a quiz to illustrate the effectiveness of mnemonic cues.
Takeaways
- ๐ Mnemonic cues and spaced repetition are two scientifically proven methods for memorization.
- ๐ง Mnemonic cues work by associating a symbol with a story or image, aiding recall through recognition and narrative.
- ๐ซ The speaker used mnemonic cues to remember Korean words during a study at the University of Cambridge, by associating symbols with familiar objects like an umbrella.
- ๐ To effectively use mnemonic cues, look for visual elements within symbols that can be connected to known objects or concepts.
- ๐ฌ Creating a mental movie or story during the learning process enhances memory encoding and recall.
- ๐ Spaced repetition involves prioritizing the review of information based on familiarity, with known information reviewed less frequently and unknown information reviewed more often.
- ๐ Using index cards is a simple and effective way to practice spaced repetition, by sorting cards based on how well the information is remembered.
- ๐ In spaced repetition, correctly remembered information is placed at the back of the stack for less frequent review, while unknown information is placed in the middle for more frequent review.
- ๐ฑ There are various apps and methods for implementing spaced repetition, but the basic principle remains the same across different techniques.
- ๐ The speaker emphasizes the surprising underutilization of these memorization techniques in academic settings despite their effectiveness.
- ๐ The next lecture in the series will focus on note-taking strategies.
Q & A
What are the two ways to memorize things mentioned in the transcript?
-The two ways to memorize things mentioned are mnemonic cues and spaced repetition.
What is a mnemonic cue and how does it work?
-A mnemonic cue is an association, like a story or an image, that helps you recall information. It works by creating a connection between the symbol or word you're trying to remember and a story or mental image that helps you retrieve the associated information.
Can you provide an example of how the speaker used a mnemonic cue to remember a Korean word?
-The speaker used a mnemonic cue to remember the Korean word for 'umbrella'. They noticed a part of the word that looked like a roof or an umbrella and imagined a little stick as the handle with a curve at the bottom, creating a mental image of an umbrella opening and closing.
What is spaced repetition and how does it enhance memory?
-Spaced repetition is a technique where you review information at increasing intervals over time. It enhances memory by efficiently presenting the information you struggle to remember more frequently, while deferring the information you know well until later, thus optimizing the learning process.
How did the speaker implement spaced repetition with index cards?
-The speaker would test themselves on an index card by looking at the prompt and trying to recall the information on the back. If they knew the answer, they would place the card at the back of the pile to review it later. If they didn't know the answer, they would place it in the middle to review it more frequently.
What are the benefits of using mnemonic cues and spaced repetition according to the transcript?
-The benefits include improved memory retention and the ability to remember a wide range of information, from words and definitions to complex data like GDPs of countries or labels for bones in the human body.
How did the speaker apply mnemonic cues in a real-life scenario with students' names?
-The speaker would create little stories or associations with the students' names, focusing on unique physical features or sounds, and imagine these associations as animations or mental movies to remember the names better.
What is the significance of the pop quiz at the end of the transcript?
-The pop quiz serves to demonstrate the effectiveness of mnemonic cues. The speaker bets that the audience can identify the Korean word for 'umbrella' because they were walked through a mnemonic cue earlier, showing that the method works and helps with memory retention.
Why does the speaker find it surprising that people don't use these memorization techniques more often?
-The speaker finds it surprising because both mnemonic cues and spaced repetition have been highly effective throughout their academic career, and yet, they are not commonly utilized by people looking to memorize information.
What is the next lecture in the series about?
-The next lecture in the series is about how to take effective notes.
Outlines
๐ง Mnemonic Cues and Spaced Repetition
This paragraph discusses two effective methods for memorization: mnemonic cues and spaced repetition. Mnemonic cues involve creating associations or stories to help recall information, as demonstrated by the speaker's experience with learning Korean words during a study at Cambridge University. Spaced repetition involves reviewing information at increasing intervals based on familiarity, using index cards as a practical example. The speaker emphasizes the efficiency and effectiveness of these methods for long-term memorization.
๐ Implementing Spaced Repetition with Index Cards
The speaker elaborates on the spaced repetition technique using index cards as a tool. By testing oneself on the information presented on the cards and placing them in different positions based on recall success, one can optimize the memorization process. The speaker explains the importance ofๅ็ๅฎๆๅก็ to ensure frequent review of less familiar information and less frequent review of more familiar information. The paragraph also mentions various methods and apps for spaced repetition, but suggests that simple index cards are the most straightforward and effective approach.
