Published on the 1st and 3rd Monday of each month

Right-Brain Training - Practical Applications Part 4

May 21 2007, Mike Estep

Welcome to part 4 of my right-brain training series. In my previous article, I discussed the use of the imagination and mnemonic imagery representing reality-based material. Imagination was defined as: Mental images/concepts not actually present to the senses, but representing a reproduction of an existing reality or creation of a new reality. Mnemonic imagery was described as: Using the imagination as a memory tool to better store mental information for easy retrieval at a later date. With practice, mnemonic imagery can be used to recreate images representing real-life experiences with all sensory perception and emotion involved, which in turn helps to make storage and retrieval of the information more productive. It was also discussed that creativity was a side benefit to the use of mnemonic imagery. Imagery has to be created to exist in the mind. In this article, I will discuss the benefits and use of mnemonic imagery with nonsensical or cartoon-like images.

I’ve found it interesting to note that mnemonic imagery has existed in various forms for centuries with excellent results – yet there are still many people today that don’t know it exists, or have very little knowledge about it (let alone practical experience). Mnemonic imagery was used extensively by the Greeks during the Golden Age and by the Italians during the Renaissance period. I don’t think it is a coincidence that there were great leaps in human intelligence and creativity during these periods of time. There has also been more recent anecdotal and empirical research spanning decades showing the significance of mnemonic imagery in the acquisition of knowledge in several fields of study (e.g., medicine, law, math, language, art, music, etc.). In other words, it works and is worth pursuing. In relation to this article, I’ll first discuss common mnemonic imagery methods such as LINKING, PEGGING, and SUBSTITUTION (KEYWORD). Then I’ll give examples of usage with nonsensical (cartoon-like) images.

Linking involves imagining an item to be remembered that is associated with another item to be remembered using some combination of sensory perception, emotion, action, and exaggeration. Multiple items can be linked together in this fashion.

Pegging involves using imagined preset locations, or pegs, as mental storage areas. Items to be remembered are linked to these pegs. Pegging can enable the recall of information in multiple orders (e.g., forward, backward, isolated). Pegs commonly used include mental representations of:
  • Numbers and pictures (e.g., 1 = tree, 2 = light switch, 3 = stool, etc.)
  • Numbers, phonemes, and pictures (e.g., 1 = T = Tie, 2 = N = Noah, 3 = M = Ma, etc.)
  • Objects in a room or landmarks along a path (Method of Loci)
  • Distinctive physical characteristics of an object (e.g., linking personal names to peoples facial features)
In both linking and pegging, items to be remembered have a concrete representation. However, some information that needs to be remembered is abstract and not directly represented with any specific sensory perception. The method of substitution (keyword) can be used in these cases. Abstractions can be made concrete by substituting them with concrete imagery that bears some sensory similarity to the abstraction. For example, the personal name Mark is an abstraction that could be substituted with a mental image of the keywords magic marker.

The methods mentioned above could be used mostly with reality-based images, but the purpose of this article is to show you how this relates to nonsensical imagery. So, I’ll now give specific examples of how I could use linking, pegging, and substitution with cartoon-like images.

Linking

Let’s say I wanted to remember the order of 6 playing cards: Jack of diamonds, 2 of clubs, 3 of spades, ace of diamonds, queen of hearts, and the king of clubs. I could create a nonsensical mental story linking them together like this…
  • The jack of diamonds is kicking the 2 of clubs.
  • The 2 of clubs is dancing on the 3 of spades.
  • The 3 of spades is belly bucking with the ace of diamonds.
  • The ace of diamonds is licking the face of the queen of hearts.
  • The queen of hearts slaps the king of clubs.
Pegging

Let’s say I already memorized the following pegs: 1 = tree (trunk shaped like 1), 2 = light switch (on-off), 3 = stool (3 legs), 4 = car (4 tires), 5 = glove (five fingers). I could use these pegs to store a list such as grocery items (eggs, milk, bread, butter, sugar) by linking to the pegs…
  1. eggs (tree is smashing millions of eggs)
  2. milk (light switch is throwing gallons of milk)
  3. bread (stool is shuffling and dealing slices of bread)
  4. butter (car is swimming in butter)
  5. sugar (glove is pummeling and busting open sugar bags)
Substitution

Personal names can be more abstract and need a few more steps to make imagery concrete. Let’s say I previously memorized 5 first names (3 female, 2 male) with substituted images: Angela = angel, Clara = clarinet, Kathy = cat, Mark = magic marker, Ralph = raft. Now these names can be linked. When associating these names with faces, it is usually best to pick out distinguishing bodily characteristics as pegs (You don’t have to tell people what you are doing, they may not understand and take offense. Just remember, this is for the purpose of creatively memorizing.). So let’s say people that I’ve just met with the same before-mentioned names have the following characteristics: Angela has flaming red hair, Clara has thick glasses, Kathy has a big smile, Mark has a large nose, and Ralph has a dimpled chin. These characteristics can be used as pegs. Now I can link the names to the pegs nonsensically...
  • Angela: Angel with red hair on fire
  • Clara: Clarinet breaking thick glasses
  • Kathy: Exaggerated smiling Cheshire cat
  • Mark: Magic marker writing all over big nose
  • Ralph: Raft capsizing in dimples
This all seems silly doesn’t it? That’s exactly the point. It’s very creative to think this way and it greatly aids in recall of the information later. I’ve heard people say they don’t have a vivid enough imagination to create such imagery. If you the reader feel this way, then I must tell you that most people can indeed learn to use mnemonic imagery in this fashion. However, it takes dedicated practice to become fluent at it. There are many places you can find more information on mnemonics. An internet site you can start at is Mind Tools.

This will conclude my series of articles on right-brain training. I hope you’ve found the information interesting, informative, and thought provoking. For those of you that will consistently work at putting the discussed topics into practice, you will tap into a world of immense right-brain creativity – the stuff that genius is made of. This world has actually always been available to you. It’s just a matter of arming yourself with the skills to release your latent abilities.