Visual markers are useful not only for superlearning, but also for everyday life. Visual markers are a simple and effective mnemonic device for almost any everyday situation. The example of not finding your keys is getting really old, yet we will mention it once again.
If you lost your keys, it means you did not put them in the proper place. Moreover, this probably means you put them there mindlessly. Our brain loves order and purpose, if not – it enjoys creative images. Otherwise it does not know where to start. So you go to the last moment you know you had your keys with you and try to retrace your steps. Each next action you took before loosing the keys has its location, its purpose and its own visualization. Actually your life is a collection of visual markers, which is why visual markers work. You revisit room by room, carefully tracing and marking all combinations until the keys are found.
Prior to Waze we were trained to use visual markers to find our way in any environment. Like a treasure map we remembered how far we are from some objects, and this way we knew where to go. In fact there are two different methods of orientation in space. Women remember specific objects and spatial relations between them, while men create a mental map and try to stick to it.
Another everyday superlearning situation is when we have to meet new people or people we did not talk with for a long time. We are required to remember a huge amount of personal information. Visual markers allow to place the person’s details near the person’s face. For example Lev Goldentouch can be visualized as a lion (russian:lev=english:lion) with golden paws. We have some specific training to learn people and their details. Our students report impressive progress, but we never were too successful in this – we are more used to working with abstract data than with people.
Please think of other situations where you could use visual markers to improve your everyday life. Than try to implement these skills. Share your experience with others on:
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Can you give me an example o using mental markers to memorize definitions. For example, in C# there are lambdas. Which, according to MSDN, lambda expressions allow you to write local functions that can be passed as arguments or returned as the value of function calls. So how would I use a mental marker to memorize that exact fact/definition.
Definitions are always a bit hard for me… Choose one of the options below or add your own.
1. Lambda is similar to pointer to a function in old plain C. Use mental equation “C# lambda = C *foo()”.
2. A delegate lambda can be memorized as ome sort of diplomat with lambda as a part of clothes
3. Lambda is anonymous method for statements and events, you can imagine it making a statement in AA event…
I have an absolutely horrendous sense of direction. Is there a way you would suggest using markers to try to remember a map maybe? I seem to be more verbal, and just go by street names… but I think people with a good sense of direction first usually know which way is north, and then have a map in their head they visualize… which I can never remember or create an image of (San Francisco is a complicated city)…
I have the same problem, so I use Waze. A lot.
There various methods to train navigation, but I am not motivated to try them.
Try http://www.backpacker.com/skills/navigation/improve-your-sense-of-direction/ and tell me if it works.