The Complete Idiot's Guide to Improving Your Memory

by Kurland, Michael

• ISBN13: 9780028629490
• ISBN10: 0028629493
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1999-06-01
• Publisher: DK Publishing, Inc.

Summary

You're no idiot, of course. You know when it's payday, Christmas, and your own birthday without even checking a calendar. But when it comes to remembering where you've put the car keys you feel like your little gray cells have left the building. Don't draw a blank just yet! The Complete Idiot's Guide to Improving Your Memory is packed with practical techniques that can help you create a regimen for sharpening your memory. In this Complete Idiot's Guide, you get:

Author Biography

Michael Kurland has written dozens of books, including The Complete Idiot's Guide to Extraterrestrial Intelligence. Mr. Kurland lives in San Francisco, CA. Richard Lupoff created a curriculum for memory improvement courses while on the faculty of the Adjutant General's School, U.S. Army.

Table of Contents

Memories Are Made of This	p. 1
28 Chapters to a Better Memory	p. 3
Of Bonaparte And Roosevelt	p. 3
Napoleon Remembered	p. 4
Roosevelt Cribbed	p. 4
Did They Have Superior Brains?	p. 5
Remember It Well	p. 5
What Is Memory, Anyhow?	p. 5
At the Beginning	p. 5
Who Could It Be?	p. 6
Your Senses and You	p. 7
The Eyes Have It	p. 7
Is It All Just Electricity?	p. 7
The Fatal Moment	p. 8
I Know I Know It, But	p. 8
How Important Is This, Anyway?	p. 9
Improving Your Memory	p. 9
Just a Matter of Concentration?	p. 9
Remembering Your Lines	p. 10
Sense Memory Makes Sense	p. 10
Tuned to the Neural Network	p. 11
Meeting Your Date	p. 11
Meeting Your Elusive Memory	p. 12
Use It or Lose It	p. 12
To Live Is to Remember	p. 15
The Man Without a Memory	p. 16
His Event-Memory Retention Was Gone	p. 17
His Motor Memory Remained	p. 17
Do Trees Really Remember?	p. 18
But Do They Remember?	p. 19
Then How Did They Learn This Stuff in the First Place?	p. 20
Don't Mess with Your DNA	p. 20
Who Has a Soft Memory?	p. 21
Androcles' Lion, Konrad Lorenz's Goose, and Your Dog	p. 22
Remembering with Your Body	p. 23
Birds Do It, Bees Do It	p. 27
Bilateral Symmetry	p. 29
The Ability to Think	p. 30
It's in the Hands	p. 30
Or Is It?	p. 30
The Eyes Have It	p. 32
A Deadly Game of Tag	p. 32
It Takes Brains to Survive	p. 32
In and Out of the Light	p. 33
Some Animals Will Eat Anything	p. 34
Bee My, Bee My Bay Bee!	p. 36
Some Birds Aren't So Stupid After All	p. 37
Some Problem-Solving Birds	p. 39
Even Educated PCs Do It	p. 41
Just Another War Story	p. 42
Needed: Firing Tables	p. 43
Needed: An Electronic Machine	p. 44
How Computers Remember	p. 44
Architects Design More Than Houses	p. 46
Why, That's a Lot Like Me!	p. 46
What's the Latest Update on Your Software?	p. 47
Who Was the Second President?	p. 47
What's the Story?	p. 48
What's the Difference Between a Computer, a Spider, and a Genius?	p. 48
Body and Soul	p. 51
The Brain and Why You Have One	p. 53
A Digression on Memory	p. 55
Let's Get Physical	p. 56
The Brain Stem	p. 57