Mindmap
Keywords
๐กMnemonic cues
๐กSpaced repetition
๐กMemory
๐กAssociation
๐กGraduate school
๐กDissertation
๐กKorean language
๐กUniversity of Cambridge
๐กIndex cards
๐กLightner method
๐กAcademic career
Highlights
Science has discovered two primary ways to memorize things: mnemonic cues and spaced repetition.
Mnemonic cues involve creating associations or stories to aid recall.
Spaced repetition involves learning and reviewing information at increasing intervals to enhance long-term memory.
The speaker's friend conducted a study on human memory at the University of Cambridge.
Participants in the study were shown Korean words with English definitions for a short period and then tested on their recall.
The speaker used a mnemonic cue by associating a Korean symbol with an umbrella due to its shape.
The human mind encodes and remembers things based on stories and connections, not just simple associations.
Mnemonic cues can be applied to various types of information, such as GDPs of countries, labels for bones, or names of students.
The speaker shares a personal technique of creating visual stories to remember students' names in a classroom.
Spaced repetition can be implemented using index cards, testing oneself, and sorting cards based on familiarity.
Familiar cards are placed at the back of the stack for less frequent review, while unfamiliar ones are placed in the middle for more frequent review.
The process of spaced repetition involves continuous self-testing and reordering of cards to optimize memorization.
There are various methods and software available for implementing spaced repetition, but the speaker prefers the simplicity of index cards.
The speaker emphasizes the effectiveness of these memorization techniques throughout their academic career.
The speaker conducted a pop quiz to demonstrate the effectiveness of mnemonic cues.
The mnemonic cue for 'umbrella' involved looking for a symbol with a pointy roof-like shape.
The Korean word for 'mango' wasๆททๆท with the mnemonic cue for 'umbrella', showing the power of visual association.
The lecture series will continue with a focus on how to take effective notes.
Transcripts
science has discovered two exactly two
ways to memorize things mnemonic cues
and spaced repetition
when i say mnemonic q i mean an
association like a story
when you do this properly what happens
is that you see the symbol
and then that causes you to recall the
story that you told yourself or whatever
and the story causes you to recall the
other piece of information that you were
trying to attach to that symbol
let me give you an example when i was in
graduate school at the university of
cambridge in the united kingdom i had a
friend who was writing her dissertation
on
human memory she had this study and she
asked us a group of her friends to come
in and participate in the study the only
condition for participating in this
study was that we didn't already know
korean i didn't know korean so i go into
this laboratory room and there's a
screen and on the screen they show me
some korean words and then the the
english definitions
this was about 12 years ago and at the
time i didn't know korean quite
obviously i still don't know korean so i
apologize if i've written these symbols
incorrectly but what happened was they
would show me these symbols for like
five seconds
along with the english definitions like
this is the symbol for umbrella and this
is the the word in korean the symbol for
mango the fruit they would show it to me
for five seconds and i had to learn it
and they would do this for a dozen
symbols and then at the end they gave
they gave me a quiz to see how much i
could retain how much i could memorize
now it just so happened that right
before
i participated in this study
i had learned about mnemonic cues for
example when i was shown this word in
korean i noticed right here that this
part of the of the word it sort of looks
like a roof you know it's like a pointy
thing it looks like a roof or sort of
like an umbrella here i'll write it in a
different color
during my five seconds i i noticed that
part i i picked up on it and then i
imagined that there was you know a
little stick going here you know the
handle of the umbrella with a little
curve at the bottom and i imagine this
opening and closing like an umbrella it
opened up looked just like an umbrella i
just i just imagined this i i i made a
little movie in my head during those
five seconds when i was trying to learn
that this was the korean word for
umbrella and then the five seconds were
over and that symbol disappeared
when you first think about it this whole
imagining thing shouldn't work like you
start off with two things you start off
with the korean word and you've got the
english
synonym the word that means the same
thing in english you've got these two
things
and according to this method
apparently
the way to make it easier to learn you
know and memorize these two things is to
add a third thing which is the story you
would think that adding something else
an additional thing that you need to
remember that would make it harder but
it doesn't that's just not how the human
mind works the human mind
remembers things it encodes things based
on stories and points of connection and
so actually it turns out that if you do
this sort of thing you can remember
things and not just you know the
definitions of words you can do this for
all sorts of things if you have to
memorize the gdps of a whole bunch of
countries on a map or the labels for all
the different bones in the human body or
or the names of a whole bunch of
students in a classroom like i do at the
