The Memory Key: Unlock the Secrets to Remembering

by Fiona McPherson

The Memory Key website is named after my book The Memory Key Following extensive research into the tiny (but growing!) academic sub-niche of practical memory applications, and the popular literature on memory improvement, it became apparent to me the same old advice was repeated ad nauseum few popular writers had taken on board the growing body of modern practical research few people actually came out of memory programs with new memory habits that would enable them to achieve long-lasting memory improvement that research indicated this failure was partly due to the failure of such programs to teach how and why such memory strategies worked, and when (and when not) they would be effective. Accordingly, I embarked on trawling the literature for useful advice, and working out just what people needed to know about how memory works in order to use effective strategies successfully. The difficulty in explaining how memory works in enough detail to provide the necessary understanding, without overwhelming the reader in complexity, showed me why no one had undertaken this before! One of the major new understandings I myself came away with after all my reading and writing and thinking, was that we have an unreasonable expectation of our memory. It's not enough for us that we can remember, and access quickly, a truly astonishing amount of detail, including complex images seen only briefly, words overheard only in passing ... No, we pay no attention to that. What we notice are our failures. Yet our failures are nothing compared to the amount of information we are deluged in daily. Improving your memory involves more than mastering memory strategies. It also involves selecting the information you wish to remember .

222 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2000