Furthermore, in their study, playing  computer games was almost twice as effective at improving memory as performing similar exercises with a pen and paper
They claim just 15 minutes a day spent on brain training exercises promotes the growth of new brain cells and could help those with memory problems lead more independent lives.

One group of volunteers were given handheld electronic devices and asked to play a brain training game which tested short-term memory for just 15 minutes.

The others carried out traditional word recall exercises using pen and paper.

The researchers then tested all the participants on a traditional memory recall task, and found a significant improvement in both groups. But for those who had practised on computer games, recall had improved by 60 per cent, compared with 37 per cent for those who practised on paper.

Daily Mail April 17 2010

To see the range of Nintendo DS games and consoles on Canny Minds click here

It’s easy to forget things if memories are not retained by linking them to what you already know or reviewing them several times. Memories are formed by electrical signals making connections between nerve cells so that they form a network. It’s possible to improve your memory using special techniques that strengthen this network, making it easier to recall things that would otherwise be difficult to remember.

Top tips to improve your memory:

Pay attention
Memory is made up of three sections – sensory, short-term and long-term. All the data gathered from your senses enters the sensory memory – from here any information that’s ignored is thrown out, whilst information that you pay attention to passes on into the short-term memory. You can’t remember something that you never even knew, so if you don’t pay attention, information will never enter your short-term memory. If you want to improve your memory and take in information, it is vital to concentrate and not allow yourself to be distracted.
Chunking
Some of the things you try to memorise mean nothing to you – they may be isolated facts or strings of numbers. Short-term memory has a limit of about five items, so dividing up long sequences of data into more easily remembered “chunks” helps you to remember them. This is the way that most people remember telephone numbers.
Make associations
Making links between objects – called association – can help improve your memory. You can make associations that match numbers to pictures, organise words into groups or link a person with an image so that you never forget a name – anything that makes it easier for you to remember. One way to memorise a list is to visualise a journey that you often take. Link each landmark on the journey with an item on your list – the stranger the result, the easier it is to remember! Then go through the journey in your head to remember the items.
Mnemonics
Another trick for remembering a set of words is to use their first letters to make up a sentence or mnemonic. For example, “map vipers eat many jungle snacks using nails” gives you the sequence of the planets – Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and Neptune. It’s a ridiculous sentence, but these are sometimes the most memorable.

For more tips on how to improve your memory, plus loads of other brain training techniques and insight, check out ‘Train your Brain to be a Genius’. Find out how your amazing brain works and explore the incredible potential of your mind. Put your grey matter to the test with puzzles, games and optical illusions to fine-tune your brainy bits.

The article was supplied by Dorling Kindersley, who are publishers of the new children’s book ‘Train your Brain to be a Genius’

To buy this product from the Canny Minds shop click here

• When did you first get interested in Memory and how?
  In 1987 when I saw Creighton Carvello Memorise a deck of shuffled playing cards in just under three minutes on TV’s “Record Breakers”. I was amazed at this feat of memory which prompted me to investigate the art of memory for myself.

• How long did it take you from your first initial studying to become world champion?
  It was a matter of months before I was breaking records myself and in 1991 I won the first World Memory Championships held in London’s Athenaeum Club.

• What is the key skill in developing a top class memory?
  Application of the basic principles of memory training which involves the use of familiar places, association, and picturing imagined scenes. In short what is required is dedication, persistance, and an unrestricted imagination.

• Is a good memory mainly a reflection of natural aptitude or learned and developed methods?
  A good memory is a reflection of ones ability to make connections between disparate pieces of information by involving all the functions of the brain. Initially, to make progress, tried and tested methods must be adopted. To become a champion requires innovation, adaptation, and a natural aptitude to think laterally.

• Why does one’s memory deteriorate and what can anyone do about it?
  Too much stress combined with a lack of mental stimulation over a sustained period of time will no doubt contribute to a deterioration in the efficiency of memory. Do something new, challenging, and stimulating. Preferably a pursuit that involves one physically as well as mentally.

• Can you recommend three products to improve anyone’s memory?
  Obviously I am going to recommend my books: “How to Develop A Brilliant Memory” is a good place to start.
  My audio course, “Quantum Memory Power”.
  I’m quite a fan of the Nintendo Wii as it engages one physically and mentally which is bound to have a positive effect on one’s memory.

