Number-rhyme system
The number-rhyme system , also known as the PEG method , is a mnemonic technique for memorizing numbers and series of numbers using rhyming words. It is easy to learn and is used by professional memory athletes as well as the more well-known loci method or the similarly functioning number-form system .
This method is so efficient because the human brain can store stories better than pure sequences of numbers. By coding and decoding the digits with words and the stories formed from them, it is possible for everyone to memorize sequences of up to 50 digits and more in a very short time.
methodology
The technique is based on simple associations of numbers and words, from which a story that is easy to remember is formed. This is done by meaningfully rhyming the digits 0 to 9, creating a kind of coding that is later decoded to get the sequence of numbers.
A rhyming word is assigned to each digit. The words that rhyme with the number words, e.g. B. for the number eight the word yacht and a memorable image (here that of a yacht) must first be learned by heart . This is done simply by going through the numbers several times, each time imagining a vivid picture of the same rhyming word. Every user should put together an individual list of numbers and words (0 to 9). The user does not have to stubbornly learn a number-word list by heart, but can fall back on what spontaneously occurred to him during the formation.
If the rhymed list is securely in the memory, each of the words and the associated visual image represents an ordered, retrievable place for a word to be remembered.
For example, if the eighth term in a shopping list that you want to remember is “tomato”, then you can imagine, for example, that the magnificent white yacht is covered over and over with mountains of red tomatoes. The tomatoes smell and some fall down into the water.
But you can just as easily imagine the people on the yacht in white clothes throwing tomatoes at each other.
If you want to remember the list in the store, then you go through the numbers 0 to 9. If you have memorized the rhyme images well, then when you come to the number 8 / eight you will not only remember the white yacht, which is the personal rhyming word for eight, but almost inevitably of the tomato fight on the yacht.
The number-rhyme system is not primarily used to memorize numbers, but the memorized numbers provide an ordered series of images,
- with which always new lists of words with the help of further pictures of the words to be remembered,
- which are each linked to a picture from the series of numbers in a combined picture
- and so can be safely remembered and found again in memory.
| Digit | Surname | rhyme |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | zero | rubbish |
| 1 | a | leg |
| 2 | two | zoo |
| 3 | three | Porridge |
| 4th | four | bull |
| 5 | five | Socks) |
| 6th | six | Witch) |
| 7th | seven | Sieve |
| 8th | eight | yacht |
| 9 | nine | Barn) |
| 10 | ten | Fairies |
If the shopping list to be memorized next weekend is eighth place in cling film , then you can z. For example, imagine how the yacht is completely wrapped in cling film.
If you go through the numbers in your mind one after the other in the supermarket, then at eight you not only think of a yacht , but you can see the yacht wrapped in cling film in your mind's eye .
The basic structure of the ten digits and the words and images assigned to them therefore always remain the same. To a certain extent, they serve as a cupboard in whose ten compartments you can always put new words safely.
If you repeatedly have difficulty imagining good combined pictures with one of the rhyming words, then it is advisable to exchange this and then have to stick to the new picture. Can you z. For example, no good, lively pictures with the fixed rhyming word for 5 / five , here in the list of examples, stocking up, or if you can't even think of the rhyming word, you shouldn't stick to it.
The number-rhyme system is a small system (you can only save 10 terms with the list above), but it is well suited for beginners to practice imagining combined images and to gain confidence in the techniques.
Extended number-rhyme system
The extended number-rhyme system, also known as the master method, works with digit-word combinations that go beyond the digits 0–9. This makes the formed stories shorter, which means that the user can easily memorize even longer sequences of numbers. The principle is very simple. After a user has already put together his or her individual digit-word combination, this is expanded in steps of 10, which in turn are associated with a property, in the following example properties that can be assigned to the decades in the 20th century.
- 10s: Everything is silent (silent movie era)
- 20s: everything is golden (golden twenties)
- 30s: Everything is brown (Nazi era)
- 40s: Everything is burned (World War II)
- 50s: Everything is getting fat (economic miracle)
- 60s: Everything is colorful (flower power)
- 70s: Everything is high (platform shoes)
- 80s: Everything is checked (checked jackets and pants)
- 90s: Everything is dancing (Love Parade)
With this system, the user is able not to have to add an item to the story for every single digit. The objects now change in detail. The number “22” becomes a “golden zoo” in the master method, which is now recorded in history. With the simple number-rhyme system, there would be two zoos.
Combination with the loci method
If you have a different classification system, e.g. B. about locations (Loci) that you can pace in your mind in a fixed order, then you can of course store pictures along the way from the number-rhyme system and thus memorize a code or a telephone number.
So if you walk through your own house in your mind and you have memorized a fixed route and a fixed order of places or places in the house, then you can save as many numbers as you have specified places. Is z. If, for example, the front door is the first place, then you can imagine how a life-size yacht comes towards you when you open the door, complete with a flood of water. Then you know: Yacht stands for eight, the first digit of a telephone number. If the second place or place is the corner with the coats on hooks and the next digit is seven, then you have to imagine that the coats are in a large sieve or that a sieve is stuck on each coat hook, as this is our rhyming word for seven is.
Images from the number-rhyme system are used here, but not the system itself. Instead, in this example, the loci system is used, because this is the basis for retrieving the images and thus the memory contents.
See also
literature
- Derren Brown : Tricks of the Mind , ISBN 978-1-905026-35-7
- Vera F. Birkenbihl : Straw in the head , ISBN 978-3-636-07067-8