What color would a rollerblading cat be? How big would it be? Where would it be rollerblading? If you answered green, about the size of a car, and over the Golden Gate Bridge, then you have just seen another example of how association works. The image is creative and unusual, so it sticks better in your memory. We use this feature of memory in various techniques to improve your retention.
Good associations include senses, emotions, situations, categorization, exaggeration and combinations. There are also some basic steps to follow when creating associations. Next I talk about these two points and provide some thoughts on practicing association. I also discuss the principle of chunking.
There are six key features that help create powerful associations. The following diagram and points describe these features:
A good way to remember these seven features is to think of association as EESSOCCiation. Each of the first seven letters stands for one of these features—Emotions, Exaggeration, Senses, Situations, Objects, Categorization and Combinations.
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Association and the Brain’s Neural Networks Recall that the brain works by creating and changing networks of neurons. This holds three important lessons for us. Firstly, the brain learns new information by expanding existing networks. It does not usually create a completely new network that is isolated from the rest of our experience base. We learn faster by relating new experiences and information back to what we already know. This builds on existing neural networks. Secondly, the brain learns such information by creating relationships, associations, and other structures such as categories and hierarchies. We remember more accurately when we spend more time creating relationships and associations between existing and new content, and within new content. Lastly, the brain loves novel, unique and exaggerated relationships and associations between content. Remembering a cat next to a pair of rollerblades is later recalled a lot less accurately than remembering a huge cat rollerblading across the harbor bridge. The same rule applies to learning serious content. The concepts may be serious but we can remember it far more easily if we create unique and exaggerated relationships with them. |
The steps to create associations may seem complicated at first. Stay with it. After you have done a few associations it becomes easier. Read the steps below. I’ve also included an example—how to memorize that one of the roles of engine oil is to cool the engine.
1. Choose the known key image. Choose an image that links to the item you wish to remember. This is typically an image that a) is an object, and b) links to information you already know.
Example: Our known key word is oil, however we want to choose an image that we see when we think of oil. Let’s use an image of oil in the sump (bottom) of the engine.
2. Create the target key image. Think of an image that reminds you of the piece of information you want to link to.
Example: Our target piece of information we want to remember is “cools the engine,” however it’s hard to create an image from that fact. So we choose an image that’s related to cooling. The first one I thought of was a “Polar Bear.” If I think of oil, and then polar bear, that triggers the thought “cools the engine.”
3. Consider both the known and target key images. Visualize both of them and see if there are any obvious comparisons you can exploit.
Example: There are many comparisons! Oil is black (usually), polar bears are white. A bear is usually much bigger than an engine. A polar bear uses oil in its hair to keep it warm.
4. Create the primary link. Choose one of the association features (senses, emotions, situations, categorization, exaggeration, objects and combinations) to link from the first to the second. Consider some of the comparisons you made, and then perhaps take the opposite of those (the most obvious links don’t always work the best, so use creativity). This is your primary link. Make this link stand out on the known image, so it’s the first link you think of when you think of the known key word.
Example: I chose situation as my primary link. I see thousands of tiny polar bears swimming in the oil of the engine.
5. Create supporting links. Depending on how critical the knowledge is that you are learning, you can then create more links to support the primary link. If this is an important association, work through the association features and create more links.
Example: More links could include: For senses, see a visual of a white bear swimming in black oil. For emotions, see the bears having a great time sliding down the metal surfaces of the engine, cooling it as they go. For exaggeration, we’ve already exaggerated both the size of the bears (tiny) as well as their number (thousands).
6. Test it out. Clear your mind for a moment, and then think of the known key word and the image it creates in your mind. Is your attention first drawn to the primary link, which then triggers the second target image? If not, spend some more time focusing on enriching the primary link so it stands out the most when you think of the object.
Example: Try out the visualization. Think of the oil sump. Visualize thousands of polar bears swimming in the engine sump. Imagine seeing the oil on the end of the dip stick. Look closely. What do you see?
Those are the basic steps to create an association. Like I said above, it may seem complicated at first but it does get easier.
As well as these features and steps, here are two further tips for creating good associations:
Association is an essential memory skill that takes some time to understand and do well. It does work though. Association is the primary method that memory champions use to win international memory competitions.
You can shorten the time to learn association by using it regularly, as well as by doing some simple exercises. Try spending ten minutes a day for a week doing simple associations. Choose two unrelated objects, and go through all the key association features above. Think of many ways to associate those objects. Try to create the most outrageous and illogical links between them.
You can get better at association by practice as well as using it for real learning work. You can learn some of the following techniques while using them to remember content. For example, I learned peg words twenty to one hundred while memorizing a list of one hundred review points. These review points were from training flights leading up to my pilot’s license. As I recalled the list, it also helped strengthen those peg words I had only just learned! Indeed, one author named a memory system the “Self-Enhancing Matrix” because while you use the system you also strengthen your ability to use it.
One trait of working memory (a part of overall memory) is that it can work with up to seven pieces of information at any one time. George A. Miller, a psychologist, called this trait the “magical number seven, plus or minus two.”
When you are creating associations (or indeed, working with any number of items), try to group or chunk larger numbers of items into groups of no more than seven items. It’s usually easier to remember a group of three lists of five items than it is to remember a single list of fifteen items.
Let’s look at a specific example for presentation training. On the left is an unstructured list of points to remember for good presentations. On the right is the same list “chunked” into four groups.
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Prepare material
Prepare on the day
Present
Review
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Sometimes information is easy to group like this. Other times you may just have to choose arbitrary dividing lines. You can use the principles of association though to decide those dividing lines, the more creative the better!