To buy Memory products, including a number of Dominic’s titles, click here.

For decades psychologists, teachers and employers have relied on IQ testing to assess people’s learning potential. The tests measure problem-solving ability and a person’s capacity for abstract reasoning.  Now, however, scientists are suggesting that short-term or working memory is a better and simpler measure of the skills modern youngsters will need in school and in their eventual careers.

Tracy Alloway, director of the centre for memory and learning at Stirling University, is to release the latest research suggesting that tests of children’s working memory helped predict their grades more accurately than IQ tests.
“Working memory measures our ability to process and remember short-term information. It’s about how well we juggle different thoughts and tasks,” she said.

“There is a great deal of variation between different individuals and it is becoming clear that it is a much better way of predicting academic attainment.”

Such findings are likely to prove controversial, especially as Alloway claims that testing working memory also avoids the cultural bias built into IQ tests.

Such bias has been blamed, for example, for the way different racial groups achieve significant variations in their average scores.

In her latest research Alloway gave working memory and IQ tests to 98 children aged 4.3 to 5.7 years in full-time preschool education.

Recently, six years on, she revisited the children, now aged 10 and 11, asking them to take a battery of tests to measure working memory and IQ.

She said:

“Critically, we find that working memory at the start of formal education is a more powerful predictor of subsequent academic success than IQ.”

Alloway’s research is due to be published in the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology.

Some link psychology’s new focus on short-term memory with the rise of the internet and other electronic databases which makes the ability to juggle facts and figures more important than remembering them for long periods.

Alloway believes there are other factors at work too. “Working memory assesses people’s ability to process information and keep track of complex tasks, so it is relevant to many aspects of modern lifestyles,” she said.
Other psychologists believe IQ tests still have a lot to offer. Robert Logie, professor of human cognitive neuroscience at Edinburgh University and an expert in working memory, said measuring IQ gave a far more complete view of a person’s all-round mental abilities.

He said: “There are many aspects to intelligence, and working memory is important but it is far from being the whole story.”

James Flynn, a New Zealand psychologist, has found that the IQ scores of populations in developed countries have been rising by three points a decade for the past century.

By Jonathan Leake, Sunday Times, 16th August 2009

Click here to buy Memory & Brain Training books from the Canny Minds shop

Photo courtesy of alles schlumpfs

YOUTH TRIUMPHS AT UK MEMORY CHAMPIONSHIPS!

“I was absolutely terrified when I first arrived”
 says 15-year-old who beat World Champion
 
A new generation of Memory competitors achieved amazing results at the third annual UK Open Memory Championships, which took place over the weekend of 15th/16th August in London’s Strand Palace Hotel, sponsored by CannyMinds.com.

As expected, World Champion – and World Ranked Number One – Ben Pridmore (32) from the UK comfortably won the overall competition with a score of 6,447 Championship points. However, he didn’t have everything his own way…

Spectacular performance from 15-year-old Eva Ball

The results that rocked the Memory community were achieved by diminutive, but characterful Eva Ball (15) from Coventry. Early in July, having trained her Memory for only a few weeks, Eva came top in her school competition and then went on to win this year’s UK Schools Memory Championships. In this, her first World Ranked Memory Championships, Eva achieved a staggering two Silver Medals and a Gold. The Gold Medal was for the 5-Minute ‘Names and Faces’ discipline (this being the very first time she had competed in the event), where she correctly recalled 39, beating Ben Pridmore into 4th place. Eva’s Silver Medals were in ‘5-Minute Random Words’ where she scored 43, and in ‘15- Minute Abstract Images’. 

“For a first competition, her results were truly amazing” says 8 times World Memory Champion Dominic O’Brien.  “She obviously has a great future in the Sport.”

Says Eva:  “I was really pleased to have done so well.  I thought I was lucky winning the UK Schools Memory Championships in July, but when I was invited to come to the UK Memory Championships, I didn’t take it too seriously as I was going to be the youngest competitor and I thought I’d just be a novelty!  In the end I enjoyed every minute of it, as everyone was very welcoming, but I was absolutely terrified when I first arrived.  I was sure I was destined to come last!

