Those speed-reading, super-memory things.

misogynisticfeminist

Do you believe in those tony buzan, fancy memory techniques kinda thing? I myself don't and think that it is total crap. What about you all?

Mk

Mhmm... I don't know what to think, I know there are techniques that help, but the don't work as good as like on the infomercials on the radio and stuff.

the number 42

I find that some things work well for me e.g. loci, but stuff like mind-mapping is a waste of effort. Different things work for different people.

tribdog

I think the system works, but it isn't an overnight sort of effect. You have to practice and put the techniques into use and slowly your memory gets better. Takes a lot of work though.

Evo

I've always had a near photographic memory and never needed anything like that.

BobG

Same here. But I think my camera may be an earlier model than yours.

How I memorize things:
http://www.civilwarphotography.com/gibson/wetplate.html

Moonbear

I've never been any good at speed reading. In 7th grade, we had a unit on speed reading, where we had to sit at these machines that would run sentences past you at a certain rate, and then you had to answer reading comprehension questions about what you just read. I had no problem reading the words at any speed, but I didn't process a single bit of it once it got much above my normal reading speed. The theory was that practice would improve this. I never improved on that one bit. The upside is that I'm quite detail oriented, so if I read something once, I can retain details for a long time, whereas those who speed read get the main gist, but lose a lot of details. To me, speed reading is like reading a foreign language where I know a lot of the words, but not all of them and don't know the grammar rules: I can scan a paper and get some gist of what the authors are saying, but if I need methodological details, I'm going to need a translator (or slow down). The only benefit I get from speed reading is to scan something quickly when proofreading to get an idea of the entirety of the work before going back and reading for details.

I've really not seen any other benefit. If I'm reading something for work, I need to focus on details, the gist isn't enough. If I'm reading for pleasure, what's the hurry? I don't want to race through a book, I want to savor every word as the author intended it.

As for memory, the best way for me to remember stuff is simply to put it into context. If I understand something well, I won't forget it (or can reason my way back to it). If I don't understand it, memorization isn't going to help anyway. Then again, once you're out of school, you don't need to memorize so much. If I understand a cell signaling pathway and can't remember the name of one of the kinases, I can just look it up. If I work with it all the time, I'll remember it.

The biggest hindrance to remembering things for me is simply having too many things on my plate at one time. If I can stop and focus on just one thing, I can remember it without effort. But, when I'm juggling numerous things at a time, I don't bother trying to remember stuff, or I'll end up mixing up two things and making a mistake. That's where keeping good notes, jotting lists on a whiteboard, using copious amounts of sticky notes, and color-coding everything in the lab help.

Ivan Seeking

Tom, Dick, Harry, and Pete - four old guys - are playing cards at Harry's house. After a long evening during which Harry blew everyone off of the table and took all of their money, the other three finally asked what had happened. They had all been fairly evenly matched in the past. What had happened to Harry? After some prodding, Harry finally admitted to taking a memory improvement course. Oh ya? Boy, that really seems to work, said Tom. What was it? How did it work?

Well, said Harry, do you remember when we did that ceremony thing...you know...when we finished high school I mean...?

What? Do you mean graduation?

Yes that's it. Graduation. When we did that, we had those rings....uh...

...sure, our graduation rings.

Yes that's it. Now, do you remember that those rings had a stone of some kind?

Do you mean the ruby?

Yes that's it!!! Hey Ruby, what was that memory course that we took?

Moses

Hahaha, i got it now when i went to that website
I was thinking it is helping "directly" to imrpove memory.....
Anyhow...

JasonRox

I remember everything fine.

Just like Moonbear said, what's the hurry?

Lyuokdea

That's still pretty good, my photographic memory still runs on ancient Egyptian techniques, and believe me, finding good rocks to mash plants together to produce oils, is really a pain.

The biggest problem though, is that when I want to remember what I took the photograph of, I have a problem with the 2d images and hieroglyphics.

tribdog

good thing I speed read or I wouldn't have had time to finish this post.

Gokul43201

Neat satire !

Moonbear

You could just read the first sentence of each paragraph to get my point; the rest is details. I can speed type just fine.