Memory Methods

[tim]

Strange? I completely disagree. It's the most obvious memory system with images. And it's extremely simple, too. One image for one sticker. That's it. I don't see anything strange in it. And it's probably not the best system for me, but i love simplicity more than anything else, so i won't switch.

I knew you'd say that.

I knew you'd say that .

Anyway, my gf just pointed out, that you said "single letters". I think you know, that i didn't use letters to come up with my images. Honestly, i never understood why you should limit yourself to letters? There are far more awesome images starting with an S, B or T than there are for Z or Y (at least in German).
Actually i started with a list of letters and tried to find proper images. But after about 10 minutes i had two great images (i still use these two) i wanted to use. But both of them started with an S. So i skipped the whole letter crap and started making random images, somewhat related to the color of the actual sticker. You'll know your images by heart after a while anyway, so why the limitation of letters?

 

[Mike Hughey]

Anyway, my gf just pointed out, that you said "single letters". I think you know, that i didn't use letters to come up with my images. Honestly, i never understood why you should limit yourself to letters? There are far more awesome images starting with an S, B or T than there are for Z or Y (at least in German).
Actually i started with a list of letters and tried to find proper images. But after about 10 minutes i had two great images (i still use these two) i wanted to use. But both of them started with an S. So i skipped the whole letter crap and started making random images, somewhat related to the color of the actual sticker. You'll know your images by heart after a while anyway, so why the limitation of letters?

I didn't know that about your system, but of course it makes perfect sense. I've thought a few times lately that it might have been nicer to just come up with images without bothering with the letters, but of course now that would be too much work for me, so I probably won't do it.

By the way, just to actually contribute something new here, I thought I should mention the neat trick that Ryosuke Mondo told me he uses. Like so many of us, he has images for all letter pair combinations A to X. (Most of them in English, interestingly.) But what I thought was clever is that he apparently uses his list of these as his journey. He has double-letter pairs too, so his journey consists of his images as locations, AA, AB, AC, AD, ... all the way to XV, XW, XX. Which gives him 576 locations in his journey. A nice way to kill two birds with one stone - you memorize your letter pairs list, and you get a nice journey to go with it for free!

I doubt I'll ever use that, but if I ever suddenly need a really long extra journey (like I suddenly get handed an 11x11x11, but I have to try it that day), I might give it a try.

 

[cmhardw]

I quite agree. I still don't understand how Tim Habermaas's strange memory method (using images for single letters instead of pairs) could possibly get good results. But considering his 24/24 in just over 2 hours, I'd say it must be pretty close to perfect for him - I hope someday I come up with a system that works as well.

I met Boris Konrad at the 2006 World Sport Stacking Championships and he uses the same method for speed cards. He has one image per card, but his journeys are 52 locations long.

I like having 3 images per location. I've experimented with 1 image per location, 2, 3, and 4 per location. For some reason 3 just feels the most natural to me. That might be a bias from practicing that way the most often, but I do like 3 per location.

Chris

 

[Mike Hughey]

I like having 3 images per location. I've experimented with 1 image per location, 2, 3, and 4 per location. For some reason 3 just feels the most natural to me. That might be a bias from practicing that way the most often, but I do like 3 per location.

Me too! And it makes me feel comfortable using 3 images per location knowing that, according to the video of Ben Pridmore, he uses 3 images per location to memorize decks of cards.

 

[Anthony]

By the way, just to actually contribute something new here, I thought I should mention the neat trick that Ryosuke Mondo told me he uses. Like so many of us, he has images for all letter pair combinations A to X. (Most of them in English, interestingly.) But what I thought was clever is that he apparently uses his list of these as his journey. He has double-letter pairs too, so his journey consists of his images as locations, AA, AB, AC, AD, ... all the way to XV, XW, XX. Which gives him 576 locations in his journey. A nice way to kill two birds with one stone - you memorize your letter pairs list, and you get a nice journey to go with it for free!