Medulla	p. 57
Pons and Midbrain	p. 58
Cerebellum and Basal Ganglia	p. 58
The Limbic System	p. 59
The Cerebrum	p. 59
The Seat of the Soul	p. 61
Brain Is Mind Is Brain	p. 62
Cutting Away the Will	p. 62
Broca's Area	p. 62
Wernicke's Area	p. 62
Where the Action Is	p. 63
A Hole in the Head	p. 65
The Misfortune of Phineas Gage	p. 66
Personality Impaired	p. 67
Gage's Tragedy, Neuroscience's Good Fortune	p. 68
Chimps Lead the Way	p. 68
HM Revisited	p. 69
Drill, Spatulas, and a Silver Straw	p. 70
Hidden Memory	p. 70
Over the Long Term	p. 71
ZAP! It's a Summer Day, and I'm Five Years Old	p. 72
That Reminds Me of the Time	p. 73
The Smell of Past Loves	p. 73
The Perturbing Power of Stress	p. 74
In Sickness and in Health	p. 77
Our Well-Protected Brains	p. 78
Serious Memory Slippage Is Not Natural	p. 78
All Is Forgotten	p. 79
Dr. Alzheimer's Disease	p. 79
Epidemic Among the Aging	p. 80
Symptoms	p. 81
Second Stage	p. 82
Third Stage	p. 82
Treatments for Alzheimer's	p. 82
Other Diseases That Affect Memory	p. 83
Brain Tumors	p. 83
Strokes	p. 83
Other Possibilities	p. 84
Reversible Dementia	p. 85
Short-Term to Long-Term	p. 87
How Many Memories Do You Really Have?	p. 88
Lessons Learned from Damaged Brains	p. 89
Three Is a Very Fine Number	p. 90
What Do I Do with This Stuff?	p. 91
I Really, Really Want to Remember This!	p. 92
Why Those Different Figures?	p. 93
Which Long-Term Memory Were You Talking About?	p. 93
Stimulus/Response Memory	p. 93
Event Memory	p. 94
Abstract Memory	p. 94
One or the Other--Or Both!	p. 94
A Slice of Pingerberry Pie	p. 95
How Many?	p. 96
Get Out Your Exam Books, Students!	p. 97
Remembering What's Important	p. 97
How Do You Get It Back?	p. 99
Nutrition and Memory	p. 101
Eat, Drink, and Remember	p. 102
A Sound Body	p. 103
Now a Few Don'ts	p. 104
Basic Brain Food	p. 105
The Vitamin Story	p. 105
The B Vitamins	p. 106
Vitamin C	p. 107
Vitamin E	p. 107
Antioxidants	p. 108
Other Nutrients	p. 109
Choline and Lecithin	p. 109
The Enhancers	p. 109
Ginkgo Biloba	p. 110
Dosage	p. 110
Side Effects	p. 111
DHEA	p. 111
Dosage	p. 112
Some Others We've Seen	p. 112
No Cures Yet	p. 113
Of Truth and Memory	p. 115
I Saw the Whole Thing	p. 117
The Tragedy of the McMartin School	p. 119
Dr. Varendonck	p. 122
"Number Four, Step Forward and Sneer"	p. 124
"Prosecutors Hid Evidence, Sending 67 to Death Row"	p. 126
Tune in Tomorrow!	p. 127
Ivan the Terrible	p. 129
Now Just a Minute!	p. 131
Whatta Ya Know for Sure?	p. 132
"He Came Straight at Me, I'll Never Forget That Moment"	p. 132
The Case of the Flying Man	p. 136
When You Wake Up You Will Remember	p. 141
Created Memories	p. 142
Childhood's Golden Memories	p. 142
Dr. Loftus Remembers	p. 144
Get Off the Bus	p. 145
Sleep ... Sleep ... Sleep	p. 145
Grayish-Colored Beings	p. 146
Close Encounters of Two Distinct Kinds	p. 148
The Self-Deluded	p. 148
Secret Life	p. 149
But We Regress	p. 150
Now I Remember--My Daddy Raped Me	p. 151
Ah Yes, I Remember It Well	p. 151
Very Special Memories	p. 153
A Bullet in the Brain	p. 154