“To actually beat the current World Champion in the ‘Names and Faces’ discipline was mind-blowing.  I had never competed in that subject before, but I found it quite easy really.  I must have the sort of brain that likes remembering things visually. 

“I’ve been asked if I am going to compete in the World Championships, which are also being held in London – in November.  I’m going to have to think about it, as I’ll be up against the world’s best and most competitive Memory brains – but it is a big temptation to see whether I, as a teenager, can beat any of them!”

Ameel Hoque (21) from the UK – World Ranked Number 44 – was originally introduced to Memory by a chance visit to his school some years ago by Dominic.  He beat twenty-five other contestants to take the Silver Medal position with 4,093 Championships points in just his third competition – his best score to date.  Florian Dellé from Germany, who has been competing since 2003, also achieved a personal best with a score of 3,035 to take the Bronze Medal position, and was also the top ranked Overseas Competitor in the competition.

The 2009 UK Memory Championships has a spectacular array of competitors (26 entrants from 13 countries with papers in 10 languages) – As a result the competition has outgrown the Bishop’s Room in Simpsons and it will now take place across the road into the Grenville Suite of the Strand Palace Hotel. The lectures will still take place in Simpsons, as will the prize ceremony.

The weekend timetable:

Saturday 15th August
09:00 Welcome and Opening
09:30 Random Words: 5 minutes memorisation / 10 minutes recall
10:00 Binary Numbers: 5 minutes memorisation / 15 minutes recall
10:30 Names and Faces: 5 minutes memorisation / 10 minutes recall
11:00 Decimal Numbers: 15 minutes memorisation / 30 minutes recall
12:30 End of day One – Seminars in Strand Palace Hotel Conference Centre.

Sunday 16th August
08:30 Welcome – Results of day one
08:45 Cards: 10 minutes memorisation / 20 minutes recall
09:30 Speed Numbers: 5 minutes memorisation / 15 minutes recall
10:00 Abstract Images: 15 minutes memorisation / 30 minutes recall
11:00 Historic and Future Dates: 5 minutes memorisation / 15 minutes recall
11:30 Spoken Number Trial One: 100 seconds memorisation / 5 minutes recall
11:45 Spoken Number Trial Two: 200 seconds memorisation / 10 minutes recall
12:00 Speed Cards Trial One: 5 minutes memorisation / 5 minutes recall
12:15 Speed Cards Trial Two: 5 minutes memorisation / 5 minutes recall
12:30 End of competition
18:30 Prize Ceremony

To understand what each Memory Discipline involves, click on this link http://www.fuzz2buzz.com/en/node/1054

Below is the press release regarding our sponsorship of the UK Open Memory Championships 2009.

It was announced today that brain training website www.cannyminds.com will be the title sponsors for the UK Open Memory Championships 2009.

This year’s championship will be held in London on 16th and 17th August at Simpsons in the Strand.

Cannyminds.com is the UK’s first web portal to offer a comprehensive selection of brain training books, games, DVDs, and audio books to challenge and stimulate the mind. The range includes language courses, board games, How To books and a reading & viewing group. The site also offers expert articles and advice on mental agility and challenging puzzles and quizzes developed especially for Canny Minds by Mensa’s puzzle editor.

Jenny Low from Canny Minds said: “We’ve been going to the gym for years to keep our bodies fit and healthy so it’s about time we all started putting the same effort into our mental fitness and agility.

“The guys who compete at the UK Memory Championship are some of the most intelligent people in the world but they have to put in enormous amounts of training to be the best. We are delighted to be sponsoring this year’s championship and look forward to announcing the champion in August.”

Chris Day, general secretary of event organisers The World Memory Council said: “This year’s memory championship is set to be fiercely competitive. As more people take brain training seriously we’ve found the standard of competition has improved dramatically.

“As the UK’s leading brain training website and online retailer www.Cannyminds.com is the perfect partner for the championship. Brain training isn’t just for the memory champions, it should be a part of everyone’s routine.”

To find out more about the UK Open Memory Championships visit www.worldmemorychampionships.com and to find out the latest news including the games schedule and up to date scores visit www.cannyminds.com.