I'm happy to say I was there when he said that.
I still don't quite understand how he does it, but it obviously works for him.

I too was also surprised when most of his images were in English. I wonder if he ever gets confused seeing a certain image that was supposed to be translated in English, but instead he turns it into Japanese..

 

[F.P.]

I like having 3 images per location. I've experimented with 1 image per location, 2, 3, and 4 per location. For some reason 3 just feels the most natural to me. That might be a bias from practicing that way the most often, but I do like 3 per location.

But you don't use PVO, right?

 

[Mike Hughey]

I like having 3 images per location. I've experimented with 1 image per location, 2, 3, and 4 per location. For some reason 3 just feels the most natural to me. That might be a bias from practicing that way the most often, but I do like 3 per location.

But you don't use PVO, right?

I don't. But it does seem like a logical extension of the method I use. The only problem is that I use an extra person to represent the buffer piece (so I have a person acting on 3 images at every location), which is a bit wasteful, especially with the cases where my buffer doesn't change. Still, I'm starting to think it might be sensible to look at improving my system, and I wonder if this would be worth doing. Giving up a moving buffer would sometimes mean significant extra moves, especially on a 4x4x4, but it might be worth the sacrifice. So the job would be to triple my images, and start using a fixed buffer. Worth considering.

 

[Chuck]

Wow, it's nice to see that this thread become alive again

Your own/current method seems to work very well for few...are you planning on changing to a method just because it work for someone else?

Thank you, but I think there are still so much to improve. I'm using the same memory method for single and multi BLD, the difference is just on the reviewing length and the number of locations. It's hard for me to get sub 2 BLD if I still handling it like this.

It's the most obvious memory system with images.[/B] And it's extremely simple, too. One image for one sticker. That's it. I don't see anything strange in it.

I think you know, that i didn't use letters to come up with my images. Honestly, i never understood why you should limit yourself to letters? ... So i skipped the whole letter crap and started making random images, somewhat related to the color of the actual sticker. You'll know your images by heart after a while anyway, so why the limitation of letters?

I quite agree. I had the same experience. The difference is I'm using two image per sticker, one for odd items and the other for even items. This way, I never have to count the number of items at the end to know whether there is a parity, and it's also very useful on M2 edges. But I just doooooon't have any idea how can you be so fast. :confused:

Oh well, let's just practice more.

By the way, just to actually contribute something new here, I thought I should mention the neat trick that Ryosuke Mondo told me he uses. Like so many of us, he has images for all letter pair combinations A to X. (Most of them in English, interestingly.) But what I thought was clever is that he apparently uses his list of these as his journey. He has double-letter pairs too, so his journey consists of his images as locations, AA, AB, AC, AD, ... all the way to XV, XW, XX. Which gives him 576 locations in his journey. A nice way to kill two birds with one stone - you memorize your letter pairs list, and you get a nice journey to go with it for free!

Ugh, I tried so hard to understand this but I failed. Maybe someone would willing to give me an example?

 

[piemaster]

I'm trying to make some words for my edge pieces...any help appreciated!
YO: Yo-yo
OY: Oil
YG: Yogurt
GY: Guy
YR: Your
RY: Rain
OG: Ogre
GO: Go
OB: Obese
BO: Body odor >=D
BR: Brick
RB: Rabbit
RG: Rag
GR: Green
OW: Ouch
WO: WOO HOO!!
BW: Bow
WB: Web
RW: Row
WR: World record
GW: Gown
WG: Wig

Yay! I'm done!

 

[miniGOINGS]

GY: Guy
WO: WOOO HOOO!!

 

[piemaster]

I'm really stuck on the rest...hmmmmm...

EDIT: Only YG and YR! Yay! As soon as I finish I think I'll start BLD...
EDIT2: Hmm....yogurt, how about yogurt....

