# BLD Memorization - Why we forget



## Ollie (Dec 9, 2013)

I'm supposed to be revising memory, but figured that much of what I'm supposed to be revising is actually pretty useful for applying to BLD memorization. There are loads more examples of factors that affect forgetting in the short term and in the long term, but I have included the ones most relevant to BLD (and a moral of the story of how to overcome it = _MOTS._) So here goes:

*Why do we forget?*

*1. Decay (loss of information over time.)*

Forgetting is the loss of, OR the failure to retrieve, information that you've already previously remembered. When you encode (memorize) something your brain forms a neural pathway. If over time the pathway is not used it weakens, especially if it is not rehearsed. 

That means when the brain needs to recall that thing later on, it is less likely to because the 'normal' route has decayed. This is why is you've forgotten someone's name by simply looking at their face, you can go through in your mind where you met them and things they said to try and jog your memory - you are taking a different neural pathway to find the name of that person.

MOTS = short term memory can be extended a little bit by rehearsing stuff, or creating alternate 'pathways' to recall something. For example, I like to 'pinch' the first letter pair for a piece set for wings, midges and centers when I memorize for 5x5x5 blindfolded. If I can't the image later on, I can try and jog my memory by remembering what piece I pinched (I'm using procedural memory aka muscle memory here!) 

If you are just starting out at BLD, you can rely a little bit more on repetition to try and get information into your LTM. If you are doing a big BLD or a Multi BLD then you may want to regularly review cubes/piece sets. Just don't waste time with it!

If you are more pro, and think reviewing is too mainstream, see 3.

*2. Interference (competing bits of information)*

Your short term memory has a limited capacity as I'm sure you know. It is capable of, in nearly everyone, holding 7 +/-2 chunks of information, but only for a very short period of time (15-30 seconds.) Two things can happen in short term memory:

a. New information can interfere with old information. 

If I gave you 7 random digits to memorize (1655904) and then moments later I asked you to memorize a phone number, it is very likely that in memorizing the new telephone digits they will replace some of the digits from that first sequence. This is because of your STM's limited capacity - it was full before I asked you to remember the telephone number, and before you the chance to transfer that information into long term memory I gave you extra digits.

MOTS = Don't take on too much information than you can handle. Try memorizing random digits/letters pairs in groups of 5,6,7,8 and 9 to see which is the comfiest for you. Then in future you can memorize in groups of the comfiest number, or your 'magic' number so that you don't use more loci than you need to OR keep having to go back and rehearse things by taking on too much in one go.

Practice chunking. i.e. 1939200119455050 could be remembered by 'chunking' the numbers into dates; 1939, the start of WW2; 2001, whatever; 1945, end of WW2; and 5050, half and half or that awesome CBBC show.

b. Old information can interfere with new information.

Say I'm memorizing some edges for a Multi BLD attempt. I need to hold on to the image - "a seagull (SG) drinking lemon juice (LJ) from a hat (HT)." I move onto another cube, perhaps 2/3 cubes later, which happens to be "a peacock (PQ) drinking orange juice (OJ) from a shoe (SH)." Seagull and peacock are similar, so are orange juice and lemon juice. Shoes and hats are obviously have different functions, but as they are both items of clothing it is very easy to confuse the two if you don't pay attention during recall. You may end up executing "a peacock (PQ) drinking lemon juice (LJ) from a hat (HT)" = DNF. 

Also, try doing a consecutive multi attempts with no rests. Have you ever found that you've began to recall information from previous attempts?

MOTS = This is why having very similar letter pairs (i.e. MN for man and GY for guy could be confused, BL for blue or black, plus all the obvious rude examples) can often lead to mistakes. When choosing your letter pairs pay extra attention and think ahead!

Another good example - I believe Marcell uses themes when memorizing. This can help to keep cubes/piece sets separate and avoid information being replaced by other similar info.

*3. Levels of processing*

All this really means is we are more likely to recall things with meaning, or that are important to us. Say if I have to memorize the word cockalorum, which means a boa****l person. I could try and do this in a few different ways.

a. Structurally - i.e. counting how many letters it has and how many vowels. Obviously this isn't going to get you very far on its own.
b. Phonetically - we're getting there now. I could try and think of words it rhymes with, or just how it sounds. 

