Hermann Ebbinghause

Spent six years memorizing lists during his experiments on the human memory.

He found that the more times he went through the list in his original learning, the less time was needed to relearn the lists. He discovered that even if he stopped going through the lists, prior to having them memorized completely, that the relearning was still easier.

The Reminiscence Effect   For a while after you first learn lines, your memory may improve a little rather than worsen. This is the opposite of forgetting and is termed the reminiscence effect. It has been found that children who were given a poem to memorize but not allowed to memorize it perfectly, remembered it better a day after learning than they did the first day. Often they were able on the second day to recall lines they could not remember on the first day.

Primacy and Recency   I'm sure you've noticed that it's easy to remember the first few words or lines of a script. That is termed the primacy effect. And the fact that you can usually recall the last words of lines is called the recency effect. Something you needed to know for the next cast party and the next paragraph.

Rest Periods   Ebbinghause discovered that when he introduced short rest periods between successive periods of memorization, his learning efficiency improved. This was partly due to the reminiscence effect. And partly due to the primacy and recency effects. If your memorization session is broken into a number of smaller blocks, with short breaks in between, there are more times at which the primacy and recency effects can occur. Somewhere between blocks of fifteen to forty five minutes memorizing With a break of five to ten minutes in between should produce optimum results.

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This is why, your Master Thespian (under heavy disguise) learns much easier at the Border's Coffee Bar than while relaxing at the manse. At Border's I am often distracted from my memorizing, usually by photographers, directors, reporters, autograph hounds, and large breasted women jiggling by, for what results in several five to ten minute breaks. These breaks have unwittingly allowed these reminiscence, primacy and recency affects to occur !

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Association and Memory

Sir Francis Galton took a walk down the Pall Mall in London and while he walked he let his mind generate associations to everything he saw. During the walk he counted some three hundred objects and many more items that he associated with these objects. He wrote: "Samples of my whole life had passed before me. ... Many bygone incidents, which I have never suspected to have formed part of my stock of thoughts, had been glanced at as objects too familiar to awaken the attention. I saw at once that the brain was vastly more active than I had previously believed it to be ..."

Our memory works by association. It automatically associates what we see, feel, taste, hear or touch with something else. How many times have you been driving down a street and hearing a song on the radio instantly remember exactly where you were the last time you heard it?

If it weren't for the cues provided by this association our mind would be like the Internet without a Search Engine. (In the book, he had written, "Memory would be like a vast library without a card catalogue." Ha! How many of you even remember what a 'card catalogue' is?)

The more associations we make when memorizing the easier it is to remember. The role of association is so powerful that almost nothing will destroy it. The only things that will interfere with it are other stronger associations.

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Master Thespian, while typing this section, has just realized why he has a hell of a time remembering a line for a scene he is currently blocking. His association with the 'difficulty' in remembering and blocking the scene are much stronger than those he has made with his character's lines! The line is, from, The Subject was Roses, Nettie, I want you..." But I now realize that when I hear my cue line, my brain has made a stronger connection with "This is where I blank and go up on my lines" than with the lines of my character!

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I hope these few hints on how to remember lines have given you some ideas. Remember, since Master Thespian destroyed countless thousands of brain cells during FDA sanctioned drug and alcohol testing during the 60s, 70s and 80s, he must resort to these memory tricks.

However, you can keep your own brain healthy. Not by gobbling countless tabs of undocumented, untested, unproven, unregulated-by-any-agency expensive herbal 'remedies', but by simply never ever using illegal drugs and never drinking yourself blind more than once or twice a year.

Tobacco Fiends, read an article about how nicotine, sometimes in a beneficial way, affects brain functions. (Takes a moment to load. Have a fag. And ponder how I cold-turkey quit smoking after consuming up to five packs of Half & Half brand cigarettes a day!)

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