 

[Mike Hughey]

By the way, just to actually contribute something new here, I thought I should mention the neat trick that Ryosuke Mondo told me he uses. Like so many of us, he has images for all letter pair combinations A to X. (Most of them in English, interestingly.) But what I thought was clever is that he apparently uses his list of these as his journey. He has double-letter pairs too, so his journey consists of his images as locations, AA, AB, AC, AD, ... all the way to XV, XW, XX. Which gives him 576 locations in his journey. A nice way to kill two birds with one stone - you memorize your letter pairs list, and you get a nice journey to go with it for free!

Ugh, I tried so hard to understand this but I failed. Maybe someone would willing to give me an example?

Mondo printed out all of his images on pieces of paper, and had them hanging around his room so he could memorize them. They're in order, 6 to a page, from AA to XX. So say you have an aardvark as AA, abacus as AB, ace as AC, and advertisement as AD. You use these as the locations in your journey, and have your other images interact with these images in your journey. It's not confusing because you are just going through your images in order as locations. The only confusing thing would be if you had to put an abacus image at your abacus location, but then I'd probably put another abacus on top of the first one or something. Really, in an ordinary journey, the locations are some sort of "image" anyway, so why not reuse the images you've already used as locations? I have a couple of locations in my rooms that can sometimes conflict with images for letter pairs, but they never really cause me problems. For instance, I might have a bathtub as a location in a room, and I might hit TB (tub) as an image to go there. So I'll imagine a little toy bathtub inside the tub that's the location. That sort of thing.

If I ever get my hands on an 11x11x11, I think I'll forget my prepared rooms and just go with this technique instead for it.

 

[Chuck]

Thanks, Mike. I understand now.
It's an amazing and smart method.

 

[Cride5]

I created a BLD memorisation page on the Wiki to consolidate the information in this thread
However, my understating of memorisation methods isn't really up to the job of completing it

The page is currently a DNF (Stub), so if anyone wishes to share their knowledge and add to the page, it would be greatly appreciated

 

[MatsBergsten]

I created a BLD memorisation page on the Wiki to consolidate the information in this thread
However, my understating of memorisation methods isn't really up to the job of completing it

The page is currently a DNF (Stub), so if anyone wishes to share their knowledge and add to the page, it would be greatly appreciated

Just a little comment on letter pairs: as I have understood it it is more common that a letter pair stands for two cubies (each cubie has a letter), i.e both moves in a 3-cycle. At least for me each letter pair solves two cubies at a time. But then I am to lazy to learn letter pairs (as yet).

 

[Cride5]

I created a BLD memorisation page on the Wiki to consolidate the information in this thread
However, my understating of memorisation methods isn't really up to the job of completing it

The page is currently a DNF (Stub), so if anyone wishes to share their knowledge and add to the page, it would be greatly appreciated

Just a little comment on letter pairs: as I have understood it it is more common that a letter pair stands for two cubies (each cubie has a letter), i.e both moves in a 3-cycle. At least for me each letter pair solves two cubies at a time. But then I am to lazy to learn letter pairs (as yet).

Aah right, thanks. I've updated it. My only knowledge of memorisation comes from dabbling in Old Pochmann, so not that extensive!

 

[MichaelErskine]

I've outlined the method that I'm currently learning for memorisation using objects representing pairs of colours...

http://www.speedsolving.com/wiki/index.php/BLD_Memorization#Colour_Pairs

I'll add a partial table of suggested objects later tonight.

 

[MatsBergsten]

I've outlined the method that I'm currently learning for memorisation using objects representing pairs of colours...

http://www.speedsolving.com/wiki/index.php/BLD_Memorization#Colour_Pairs

Wow, I made it into the Wiki

 

[trying-to-speedcube...]

Lol, congratulations, Mats! (And Michael, please think of me for the Red-White-Blue corner )

 

[MichaelErskine]

Wow, I made it into the Wiki

Lol, congratulations, Mats! (And Michael, please think of me for the Red-White-Blue corner )

Hehehe - I already have Orange-Blue for "Anything/anyone Dutch" as this colour combination always represents the Netherlands for me.