Science For Life by Brian Clegg

Author:Brian Clegg
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Icon Books Ltd

LINKS:

Baby brains – page 153

Long-term memory – page 177

Remembering numbers

There was a time when we all just about managed to remember telephone numbers, but mobile phones have pretty much killed this ability. If you need to remember a number, though, there’s an easy way to do it.

In the old days you might have had to remember a telephone number like 0208-562-4169. It’s tricky to remember a whole telephone number, as short-term memory can only cope with around seven items at a time. What is cunningly done is to break the number up into chunks, as we can often take in a chunk as a single item. In this case, for instance, I would have known that 0208 was the code for outer London, so I could think of that as a single item.

Mobile phone numbers are potentially harder, because there is no convention for breaking them into chunks, though this does at least allow for some flexibility to match any repetition or patterns in the number. For instance, my mobile number has the digits 8080 in the middle, so when I give out my number I always break it down to the first bit, 8080 and the bit after.

Chunking helps enable you to briefly store a number in shortterm memory, but you may want to hang on to a number for longer than the few seconds that short-term memory keeps a grip on information. In that case, it helps to have a technique to encourage information into long-term memory. Just as with names, this is best done by using imagery and, like lists, a story is a great way to get that imagery into a sequence. The problem is that numbers don’t lend themselves to stories.

To get around this, most memory experts use a simple rhyming scheme, replacing numbers with words. A typical set would be:

1 – Gun

2 – Shoe

3 – Tree

4 – Door

5 – Hive

6 – Sticks

7 – Heaven

8 – Weight

9 – Line

(1)0 – Hen

If you have a good mental image of a hero, you could make that last one zero – hero instead, but otherwise, ten/hen makes a good substitute.

By simple repetition, get these rhyming words into memory so that given a number (6) you can instantly come up with the word (sticks) – and vice versa. Then it’s simply a case of building a story, as usual making it dramatic and outrageous, featuring the items in the order required to spell out the number.

To begin with, you will remember the number by working through the story, but before long the number should pop into your mind automatically, properly located in long-term memory.

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