How to improve memory

In ancient Greek and Roman times, memory was greatly valued – the word itself comes from the name of the Greek goddess of memory, Mnemosyne. Roman senators had to address the senate without written notes, so they perfected ways of improving their memories and identified the two main principles underlying conscious memory: imagination and association. You associate the thing you want to remember with something fixed, and then you use your imagination to make the picture as vivid as possible. The Romans associated their ideas with fixed points around the room they were talking in, and then referred to them (which gives the English expressions: In the first place …, in the second place …, etc.) The peg-word and link-word systems involve learning a series of items linked to numbers (1=sun, 2=shoe, etc, or a phonetic system which can run into the thousands). This is the list to which you then ‘peg’ the items you wish to remember by creating vivid images involving the peg word and the item to be remembered. Alternatively, create a story in which a series of items are linked sequentially.

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