What it is and when to use it
The linking method is a very simple method for memorizing things. It’s done by turning whatever you’re trying to memorize into a set of ‘scenes’, each playing into one another.
The mental act of imagining is a skill, and once you become adept at it making these chains can be quick and easy. As I mention later, this technique has some limitations, but it is a good balance of fast to use, fast to learn, and useful (Usual examples include things like grocery lists, or any plan or agenda for a day or event where the items are distinct and sensible).
How to use it, an example
The individual things you’re trying to memorize may be objects, people, people doing things, etc. Anything easy to visualize.
The typical advice given to make it more vivid is:
- Make the scenes silly, shocking, or interesting. Boring is the antithesis to memorable
- Imagine thoroughly as possible. Make effort to involve as many senses as you can.
So, for instance, say I were to try to memorize a list of things. A grocery cart, a car, a pineapple, a cat. I may imagine a grocery cart getting hit by a car (Watch the pieces of the grocery cart fly in all directions, smell the burnt rubber on asphalt, hear the screech of the tires). As the car approaches the ‘camera’, its revealed through the windows that it is full to the brim of pineapples. The smell and taste to visualize here are obvious. A hoard of cats, who are mysteriously extremely hungry for pineapples above all else, start attacking the car. Getting on top, crowding around, biting and scratching it, tearing it apart.
Now, this was only three items, hardly a challenge to keep in your head. But if you do the same process with many items, constructing the next part of the scene one at a time, you should notice that there hardly seems to be a limit, whereas it’s normally difficult to keep more than 8 or 9 distinct items in your head at once without resorting to rote.
Limitations
This technique has a lot of limitations. First of all, the objects need to already be somewhat comprehensible. Shopping carts, cats and pineapples all have a lot to them to latch on to, whereas a lot of things we may want to memorize (Numbers, cards, dates) don’t. Hence a good few techniques have ‘translation steps’. I’ve memorized a deck of cards with this technique, but it first required me to create an internal dictionary of images associated with each card (There were patterns to it which made this easier, but still a thorough process).
- Objects must be sensible and distinct. Whereas shopping carts cats and pineapples all have a lot to ‘latch on to’, numbers, cards, and dates don’t. They exist as ‘data’, too similar to each-other to make unmistakable images, and not sensible enough to stick in the mind. The trick for these types of things is to memorize translations from non-sensible to sensible data, such as (At least when it comes to numbers) the Major system or the even more powerful PAO System.
- It has some fragility. If just one link in the “Chain” is forgotten, it can be hard or impossible to recall the next ones.
- It’s ordered. It’s possible to walk backwards through the chain, but can be tricky, as a lot of scenes have a “direction” to them. Messing with the order of systems is however easier than with rote memorization. The [Method of Loci], which I consider an alternative to the Linking method (although both have their place and may be used in tandem) addresses these last two.