Want a memory as good as an elephant’s? Think like an actor.
Actors don’t all have excellent memories, sometimes they just act like they do.
Researchers have looked to actors for memory clues with the idea of using these actor based techniques to counter cognitive decline. They found that the secret to actors’ memories is acting; they focus on the meaning of the words and the physical and emotional motivations of the character saying them.
Beyond that, actors break down a script into a series of logically connected chunks using techniques called mnemonics, which are clues and tricks of association that can help them, and us, remember. Here are a few mnemonic tricks worth remembering…
1. Actively experience it. Engage with what you want to learn physically, mentally, and emotionally; use your senses to relate it to colors, smells, sounds, and texture.
2. Use acronyms. They’re a familiar part of our everyday language, NBA (National Basketball Association), SCUBA (self-contained underwater breathing apparatus), LASER (light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation). Make your own by rearranging a shopping list. It doesn’t have to be a real word (this isn’t scrabble!), it just has to be something you’ll remember.
3 .Use acrostics. These are especially useful if you have to remember items in a specific order or if an acronym isn’t easy enough to remember. Like the first 10 U.S. presidents: Wobbly Angry Jet Made Misstep After Jamming Very Heavy Traffic = Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Munroe, Adams, Jackson, Van Buren, Harrison, Tyler.
4. Explain it to someone else. When you focus on explaining the meaning of the material to another person you’re more likely to learn it and it will stay with you longer than if you just memorize it.
5. Make vivid visual associations. This is a great trick for remembering names. Associate vivid images with people whose names you want to remember. Rose is a rose. Michael is a mike. Nancy is fancy; a fancy Nancy is Nancy Sinatra. A big guy named Robert is ‘Big Bob’.
6. Employ the movement principle. Memory is aided by movement. In one study, actors who learned lines while making an appropriate motion — e.g., walking across a stage — remembered the lines later without the movement.