The Nearsighted Conductor	p. 156
Haydn, Sousa, and Buddy Bolden	p. 157
I Really Need This Job!	p. 158
Get It Now, While the Getting's Good!	p. 159
"I Thought Everybody Could Do That"	p. 162
Let's Look at Your Memory	p. 167
Test A	p. 168
Name That Thing--Beginnings	p. 168
Name That Thing--Endings	p. 169
Words, Words, Words	p. 169
And Yet More Words	p. 170
We've Got a Little List	p. 170
The Same Sort of List Rearranged	p. 171
What Do We Know About Those We Love?	p. 171
Visual or Auditory	p. 173
Test B	p. 174
Numbers, Numbers, Numbers	p. 175
SrebmuN, SrebmuN, SrebmuN	p. 176
The Lady with the Axe	p. 177
What Does It Mean?	p. 178
The Little List	p. 179
Pencils Down!	p. 180
Numbers, Numbers, Numbers	p. 180
SrebmuN, SrebmuN, SrebmuN	p. 180
The Lady with the Axe	p. 180
What Does It Mean?	p. 180
The Little List	p. 181
Try to Remember	p. 183
Hear It, Say It, Write It, Remember It	p. 185
The Chain-Link Method	p. 189
The Game of Tell-a-Story	p. 190
Our Game	p. 190
The Case with a Dozen Clues	p. 191
The Hook and Peg Systems	p. 192
Do It with Rhymes	p. 192
Finally, a Use for the Alphabet	p. 193
A Face in the Crowd	p. 195
Say, Haven't We Met Before?	p. 196
What's in a Name?	p. 197
The Lesson in Triplicate	p. 198
Repeating the Name	p. 198
Trying It In	p. 199
Of Course I Remember You, How Could I Forget That Face?	p. 201
Al Berman	p. 202
Estelle Parker	p. 202
W.A. Towers	p. 202
Frances Hilton	p. 203
Shigeo Takagi	p. 203
Harmony Hummingbird	p. 203
Francis Xavier McCabe	p. 204
A. W. Sanders	p. 204
Claude Lincoln	p. 205
Maria diMarco	p. 205
Willem van der Zee	p. 206
Kinesha Foster	p. 206
The Sillier the Better	p. 207
I've Got Your Number	p. 211
Remembering Numbers	p. 212
Take a Number	p. 212
Clump It Up	p. 212
If It Were Only That Easy	p. 213
Now for Your Reward	p. 214
The Number Alphabet	p. 215
But What Does It All Mean?	p. 216
So Let's See How It Works, Already!	p. 217
Four Naked Acrobats Jumped Out of a Cake	p. 218
A Number or Two	p. 219
A Few to Practice On	p. 220
Some Possible Results	p. 220
"First Sunday" List Revisited	p. 220
He's Making a List	p. 223
The List	p. 224
Shopping for Groceries	p. 225
An Indian Memory Expert	p. 227
A Moment to Review, Maestro!	p. 228
Another Example, Just for Practice	p. 229
Moving Beyond Ten!	p. 231
Multiple Lists	p. 231
Every Good Boy Deserves Favor	p. 235
Remember to Remember	p. 237
Mind Magic with Professor Mento!	p. 237
What's the Matter with Mnemonics?	p. 238
"It Isn't Less to Learn, It's More to Learn!"	p. 238
"Memorizing Isn't the Same as Understanding"	p. 238
"But It's Just a Trick"	p. 239
"It Only Works for Lists of Things"	p. 240
"But What About Abstractions?"	p. 240
Some Favorite Acronyms	p. 241
The Rainbow	p. 242
The Atmosphere	p. 243
The Solar System	p. 243
Zoology	p. 244
British Nobility	p. 244
The Resistor Code	p. 244
Pi	p. 245
Cranial Nerves	p. 245
Onward!	p. 246
Using Memory to Improve Your Skills	p. 247
Something About Numbers	p. 249
So Who's Counting Anyway?	p. 250
A Quick Visit to Ancient Rome	p. 251
Other Number Systems	p. 252