A and B are called shallow processing. This means we can assign less meaning compared to deep processing:

c. Semantically - I could imagine a friend with an unusually high opinion of himself. As hes boasting, I cast a spell on him with my wand by saying to him "stop being suck a cockalorum." I have a nice image to associate that word with from now on!

MOTS = When information has a definition/funny association/some important meaning assigned to it we don't need to rehearse it often, if at all. My other tutorial with examples in may help with this.

*4. Not paying attention!*

This might seem obvious, but simply if you're not paying attention to something then you are far more likely to have memory lapses. A boring lecture loses the attention of students almost immediately, plus you can only ever recall on average around 20% of what has been said. Teach it in an exciting/interactive/stimulating way where students will concentrate then you will recall more - 50%+ quite often.

BLD solvers wear ear defenders to block out noise for good reason. You are constantly processing not just visual information but sounds as well. If someone makes a distracting sound when I have some information in my STM, that event could push out a letter pair or two which might not ever get to LTM. I could go over this again in review, obviously, but it's just an example. 

(And from previous experience) If I am memorizing a 5x5x5 blindfolded attempt and I look around and see a hot judge, some the information I have put into my short term memory could be replaced by a hot judge. If this pushes a letter pair out of my memo then I'm doomed! 

MOTS = don't stress/tire yourself out doing too much BLD or by doing too much of it when you're already tired. Find a way to keep your concentration up if you can.

*5. Motivated forgetting.*

This is a more 'controversial' one as it won't be true for everyone. Particularly disturbing images or gross images (let's just say negative images) can actually be forgotten more easily. If we feel uncomfortable/anxious by holding onto a negative image then we may try and repress it and have trouble recalling it later. This occasionally happens to me, but it's still very rare.

MOTS = obvious, but if it applies to you, then tweak your images to make it weird to the point that it is very memorable but not to the point where you are overly grossed out by it!

I'm currently a second year Cognitive Neuroscience student so this is all based on valid science. Should you want to see the studies for yourself (or some PPT lecture slides containing these studies and other interesting ones) then just PM me and I can send you the references or any other interesting/useful stuff.

Hope this helps!


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## ~Adam~ (Dec 9, 2013)

Thanks for the extremely informative post.



Ollie said:


> (And from previous experience) If I am memorizing a 5x5x5 blindfolded attempt and I look around and see a hot judge, some the information I have put into my short term memory could be replaced by a hot judge. If this pushes a letter pair out of my memo then I'm doomed!



So does that mean I don't have to judge you?


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## Ickathu (Dec 9, 2013)

ooooh interesting! Very good points throughout. I'll have to start using some of these tips for BLD and other mnemonic stuff.


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## bobthegiraffemonkey (Dec 9, 2013)

Interesting stuff, might try to take something from this. One thing I want to add for the information interference: sometimes (mostly in MBLD) I get (the same/similar images) turning up at different points of memo. If I don't realise the overlap I'll get confused and probably screw up, if I do realise I can (take note of the repetition/contrast the difference between them), and I'll recall them better.


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## ryanj92 (Dec 9, 2013)

Superbly written, Mr Frost 
I'm not massively into BLD, but this was really interesting, and like with your other posts on BLD, always make me wanna give it another go


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## Mikel (Dec 9, 2013)

Very well written. I enjoyed it.


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## Mike Hughey (Dec 9, 2013)

This was all very nicely worked out. What I'd love now, though, is "how to make memorization stick more quickly". I've generally taken advantage of most of what you say here, but my problem is that it takes me too long to get it stored with just the right amount of safety. I'm convinced I should be able to go faster, but I seem to have hit a wall on memo speed while maintaining accuracy. Any advice there?

I think it's funny that you can't say the word boa****l on here, but you can say the word cockalorum.


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## Ollie (Dec 10, 2013)

Mike Hughey said:


> This was all very nicely worked out. What I'd love now, though, is "how to make memorization stick more quickly". I've generally taken advantage of most of what you say here, but my problem is that it takes me too long to get it stored with just the right amount of safety. I'm convinced I should be able to go faster, but I seem to have hit a wall on memo speed while maintaining accuracy. Any advice there?
> 
> I think it's funny that you can't say the word boa****l on here, but you can say the word cockalorum.



I think Marcell is the person to ask about that - his ability to get Mo3 in competitions and regular Ao5s at home to me is extraordinary, as I have to sacrifice some 'overall' accuracy for fast 5BLD successes (if that makes sense) or to be on a hot streak.

