Johannes Mallow

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Johannes Mallow (born June 7, 1981 Brandenburg an der Havel) is a German memory sportsman. He is a two-time winner of the World Memory Championships, in 2012 and in the 2018 IAM event [a Non-Champion in 2018 World events, when scores of the World Memory Sports Council (WMSC), the original memory sports governing body organizing World Championships, taken into account]. [1] [2] He studied successfully Communication Technology at the Otto-von-Guericke University of Magdeburg and finalized his PhD thesis in 2016 at the University of Duisburg-Essen. He also works as a mind coach and scientific author.

Contents

Victories

World records

Memory System

He currently uses the Method of loci. Many memory sportsmen use this method. His particular instance of the method uses 1,000 images with corresponding numbers, so that each combination of 3 digits corresponds to a unique image. [6]

The brain is lazy, so we have to trick it. That's where routines and mindfulness come in.

There are certain techniques we can learn to use our memory in a way that makes it easier for us to remember things. One approach is to convert everything we want to learn into pictures and then link them to stories. If I want to remember a row of numbers, I assign a picture to each number from 0-9, with 5 being a farmer, for example, and 8 a loaf of bread. Of course, this method brings best results when the number series is a little longer.

Just to give you an example, I have the numbers 5, 8, 6, 7, and that’s not so easy to remember. But if I tell you a story about a farmer who harvests bread from a field, takes it to a butcher, and then the butcher makes potatoes out of it, it will stick better. It's a silly story, but because it’s exciting, funny or maybe even sad, you will remember it better than a series of abstract numbers.

Stories touch us emotionally, which is why we remember them better. This is because our ancestors already worked with pictures and stories over five thousand years ago. Writing and numbers, on the other hand, only date back a few thousand years, which is why our memory cannot handle them so well. So, if we want to remember information better, we have to try to transform it, and package it in an exciting, funny or visual way.

Johannes Mallow, Interview by Lena von Holt, Are We Europe

https://www.areweeurope.com/stories/johannes-mallow-fshd

Related Research Articles

Memorization is the process of committing something to memory. It is a mental process undertaken in order to store in memory for later recall visual, auditory, or tactical information.

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The method of loci is a strategy for memory enhancement, which uses visualizations of familiar spatial environments in order to enhance the recall of information. The method of loci is also known as the memory journey, memory palace, journey method, memory spaces, or mind palace technique. This method is a mnemonic device adopted in ancient Roman and Greek rhetorical treatises. Many memory contest champions report using this technique to recall faces, digits, and lists of words.

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References

  1. "World Memory Championship 2018 | International Association of Memory Statistics". www.iam-stats.org. Retrieved 2018-12-19.
  2. 1 2 "World Memory Championships 2018 (Combined)". web.archive.org. 2023-05-19. Retrieved 2024-04-01.
  3. "World Memory Championship 2018 | International Association of Memory Statistics". www.iam-stats.org. Retrieved 2018-12-19.
  4. 2016 XMT Results
  5. RESULTS OF MEMORIAD - 2012
  6. "The Beautiful Mind of Johannes Mallow". Are We Europe. 30 March 2021. Retrieved 2022-01-21.