ENIAC and All That Again	p. 253
Back to Good Old Decimal	p. 254
Some Lengths and Heights	p. 255
Rivers	p. 255
Mountains	p. 256
It's in the Cards	p. 256
We've Got a System	p. 256
Hat, Hen, Ham	p. 258
The Story Line	p. 258
The Whole Deck	p. 259
Puppy Biscuit	p. 261
Honey, I Forgot the Tickets	p. 262
Placing One Thing with Another	p. 262
The String Method	p. 263
The Knot Method	p. 263
The Visualization Method	p. 264
Taking Clues from Nature	p. 266
The Power of Concentration	p. 267
Wait a Minute, Fellas!	p. 268
A Good, Hard Hit on the Head	p. 269
You Needn't Hit Your Own Head	p. 270
More Help for Hildegarde	p. 270
Is It Magic?	p. 271
I'd Like to Thank the Committee	p. 273
Pick, Gather, Sort, Order, Expand	p. 275
Four Ways to Make a Speech	p. 276
"You Caught Me By Surprise, But..."	p. 276
"I Prepared a Speech Tonight..."	p. 278
The Eyes Have It	p. 279
Speaking from Notes	p. 280
May I Have the Next Card Please?	p. 280
Go to Mars	p. 281
Lenny Bruce's Chinese Box	p. 282
"I Dreamt I Went to Carnegie Hall in My..."	p. 282
Foci on the Loci	p. 285
Location, Location, Location	p. 286
Where Am I?	p. 288
For All You Sports Fans Out There	p. 290
Playing By the Numbers	p. 290
Our Baseball List	p. 291
As Many Lists As You Need	p. 293
Double, Double, Toil and Trouble	p. 293
Home Again, Home Again, Joggity-Jig!	p. 294
Talk Begins at Home	p. 294
Four at a Time	p. 295
Walking Through the House	p. 295
On the Job	p. 297
To Whom Am I Speaking, Please?	p. 298
Shoes? I Wear Shoes!	p. 298
"Welcome Aboard, Happy to Have You on the Team!"	p. 300
Just One More Thing	p. 302
The Curtain Rises	p. 303
Born in a Trunk	p. 304
The Play's the Thing	p. 304
Long Speeches	p. 305
Pygmalion	p. 306
Whatever the Speech	p. 307
As I Look Around This Great Hall	p. 307
Remembering and Forgetting	p. 309
Trina's Room	p. 311
Trina's Room	p. 312
The MOMA Method	p. 313
Major	p. 314
Order	p. 314
Minor	p. 315
How Many Was That?	p. 316
What's This Good for, Anyhow?	p. 317
But What Is It Good For?	p. 318
An Eye for Detail	p. 320
The More Details the Better	p. 321
The Distant Sound of Silvery Horns	p. 321
I've Got a Little List	p. 323
Lucky Seven	p. 324
Short People	p. 324
The Seven Wonders	p. 325
The Bill of Rights	p. 327
Bill O'Rights Town	p. 333
Freedom in Action	p. 334
The Waters of Lethe	p. 339
"I Took a Step and Then I Took Another Step"	p. 340
All Those Little Cubby Holes	p. 343
"I Know I Know It!"	p. 344
Learning and Relearning	p. 345
"But I Want to Forget This!"	p. 346
"Yes, Yes, That's Called a..."	p. 348
The Last Roundup	p. 351
A Little Review, a Little That's New	p. 352
Pop Quiz Time	p. 352
The Test	p. 353
Some Thoughts About Test-Taking	p. 356
And in Closing	p. 357
Our Favorite Saint Meets a Warrior Queen	p. 357
I Hear a Rhapsody	p. 359
As You Leave These Hallowed Halls	p. 359
A Modern Shereshevsky	p. 360
Ladies and Gentlemen, the Presidents of the United States!	p. 361
Appendices
Glossary	p. 363
A Mnemonic Word List to 100	p. 367
Selected Bibliography	p. 369
Index	p. 371
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