The Trained Memory Part 3

All the wealth of your past experience is still yours--a concrete part of your personality. All that is required to make it available for your present use is a sufficient concentration of your attention, _a concentration of attention that shall dwell persistently and exclusively upon those a.s.sociations that bear upon the fact desired_.

The tendency of the mind toward dissociation, a function limiting the indiscriminate recall of a.s.sociated "groups," is also manifested in all of us in the transfer to unconsciousness of many _muscular activities_.

[Sidenote: _How Habits Are Formed_]

As infants we learn to walk only by giving to every movement of the limbs the most deliberate conscious attention. Yet, in time, the complicated co-operation of muscular movements involved in walking becomes involuntary and unconscious, so that we are no longer even aware of them.

It is the same with reading, writing, playing upon musical instruments, the manipulation of all sorts of mechanical devices, the thousand and one other muscular activities that become what we call _habitual_.

The moment one tries to make these habitual activities again dependent on the conscious will he encounters difficulties.

"The centipede was happy quite, Until the toad, for fun, Said, 'Pray which leg goes after which?'

This stirred his mind to such a pitch, He lay distracted in a ditch, Considering _how_ to run."

_All these habitual activities are started as acts of painstaking care and conscious attention. All ultimately become unconscious._ They may, however, be started or stopped at will. They are, therefore, still related to the conscious mind. They occupy a semi-automatic middle ground between conscious and subconscious activities.

THE FALLACY OF MOST MEMORY SYSTEMS

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CHAPTER VI

THE FALLACY OF MOST MEMORY SYSTEMS

[Sidenote: _Practice in Memorizing Inadequate_]

It is evident that if what we have been describing as the process of recall is true, then the commonly accepted idea that _practice_ in memorizing makes memorizing _easier_ is false, and that there is no truth in the popular figure of speech that likens the memory to a muscle that grows stronger with use.

So far as the memory is concerned, however, practice may result in a more or less unconscious improvement in the _methods_ of memorizing.

_By practice we come to unconsciously discover and employ new a.s.sociative methods in our recording of facts, making them easier to recall, but we can certainly add nothing to the actual scope and power of retention._

[Sidenote: _Torture of the Drill_]

Yet many books on memory-training have wide circulation whose authors, showing no conception of the processes involved, seek to develop the general ability to remember by incessant practice in memorizing particular facts, just as one would develop a muscle by exercise.

The following is quoted from a well-known work of this character:

"I am now treating a case of loss of memory in a person advanced in years, who did not know that his memory had failed most remarkably until I told him of it. He is making vigorous efforts to bring it back again, and with partial success. The method pursued is to spend two hours daily, one in the morning and one in the evening, in exercising this faculty. The patient is instructed to give the closest attention to all that he learns, so that it shall be impressed on his mind clearly.

He is asked to recall every evening all the facts and experiences of the day, and again the next morning. Every name heard is written down and impressed on his mind clearly and an effort made to recall it at intervals. Ten names from among public men are ordered to be committed to memory every week. A verse of poetry is to be learned, also a verse from the Bible, daily. He is asked to remember the number of the page of any book where any interesting fact is recorded. These and _other_ methods are slowly resuscitating a failing memory."

[Sidenote: _Real Cause of Failing Memory_]

As remarked by Professor James, "It is hard to believe that the memory of the poor old gentleman is a bit the better for all this torture except in respect to the particular facts thus wrought into it, the occurrences attended to and repeated on those days, the names of those politicians, those Bible verses, etc., etc."

The error in the book first quoted from lies in the fact that its author looks upon a failing memory as indicating a loss of retentiveness. The _real_ cause is the loss of an intensity of interest. _It is the failure to form sufficiently large groups and complexes of related ideas, emotions and muscular movements a.s.sociated with the particular fact to be remembered. There is no reason to believe that the retention of sensory experiences is not at all times perfectly mechanical and mechanically perfect._

Interest is a mental yearning. It is the offspring of desire and the mother of memory.

It goes out spontaneously to anything that can add to the sum of one's knowledge about the thing desired.

[Sidenote: _The Manufactured Interest_]

A manufactured interest is counterfeit. When a thing is done because it has to be done, desire dies and "duty" is born. In proportion as a subject is a.s.sociated with "duty," it is divorced from interest.

[Sidenote: _Memory Lure of a Desire_]

If you want to impress anything on another man's mind so that he will remember it, harness it up with the lure of a desire.

Diffused interest is the cause of all unprofitable forgetfulness. Do not allow your attention to grope vaguely among a number of things. Whatever you do, make a business of doing it with your whole soul. Turn the spotlight of your mind upon it, and you will not forget it.

[Ill.u.s.tration: TESTING ABILITY TO OBSERVE, REMEMBER AND REPORT THINGS SEEN PRIVATE LABORATORY, SOCIETY OF APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY]

A SCIENTIFIC MEMORY SYSTEM FOR BUSINESS SUCCESS

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CHAPTER VII

A SCIENTIFIC MEMORY SYSTEM FOR BUSINESS SUCCESS

[Sidenote: _Importance of a.s.sociates_]

We recall things by their a.s.sociates. _When you set your mind to remember any particular fact, your conscious effort should be not vaguely to will that it shall be impressed and retained, but a.n.a.lytically and deliberately to connect it with one or more other facts already in your mind._

[Sidenote: _"Cramming" and "Willing"_]

The student who "crams" for an examination makes no permanent addition to his knowledge. There can be no recall without a.s.sociation, and "cramming" allows no time to form a.s.sociations.

If you find it difficult to remember a fact or a name, do not waste your energies in "willing" it to return. Try to recall some other fact or name a.s.sociated with the first in time or place or otherwise, and lo!

when you least expect it, it will pop into your thoughts.

If your memory is good in most respects, but poor in a particular line, it is because you do not interest yourself in that line, and therefore have no material for a.s.sociation. Blind Tom's memory was a blank on most subjects, but he was a walking encyclopedia on music.

[Sidenote: _Basic Principle of Thought-Reproduction_]

_To improve your memory you must increase the number and variety of your mental a.s.sociations._

Many ingenious methods, scientifically correct, have been devised to aid in the remembering of particular facts. These methods are based wholly on the principle that _that is most easily recalled which is a.s.sociated in our minds with the most complex and elaborate groupings of related ideas_.