beginning of most semesters you just
make up little stories little
associations with those things right so
when i learn all of the names of you
know 50 students in a lecture classroom
i look at the student i ask them their
name they're in the classroom in front
of everyone else they say what their
name is
and then i take their name maybe their
name sounds like something i don't tell
them all this out loud also they look
weird they're some weird looking student
everybody looks weird if you look at
them and think about it everybody has
some weird thing about them you focus on
that weird thing you think about their
name you imagine their name dripping
over their their head with one of the
letters dripping around over their big
ear or whatever it is you you do some
little thing you tell some little story
you make some little animation in your
mind um you imagine some sound coming
out of their head even though that sound
isn't coming out of there right you do
something like this
that's a mnemonic cue and it just works
let's move on to spaced repetition the
idea here is that you have to memorize a
whole bunch of things some of them you
already know better than the other ones
or they're just coming more easily right
the ones that you know really well you
you
defer them to later but the ones that
you don't know you repeat them
within a shorter space the old-fashioned
way to do this is with index cards
here's a stack of index cards that i
brought as a prop here's how you would
use the index cards to implement some
kind of spaced repetition technique you
need to learn some words or some labels
or something or some facts there's the
prompt on one side that is the thing
that you're gonna see and then there's
on the back there's whatever you want to
show up in your brain
as soon as you see the thing on the
front okay here's what you do you test
yourself right you look at one side of
the card and you you see if you know
what what's going to be on the back if
you know it you put it at the back of
the pile what that means of course if it
goes in the back is that you're not
going to see it for a while because
you've got to go through this whole
stack before you ever see that one again
that's why you put at the back the ones
that you already know you test yourself
on a card and you don't know it if you
don't know it you slide it into the
middle
that way you're going to get it more
frequently at a shorter space a shorter
distance and you keep doing this over
and over again and you can do it you
know as a matter of degree right if you
don't know one
but you feel like oh you're kind of
getting closer to knowing it then you
put it in the middle if you don't know
it and you had no clue or whatever you
could put it really close to the front
here see so you'll get it really quickly
really soon again you do this over and
over again and you'll memorize stuff it
just works there are different fancy
methods for doing this one of the famous
ones is the lightner method named after
some guy named lightner maybe i'll find
his full name his photo on google or
something like that anyway it's some
method named after some guy it doesn't
matter they're all basically variations
on this very simple thing and you can
find software you know apps for your
phones or whatever
that'll that'll refresh the cards in
whatever order they think is the best
order but i think the simplest best way
is to use index cards the way that you
use the index cards matter right if you
just put every card at the back of the
pile then there's
it's not efficient it's not going to be
an efficient way to memorize because if
you take the cards that you really need
to learn because you don't know them yet
and you put them in the back you're not
going to get to them for a long time and
if you take the and if and if they come
just as frequently as the cards that you
already know you're just seeing these
symbols that you already know over and
over again you're not it's just not
efficient so spaced repetition is the
efficient way
to
get a whole bunch of stuff in front of
you and to get it to stick in your
memory it's amazing how well
both of these methods work and
continually throughout my academic
career since i was an undergraduate all
the way through college and then a
master's degree and then a phd and now
i'm a faculty member at a university and
have been for several years like it's
amazing
how infrequently people use these when
they want to memorize things when they
want to sink them into their brains okay
time for a pop quiz back when i was
telling you about mnemonic cues i put up
the korean words for mango and umbrella
here's your quiz
which symbol means mango and which
symbol means umbrella
i bet you can find the one that means
umbrella right here it is
it's this one but the one that means
mango one of these is the korean word
for mango and and that symbol was up on
this board with the definition for just
as long as
as the word umbrella was with the
definition of umbrella the difference is
that
i walked you through a mnemonic cue
with this word umbrella right i bet that
when you were looking for the word
umbrella you looked for this thingy
remember this you looked for that
you told yourself that little story or
if you didn't even need to tell yourself
the story because of the story you knew
to look for this little pointy thing
right because it looks like an umbrella
the answer by the way is this one this
is the korean word for mango
the point is
this stuff works the next lecture in
this series is about how to take notes
you
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