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Reasearchers say with training, anyone can have a good memory
like Tatiana Cooley, winner of the U.S. Memoriad contest. Correspondent Keith Morrison reports. Dec. 13— They are the people we love to hate, the ones who can remember phone numbers so easily; remember names
and faces without missing a beat. Surely there must be something different about people with great memories, than the rest of us who need constant reminders just to get through our days. Maybe they're smarter, or they
have some genetic advantage — and then again maybe not. Scientists are learning more about the brain works, and the good news is we can learn how to make our brains work better. It's all about coming up with a coding
system — a story, a symbol, a picture — developing a sort of filing cabinet in your brain. TATIANA COOLEY IS one of those people with a remarkable memory. She can recall the order of a shuffled deck of cards that she
looked at for just a few minutes. It certainly seems to be an astonishing feat — this woman seems to have a photographic memory. And not only that, she's modest about it. "I'm just like everybody else," she says.
"Anybody can do this." Anybody? Seems highly unlikely to us. Maybe it's because she played memory games as a child. Today, 27-year-old Tatiana is an administrative assistant at a New York advertising agency. She is
also the winner of the U.S. Memoriad contest — a sort of memorizing Olympics. Tatiana entered her first competition on a whim, after reading an ad for the event. "I thought 'wouldn't that be fun,' I could go and
compare my memory," she said, "because I think I have a good memory, but let's see how it compares to other people... and I won the damn thing. And I never expected to." A WORLD-CLASS MEMORY She won this year's competition too — beating out contestants in such events as the
memory of names and faces. Tatiana matched about 70 names to faces after just 15 minutes of study time.In Dateline's test of Tatiana's memory, after shuffling the cards, we gave her five minutes to look at them. That
was enough time for her to study 18 cards — which she ticked off without a mistake. How does she do it? By giving each card a code word. She creates a word that will remind her of the card — it's much easier to remember
words than numbers, she says. "So this two of diamonds is not the two of diamonds to me," she said. "It's 'den.' So that's how it works — you go through the cards and create a story." And the story Tatiana created
for these cards? "The hash and the hag in the sack are dazed," she says. It all seems confusing, but Tatiana says it works for her and memory experts agree. It's all about coming up with a coding system — a story, a
symbol, a picture — whatever makes sense to you, developing a sort of filing cabinet in your brain. But says Tatiana these things do take effort. "Every day, be it at work or at home," she says, "I make a conscious
effort to do some kind of memorization of something." So what will she do with all this ability? "You know, I just don't know yet," she responds, laughing. Actually, Tatiana's feats of memory do come in handy in
everyday life. "It certainly helps at work," she says. "I don't even access a Rolodex."
CAN ANYONE DO IT? 'Our research shows that ... you can improve the memory
performance in virtually any area of a memory task.' — ANDERS ERICSSON Memory researcher "Our research shows that if you take an individual you can improve the memory performance in virtually any area of a memory
task," says Florida State psychology professor Anders Ericsson, who has spent years studying superior memory. Keith Morrison:
"You're saying that almost anybody can engage in feats of memory that they may not have thought possible?"
Dr. Ericsson: "There are factors like how much you know and how interested you are in an area." Morrison: "... in the subject you're trying to memorize..."
Dr. Ericsson:
"Right. For example, some adolescents have no problem remembering scores between different athletic teams but then have tremendous difficulty remembering even a single date in a history class."How important to
memory is that meaningful connection in your mind? Dr. Ericsson said he would show us, with help from a graduate student named Rajan, who happens to possess a remarkable memory for numbers. While Rajan steps out of
the room, Dr. Ericsson asks students to call out the last digit of their Social Security numbers to create a matrix for Rajan to recall. After all of a minute and 10 seconds studying the 36 digits, Rajan is ready to
recall the numbers. How does he do it? Like Tatiana, Rajan has encoded the numbers into sequences that are meaningful for him. "Four hundred and seventy was the starting salary of a friend I know," he
says. "Eight twenty — I did something embarrassing at 8:20 this morning that I don't want to tell you about." But now here's something even more remarkable than Rajan's perfect performance: Dr.Ericsson says any of us
could, with lots of practice, do pretty much as well as Rajan. NO PHOTOGRAPHIC MEMORIES
Keith Morrison:
"How is it that Rajan is able to remember so many numbers and in a matrix, a pattern — isn't that a photographic memory?" Dr. Anders Ericsson:
"I don't think there's any credible evidence whatsoever for a photographic memory. I've spent about five years trying to find even a single individual who would come close."In fact, argues Dr. Ericsson, Rajan's
demonstration supports his theory that there is no such thing as photographic memory. When Dr. Ericsson asks Rajan to recall the numbers diagonally, it takes Rajan longer than when he recalled them in order. That's
because Rajan is not seeing a picture of the matrix in his mind at all — he is recalling the meaningful sequences one by one. To show just how important the connection is between having things make sense and being
able to remember them, Dr. Ericsson and his colleagues run experiments. A champion chess player is given five seconds to look at a chess board whose pieces are positioned as they would be in a match. Then he's given two
minutes to reproduce the positions — which he does almost perfectly. But when he spends the same amount of time looking at a chess board on which pieces are placed randomly, he has trouble remembering the placement of
almost any of the pieces. Why? One board had meaning to the chess master. And the other did not. "Looking for meaning in any kind of activity is a very effective way now of improving your memory for it," Ericsson says.
MEMORY IN THE BRAIN Scientists are also studying what helps people
remember by looking inside our brains. In a series of experiments Harvard University researchers have test subjects go through an MRI machine that scans their brain as they are shown a list of words. The researchers
found two specific areas of the brain that show increased activity when people focus on the meaning of words. And later, when test subjects were asked to recall words, it's the same areas of the brain that show greater
activity. Again it all comes down to attaching meaning. For example, suppose Jay Leno was just another guy, and not famous, and you wanted to remember his name. After you shake hands, you would create some
association that — much later — will jog your memory. Maybe... "jaw line" — "jl" — "Jay Leno." It may sound like parlor tricks, but tricks like these can make life better. The experts say it takes practice — real
work — but they also say that anyone can improve their memory. Great memories are not born — they're made. "People need to be aware here that they can control a lot more of their abilities and their life than maybe
some of them think," Ericsson says.
For information on the Memoriad contest, contact them by phone: (718) 899-3056. E-mail: memoriad_usa@yahoo.com. The next Memoriad is scheduled for Feb. 5th, 2000
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