se fallacies are
discussed in detail in a later chapter.)

Size, also, seems to play a role in memorization. During the Middle
Ages, memory contests were held annually. In one, the winner
remembered one hundred thousand sequential items. [6] A time-proven
memory method from the Middle Ages is association of abstract ideas to
large objects. The objects used for trigger recall seem to need to be
about the size of a human, so that, if we were blind, we could
identify the object by touch. Large objects in the memory seem to
engage muscular memory areas as well as sight memory areas in the
brain and expand the memory web. For instance, remembering the points
of a speech about a military battle might involving walking from one
room to another in a familiar house. In the first room a ship's anchor
is propped up in a corner, in the next room is a cannon, in the third
room is a large telescope, and the in the fourth room is a horse. This
sequence of anchor, cannon, telescope, horse might remind the speaker
that the speech is about a ship being bombarded from the shore by a
cannon; and that the cannon was captured when a scouting party saw the
cannon through a telescope and sent for the cavalry.

Imagining numbers as objects in three-dimensional space is a very
powerful way of remembering a series of numbers. This also seems to
engage muscular memory. For instance, we might imagine block numbers
for Pi, 3.1416. These numbered blocks should be about four inches high
and one inch thick and should be imagined rotating in space about two
feet to the front and about six inches above eye level. We can imagine
them rotating slowly in a circle through an entire revolution. As they
turn, we can mentally reach out and feel them with our fingers on
every side. Such exercises, involving three-dimensional objects in
space and muscles, allow the associated memory cells to form many,
many more links than just a single glance at written numbers will
form. Additional associations not only form more axon-dendrite
connections, but also cause an increase in the surrounding glial
sheath of the brain cell.

* * * * *

Research Skills.

1. Mindil, Phyllis. _Power Reading_. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice
Hall, 1993.

2. Robinson, Francis P. . _Effective Studying_. 4th ed. New York: Harper
and Row, 1970.

3. Spitzer, Herbert F. "Studies in Retention". _Journal of Educational
Psychology_. Vol. XXX (Dec. 1930) No. 9.

4. Minninger,