Association

When an impression reminds you of other past impressions, it hangs in your conscious observation for just a little tiny bit longer, and then becomes a stronger memory. Suppose you see a picture of the flag of Iran. You might notice at the time that its colors are the same as the colors of the Italian flag, which you remember because the Italian family living next door always dresses up the house for Christmas in red and green. Or, maybe those colors are in your drapes. Or perhaps as a painter or printer your work involves colors, and you're reminded by the Iranian flag that red and green can be mixed to produce a deep brown. Or maybe your name is George W. Randall, and your initials tell the colors, top to bottom--green, white, red.

Remember, your mind is elaborately cross-referenced and any sensory impression is just as likely to touch off a reminiscence of something seemingly unrelated, as one of something which is closely allied. And with every association the memory of an impression is reinforced that much more. One may conclude from this, therefore, that the more you know, the easier it becomes to remember.

Association is the fundamental principle behind every artificial "system" for strengthening memory. Here, very briefly, is how it works: By constructing your own list of things with which to associate, you can remember any other things that come along, simply by connecting the thing to be remembered with the appropriate thing from your artificial list. Then, by mentally thumbing through your list, you will be reminded of the thing you're trying to remember when you come to its partner. More about this very important part of memory improvement later.

Your mind tends to organize the impressions it receives, and to reduce them to simple formulas wherever possible. This saves it, and you, a lot of trouble, because the knowledge that something fits into a certain pattern gives you a head-start in trying to remember it.

The Arabic numeral system, which is the one we commonly use, is actually little more than an ever-continuing repetition of ten digits--0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9--in a never-changing order. Perhaps you've never counted as high as 355,966 ... but you know as well as I do that the number which follows it is 355,967. That's because you know that seven follows six, in the system's repeating and repeating pattern.

How does this tendency toward pattern act upon your ability to remember? Well, for one thing, rhyming lines of poetry are more easily memorized than are sentences of prose. Words are easier to memorize than nonsense syllables. Sentences am easier to memorize than groups of unrelated words. Try naming all the letters of the alphabet, stating them at random without relying on the order in which you've learned them!

Furthermore, you'll find that it's easier to remember things in groups than singly, and less difficult to memorize lists when they are placed in alphabetical order, or in size place, or chronologically, or in any established pattern that will lend itself to your list.

Remember those clusters of sensarrows that are so much easier to locate in your memory than lone impressions? We've already mentioned one way in which they're formed--association. The more you know about a subject, the easier it is to recall specific things about it, because each specific thing is hooked up to other sensarrows

Pattern also plays an important part in this means of remembering by association: visualize your total knowledge of a subject as a sort of jigsaw puzzle, and think of each isolated bit of information about it as one of the parts. When you receive an impression from that part, you recognize it as part of the entire picture, and associate it with the overall subject, while at the same time classifying it in the pattern which is formed.

Now we come to still another method by which your mind brings into existence those easy-to-locate sensarrow clusters. When you see an apple, a little vision sensarrow is discharged to your brain. When you smell the apple, an olfactory sensarrow shoots out at your nose. When you pick up the apple and take a bite out of it, touch and taste sensarrows join the others in your brain. Even the sound of the crunch as you bite down on the apple produces another impression by which you can identify the apple you're eating. So appleness can be identified by the sum of all the impressions which you've received: a round, red, shiny thing that smells and tastes such-and-such a way, and makes a crunching sound when you bite it. The entire experience leaves a much more vivid impression with you than would just a look at an apple!

Here's another supposition to suppose: You've found a brand new way to travel to school, or to work, or to the market. All you've got to do is walk two short blocks east and catch a bus that you never even knew about, until the people next door told you. (When they mentioned it, you paid attention because you were motivated by a desire to discover a better way to gel where you're going.)

You walk the two blocks east the next chance you get, wait at the corner for the bus, and discover that it is indeed a very nice way to get to where you're going. You decide that you'll travel that way from now on. So, each day you walk those two blocks and take that bus.

The first time you take the walk, you look around you and notice the houses, the trees, the store windows, the sidewalks, and everything else. But you don't really remember most of it. The next time you make the trip the same sensarrows as last time pop out at you. And the next time, and the next time, and the next time. Pretty soon, you know everything about that route "by heart," and all because you've been exposed to it over and over. The sensarrow which you received yesterday from the elm tree in front of the third house from the corner has piled itself on top of the sensarrow which you got from the same thing the day before, and the day before that. Repetition of the same impression anchors the impression firmly in your memory.

This is the principle of memory which helps you to learn by studying. When you want to make sure you can understand something and remember it well, you repeat it to yourself, again and again. Of course the number of repetitions necessary to commit the thing to memory will vary with variations in all the other elements that determine the size of the sensarrows. After all, if the sensarrows are fairly large, it takes comparatively few of them to build a visible cluster!

You can, by studying a thing for a certain amount of time, commit it to memory well enough so that you can recite it backwards and forwards, inside out and upside-down...well enough so that you really know it quite well--and still forget it a day later. This is because your retention "runs out of gas"--you haven't overlearned. Overlearning imparts longevity to your memories far and away out of proportion to the degree to which you practice it. As soon as you're sure you've got it, it's good practice to put in another half hour on it, to increase the life of your memory by weeks, months, years!

Just as a radio program comes through to you better when no static disturbs your radio's reception ... just as you can hear the music better when there's no dust on the phonograph needle ; .. just as the contents of a speech are better understood when there aren't any boisterous hecklers distracting your attention ... so your mind retains its memories more effectively in the absence of other activity on the same wave-length.

Consider these alternate situations:

A. You begin at 1:00 in the afternoon to memorize a bunch of facts about the Revolutionary Period in American History. By 3:34 you decide that you've got the material pretty well learned, so you hop off to the movies for a change-of-pace. After five hours of first the Alamo and then the Civil War, you return to your room to refresh your previous learning. But all that stuff about Texan independence, and those Civil War dates and data, have somehow gotten confused in your memory with Valley Forge, Bunker Hill and Saratoga. Before you're through re-learning the Revolutionary War, you've spent another two hours!

B. At 1:00 you get down to studying the Revolutionary War, and decide at 3:30 that you know your stuff. Then, for a cllange-of-pace, you go outside and get into a baseball game. While you're standing around in the outfiels, your mind reviews what it's just learned, and there aren't any new facts and dates to confuse you. So when you return to your room to review, you find that just about twenty minutes of study are sufficient.

Interference by material which is in any way similar to the things you've memorized, confuses your memories. After a session with the roster of your customers, visit old friends, rather than going to a party full of strangers. After memorizing your speech for the PTA, bake a cake instead of reading that book you've been saving. This principle is an important one to keep in mind when you read about spaced learning-combining study with "strategic" rest periods.