Helpful Memorization Techniques
TOP ARTICLE OF THE MONTH: Roman Rooms and PAO are ways to cram a lot of information into short term memory with relative ease, and I’m here to help you master these two techniques.
Take the sequence: MJRNDN. We will follow the first few steps of Roman Rooms to simplify by separating into pairs: MJ RN DN. Now with Roman Rooms, you would typically turn each pair into a word, but with PAO, you would separate the first pair into a person, the second into an action, and the third into an object.
Think of an awkward moment when your memory failed you, like forgetting a phone number, that one friend's name (even though it's something simple like CJ), or the Zoom meeting you needed to attend. Well, most of those should be short-term memory and today, I hope I can get you to not only reduce how much you forget but also be able to cram as much information in short-term memory as possible with two unique methods. Before you continue, though, just take a quick test on Human Benchmark, a fun website to test both reaction speed and memory, to see just how much you can cram into your short-term memory. This way, you can see a rough estimate of your limit and know how much you intend to improve.
To start, let's try and memorize this string of 12 letters: CUARDOWLJFXG. Probably really difficult right? Well, why don’t we jump into our first method? Roman Rooms is an ancient technique devised by Simonides of Ceos around the 5th Century which leverages the fact that you are familiar with certain locations. Now let's start with the first step of Roman Rooms. We need first to pair everything into 2-3 letters. For simplicity, we can use 2 as 3 can get incredibly complex way too fast. With this first step, we now have CU AR DO WL JF XG. A little better now, right?
Good, let's get into the second step, converting this string of jumbled words (for more simplicity, I will capitalize each letter in the word). These words now need to become a short but memorable sequence: CUt ARe DO Whale JeFf XG. If you're wondering, no simple words that contain both X and G (also because I’m stubborn). Another useful tip is that the words you choose don’t need to make sense to anyone but you. Also, complex letters like X, V, Q, etcetera can be replaced with something like Z, sh, etc. Even better, you can use other languages, like zāng which translates to “dirty” in Chinese.
Now that you have this in mind, think of something extremely familiar to you, like your bedroom. For me, I will make sure there are three things I can easily locate in my room which will be my bed, desk, and door frame. Once this is in your mind, imagine a picture with every image, again in pairs. For this, take Batman and a lasso. Think of Batman holding a lasso now. But what if it's the other way around? Then you can have a lasso tied around Batman, just make sure that in your mind, it makes sense and is in order.
As for the string of words we have earlier, try and picture something of your own, but this is my thought process. A CUt on a hand Are Do (doesn’t make sense for a reason), Whale named Jeff, XG (kinda looks like a face with an open mouth and tongue).
Notice what I did there? I made it into a story. But why did I? I made a story because our brains naturally suck at memorizing strings of numbers and letters, but are wondrous with stories. Now let's place each object in your bedroom, and note that from now on, I will call objects either a locus or loci. The reason being, the Roman Rooms is also called the Method of Loci. Each object is labeled as a locus and multiple are loci.
Back to the bedroom now. I’ll place the first three loci (CUt, ARe DO) on my bed. Now I visualize them as a hand that's cut and my brain stutters the words ARe and DO. Now at my desk, I place the next two loci as a huge whale with the name JeFf ingrained in it. Once that's memorized, I send the last locus XG in the doorway, and I will think of it as a sideways face with closed eyes screaming.
The last step of Roman Rooms (which should usually be done before) is to make a pathway. In this bedroom, I will think of my bed first, then the desk, then the doorframe, and image the loci on/in each.
Someone's thought PAO, a famous person holding a sandwich. Even though it seems random, it's a perfect description of what you want with PAO, memorable and weird.
Now since that was a lot, here's a quick step-by-step summary. First, split everything into a pair and know where you want to imagine yourself (hopefully a familiar place). Then give each pair/locus an image and order everything. Once done place everything in a room and go through it a few times to engrain it into your mind. Boom! Roman Rooms is done!
Onto my second method, Person Action Object (or PAO). This is a really fun way to cram as you can think of basically anyone doing a simple action like running or sleeping, with an object like a ball or apple. However, there are two ways to use PAO which are for letters and numbers. Since we already learned to use letters in Roman Rooms, we will use letters here to better transition into PAO.
Take the sequence: MJRNDN. We will follow the first few steps of Roman Rooms to simplify by separating into pairs: MJ RN DN. Now with Roman Rooms, you would typically turn each pair into a word, but with PAO, you would separate the first pair into a person, the second into an action, and the third into an object.
To begin, a famous person with the initials MJ, such as Michael Jackson. Afterwards, we need to think of a verb (must be an action) that contains the letters RN, like run. With the last pair, DN, think of an object, for example, düner, a Turkish dish. With these in mind, we can think of Michael Jackson running with a düner. Sometimes, you may get complex cases such as XZ, in which it helps to not only have a backup plan.
This can include replacing confusing letters or having a Google spreadsheet full of letter pairs you intend to use. However, the downsides of the spreadsheet are that it is time-consuming to fill out letter pairs and that it will be hard to transition from constantly using letter pairs and making up pairs on the go. Luckily, that transition will be over soon as once you're used to a majority of the simple cases, (which you will get frequently) you usually don’t need to struggle with making up anything on the go.
Since these letters are relatively simple, let's get to the complex side of PAO, numbers. This is essentially the dark side of PAO since there is no easy way to use numbers. The reason is that you are typically expected to have a hundred people memorized, a hundred actions memorized, and a hundred objects memorized to account for 2-digit numbers.
If you are still willing to attempt this menace to memory techniques, here's how to use it. Take the numbers 897231, and pair them like the numbers to get 89, 72, and 31. Since you are already expected to assign a person, action, and object to each number, 89 72 31 becomes Maya Angelou eats mushrooms (everyone uses different people, actions, and objects, so whatever they use likely won't make sense to you). Congratulations, you mastered PAO now! (Hopefully you can skip the numbers since that part is abominable).
Since you mastered both Roman Rooms and PAO, here are some tips to hopefully help you cram more! For starters, many people enjoy putting Roman Rooms and PAO together by using multiple PAO as loci for one single familiar location, like on a bed or a desk. Another thing you may want to keep in mind is that even though I separated everything into pairs of two, I typically also use pairs of 3 to cram more, but anything above that is too risky and you would likely lose too much information. Something else that may help would be attempting to visualize and using your senses, but audio is slightly risky. Mainly since audio can be used for small amounts of data as used in blindfolded Rubik’s cube solves, but it's primarily gibberish so you can’t hold it in for long. Creating rhymes, acronyms, and mnemonics can also help in situations like this, but it will take a bit of time for a good result. Make sure to also make everything random and weird to make them stand out, leading to more accurate memorization.
