Memory: Beyond One Story

Are you more like Dory, Nemo, or your own kind of fish? How and what do you remember?

Animated movies often help us to understand complex topics and show us diversity. In "Finding Nemo" one of the main takeaways is that memory functions differently from one person to another. Some people struggle to remember names, locations, people they have just met and have some memory impairments like Dori, while others, like Nemo, do remember detailed plans and lessons learned in the past.

Some people are neither Dory or a Nemo and they are their own type of fish. I call them the Rainbow fish. Those people can remember an incredible amount of information in a short time.

Fascinating examples of such people who won many memory competitions are:

  Yanjaa Wintersoul

Yanjaa Wintersoul remembers the names of every audience member after looking at them for less than a minute.

Nelson Dellis

He won the USA Memory Championship multiple times. He can remember 339 digits in 5 minutes.

Simon Reinhard

He remembered 52 cards in 21.90 seconds and is a Speed Cards Memory World Record Holder.

How do they remember it all?

Yanjaa Wintersoul shares her own tactic in a 4-minute video and explains how her storytelling approach helps her win competitions. She suggests that this could improve anyone's memory. I have tried it, and it is cool but verify for yourselves.

Nelson Dellis associates each digit (0–9) with specific consonant sounds. Once you map the numbers to sounds, you combine them with vowels to form words. Watch the video to learn how.

Simon Reinhard discusses the method of loci, a memory technique used by ancient civilisations such as the Greeks and Romans. It trains the brain to associate numbers with specific locations.

Of course, most of us are not like them. So what does research say about the memory of an adult?

Interesting few research facts:

1) Extensive media multitasking (use of multiple media screens at the same time) impairs memory and working memory function. Uncapher, Thieu, and Wagner (2016) found that heavy use of multiple media screens reduces precision in recalling goal-relevant information.

2) Healthy adults remember real-world objects better than photographs of the same objects. Snow et al. (2014) demonstrated this in two experiments involving 172 participants, highlighting the advantage of tangible or realistic stimuli for memory retention.

3) Color enhances memory performance by increasing attention. A literature review by Dzulkifli and Mustafar (2013) concluded that the use of color can improve information retention, likely through its impact on attentional processes.

Key questions: What do you remember? What do you think about those research findings? Do any of them resonate with you? Comment bellow

References:

Snow JC, Skiba RM, Coleman TL, Berryhill ME. (2014) Real-world objects are more memorable than photographs of objects. Front Hum Neurosci. Oct 20;8:837. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2014.00837. PMID: 25368568; PMCID: PMC4202719.

Uncapher MR, K Thieu M, Wagner AD. (2016) Media multitasking and memory: Differences in working memory and long-term memory. Psychon Bull Rev. Apr;23(2):483-90. doi: 10.3758/s13423-015-0907-3. PMID: 26223469; PMCID: PMC4733435.

Dzulkifli MA, Mustafar MF. (2013) The influence of colour on memory performance: a review. Malays J Med Sci. Mar;20(2):3-9. PMID: 23983571; PMCID: PMC3743993.

Disclaimer: All images were generated using AI through my personal subscription. All referenced articles are available under free-use or open-access copyright licenses and may be cited freely. The content presented reflects my own ideas and personal interest in this topic, and the way I wrote it is copyrighted.