It depends on the puzzle, but I use the review as a 'safety net.'


Spoiler: for example in 5BLD...



1. Memorize wings in one go, repeat them in my head
2. Memorize midges
3. Memorize x-centers, repeating along the way
REVIEW 123 - this puts everything to as close to 100% safety as possible.
4. +-centers
5. corners



I'd guess that because it's sentences for 1,2 and 3, before the review I'm at about 80%? Then the review takes it up to 100% before going onto the last pieces which will be STM. As for speedily encoding along the way I'm not too sure. I know Dan Sheppard used to just spend more time on his images and memorize everything in one go without a review.

PS: thanks for the kind comments all of you!


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## A Leman (Dec 10, 2013)

Mike Hughey said:


> This was all very nicely worked out. *What I'd love now, though, is "how to make memorization stick more quickly"*. I've generally taken advantage of most of what you say here, but my problem is that it takes me too long to get it stored with just the right amount of safety. I'm convinced I should be able to go faster, but I seem to have hit a wall on memo speed while maintaining accuracy. Any advice there?
> 
> I think it's funny that you can't say the word boa****l on here, but you can say the word cockalorum.



I think this is what we are all after in the end  I am more interested in your accuracy at the moment since mine is very bad. Most of my memo's are somewhat reckless, but it eventually sticks for a solve. I came across this gem of advice and I am going to take it to heart.



> I think that aiming high and practicing above your comfort level is very important. If you aim low you will land low. If you go fast and forget a lot you will gradually adapt to the higher tempo and forget less and less. It made all the difference to me. -Jonas Von Essen, 2013 World Memory Champion


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## szalejot (Dec 10, 2013)

Well written points. I will think about them when I will be doing BLD next time.


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## cmhardw (Dec 10, 2013)

Thank you for posting this Oliver! This was a good read with good tips!

As for the talk about finding the "right" memo pace:

I had a friend coach me on how to memorize and he gave me a good example that I still think about to this day when memorizing.

The challenge is to push a chair to be as close to a wall as you can possibly get it with the chair still not touching the wall. How would you accomplish this? I really recommend that you actually try this with a chair before reading the spoiler.


Spoiler



I tried to do this by pushing the chair very close to the wall, then getting close to the wall with my eye and pulling/pushing the chair in little spurts until I was sure that it was very close, but not touching. My friend Eric then reset the chair to show me his method. He quickly pushed the chair all the way to the wall so that it was touching, then he used the very slightest force to pull the chair away from the wall just a tiny bit.

The result: We achieved about the same distance of the chair away from the wall, but his method expended much less effort and was much quicker than my method. My friend Eric is an artist, and this is really an example about how to approach art and sculpting in particular, but I always found it very helpful for finding just the right memo pace too.


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## Mike Hughey (Dec 10, 2013)

Interesting analogy, Chris, and maybe it shows why I have so much trouble with it, even though I know it's the right approach. I tried your experiment before reading the spoiler:



Spoiler



Before I started, I knew full well that the easiest way to do this would be to push the chair against the wall, then pull it out just a tiny bit. And yet, even knowing that, I couldn't resist - I used your approach instead. Somehow the other approach just felt wrong to me, even though I knew it was the easiest and probably best way. I couldn't do it. And interestingly, similarly, I can't push myself too far memorizing. I know it would help, but I just can't do it. I don't know why - I must be mentally unstable or something. 

I should probably try forcing myself using rules. If I create rules, I can often force myself to follow them even if it otherwise feels wrong. So perhaps I should set an absolute limit on memo time and try solves with that. So I'd be forcing myself to pull on the blindfold at that time, even if I'm not done - set an alarm and have it go off when it's time to execute. That might fix it. Maybe I'll try that this week on 5x5x5 BLD. My best memo time at 5x5x5 BLD since WC was 6:22. I'll set a timer for 6:20 and see how I do.


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## AmazingCuber (Dec 10, 2013)

Very nicely written!


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## Bhargav777 (Dec 10, 2013)

Each and every comment on this post is really inspiring. Thanks Ollie


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## Ollie (Dec 11, 2013)

Mike Hughey said:


> Interesting analogy, Chris, and maybe it shows why I have so much trouble with it, even though I know it's the right approach. I tried your experiment before reading the spoiler:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



It's great to see stuff from the BLD greats on here  Me and a friend were discussing this on the way home yesterday, specifically about why you should push yourself during memo and why it's better for you in the long run. Here's his two cents from an artist's perspective, there are some really good points in here:



Spoiler: Kerim's contribution



As this post was gathering views and comments throughout yesterday, Oli and I were discussing the responses that were coming up as they did. He explained to me the way in which the general consensus of memorising is within the cubing world, and asked for my response as an outsider, as well as also being an artist (following cmhardw’s challenge post). This is what I consider:

I agree with cmhardw’s friend Eric in the sense of pushing the chair right against the wall and then pulling it back to adjust is a preferred style of challenge or learning, and here’s my explanation why.

Throughout the world of art, as I progressed through the years, they teach a very different method to the rest of subjects. In maths, science, IT, etc. you will always have a correct answer, an answer which you have to get to following the correct method. However, in art everything is considered an unsolved challenge. You have the desire to reach an outcome depicting an idea, and are required to challenge yourself to come to that outcome. 

There are no mistakes, only attempts to achieve what you want to achieve. 

Let me elaborate through an example. In terms of pushing boundaries, I did an art project a few years back based upon the idea of politics and female activism. However, some of my ideas were considered to be a little too sensitive; I had created a series of posters as a test depicting the oppression of women being brushed under the carpet in the middle east. In posting these publicly, I received a series of very angry, violent and threatening responses for it. I had pushed the chair against the wall. Thus, I took the criticisms and looked for more subtler ways to depict the message I wished, and ended up creating a portrait of a middle-eastern women in empowerment. I pulled the chair back off the wall.

A second analogy which may be quite useful is of the idea of the Blindfold’s curse (or that’s how I remember it anyway) in which the jump to Blindfolded cubing from generic cubing proves to be very difficult for some people. This is because to many seeing is what the essence of everything is; how can you appreciate a solved Rubik’s cube if you cannot see it? Well, with regards to art, the process is considered more important than the outcome. You would consider this somewhat counter-productive but it’s a great concept when you truly understand it. If I consider my earlier example, my final piece was a portrait of a woman, which is understandable; if you read the brief you’d understand why I came to that finale. However, the majority of people who see that will not know the process of the e-mails I got, or the months of trials and tribulations, of research and analysis I went through to get to that final image. From a personal view, that is where I achieve. Other people see the final cube, but only you truly know the process and work that went into it. As difficult and mentally challenging you find the blindfolded cubing to be - the satisfaction you gain yourself is worth much more than the ability to say you can do it. 

Following on that point, in Life drawing classes you would be surprised how much drawing we do without even looking at the page. The essence is to not be dependent on looking at what you are trying to draw (the paper), but to look at the subject matter and truly study it. Your hand and your eye become one, and trace the contours and the outlines together. In regards to Cubing, I want to link this in the sense of one of the most difficult things you’re most likely to find is the constant need to re-assess where you are on the cube, and then continuing from there. This is the greatest obstacle to overcome, and it’s almost the feeling of losing control. You need to inhibit your need to be a perfectionist with your cubing. You don’t have to get it right every time, because if you’re practising that’s the point. If someone is shooting hoops, they’re not aiming for 100% success straight away, they’re aiming for 100% method. You need to consider the same with your cubing. Aim for method, not success. When you gain the ability to do the methods correctly, then you play with the methods to make them your own. 

I hope this has been useful to you.


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## abunickabhi (Jan 9, 2014)

really nice forum.thanks for the +centers algs.i have been getting confused by it.
hope to reduce my bld time to size zero.i want to ask if bh algs for edges can be applied to 4x4 wings????


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## Ollie (Jan 9, 2014)

abunickabhi said:


> really nice forum.thanks for the +centers algs.i have been getting confused by it.
> hope to reduce my bld time to size zero.i want to ask if bh algs for edges can be applied to 4x4 wings????



Yes, you'll just have to replace M/M'/M2 moves with either l-slice or r-slice moves, depending on the case.


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## mark49152 (Feb 28, 2016)

Maybe I'm having a senior day but I'm failing to see how this chair and art stuff translates to BLD memo. What is the recommendation? Memo as fast as possible then (pull back the chair) review? Or memo as fast as possible and suffer loads of DNFs but over time you learn to adjust and improve?


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