by Denis Bukin
★ Train your brain – Crossword 6×6
This time draw squares 6 by 6 around the corners of the crossword puzzle. Try and memorize them as quickly as you can.
Serial position effect
This memory effect is very important for intelligence officers. To test it, let’s conduct a little experiment. Read the following words quickly and without preparation:
fireworks
orange
car
clock
sofa
painting
algebra
doctor
magazine
staff
skyscraper
meteorite
Close the book and try to recall the words. Now.
Check yourself. The words ‘fireworks’ and ‘meteorite’ are the ones you were most likely to remember. The words from the middle of the list will be more difficult to recall correctly. So, the beginning and the end are easier to remember.
Serial position effects don’t only work with lists. When you’re trying to recall the events of the day, morning and evening are often recalled more clearly. When memorizing a story, the hardest part is its chronological middle.
As already mentioned, the serial position effect is widely used in the intelligence service. You can use it to disguise your interest in a topic. You should not talk about things that really interest you at the beginning and at the end of a conversation. Start with an abstract theme. In the middle of the conversation ask or tell what you need. At the end of the conversation talk about something else.
The serial position effect does not always work. If you touch on topics that are extremely painful for a person, they will remember it anyway, even if you pick it up in the middle of a conversation. The art of the intelligence officer involves knowing the sore spots and avoiding them.
You can ask the question differently. For example, you can create the impression of being a small-minded and tactless person who brings up an uncomfortable topic because of his/her ignorance or thoughtlessness. In this case, your interlocutor will remember your clumsy faux pas and push the question you asked into the background.
★ Train your brain – Schulte Tables, 5×5
Here is another Schulte Table for you to try.
Remember, focus on the middle cell of the table. Look for the numbers with your peripheral vision. Try to see more than just the number that you need at the moment.
Keep coming back to this exercise. It trains the mind, teaches you to observe and plan actions in advance.
Interference
The essence of interference is that similar memories get mixed up. Two similar memories influence each other, and the more alike they are, the harder it is to remember them reliably. It is not only new information that makes it difficult to recall old information, but, on the contrary, often old information interferes with the reproduction of new memories.
For example, you use a bank card for a couple of years and remember its PIN perfectly. The card expires and the bank issues you a new one. Initially, each time you are at the ATM, the old PIN will automatically pop up in your memory, so that it will take a conscious effort to recall the new one. But after a while this habit will change: the new PIN will be recalled automatically and the old one will take effort. Similar memories associated with the same situation interfere with each other.
To reduce the impact of interference, you can separate the memorization of similar information in time. For example, when preparing for an exam, try to memorize points which are as different from each other as possible together. This rule holds true in many cases: the change of activity saves energy. If on a given day, you need to edit a document, write a review and draw a diagram, then it is better to separate the text editing and review from each other with drawing the diagram.
Conversely, if you want someone to forget something, ply them with plenty of information on a related topic. Ask for their opinion, discuss the topic in detail, and involve them closely. As a result, there will be a lot of information, which will lead to confusion, and thanks to the interference, they will not be able to remember what you want them to forget as clearly as they would have otherwise. At the very least, they will be confused and lose confidence.
When someone tries to remember something in a conversation and you want to prevent this, try to prompt him/her. Incorrect, but similar, suggestions will prevent recollection, creating interference. This technique is used by attorneys, confusing witnesses during court proceedings.
In everyday life, you can see this happening when your friends or family are trying to help you to remember something, which usually only makes it harder.
★ Train your brain – Dice. Level 3
Add in more coloured dice and give yourself only 5 seconds to remember the numbers and colours.
Notes
Manners and habits
Interference is not just about memorizing information. It also applies to skills. For example, people from countries with right-hand traffic are confused in countries with left-hand traffic. The ‘right-hand’ skill is not only useless, but also interferes with the new situation. We have to make an effort to overcome it.
In a tense situation, when conscious control is weakened, old habits can reemerge. There are cases in the history of intelligence services when involuntary actions betrayed undercover agents.
The KGB once distributed a memo with a list of features that can be used to identify foreign agents. It mentions, for example, putting ice into alcoholic beverages, offering to pay for small favours, eating dinner without bread, etc. This behaviour is perfectly normal for the residents of Western Europe and the USA, but it is not typical for Soviets.
Do you want the person to show their old habits? Touch on a sensitive topic or confuse them by making them respond quickly to words and actions. It is likely that they will give themselves away while distracted. Fatigue or alcoholic intoxication also weaken conscious control and can serve as the means to identify the hidden habits of a person.
25 April 1955
The last few days have been loaded with work and studying like never before. Any hope for a quick investigation died with Kovalev. What’s left is a lot of very meticulous work to do every day. If not for training, which continues as intensely as usual, I would say the work is boring. On my way home yesterday, I finally saw all of its beauty and wonder. Everything they ever taught us in school and at university fell into place. All of a sudden, people’s thoughts and feelings, their words and actions, their relationships to each other, became a lot clearer. And now I have the ability to affect all of this.
I looked at the passengers in the metro and saw how they had spent the day (or even the week!). The expressions on their faces, their postures, their clothing, shoes, even the bag they’re holding can tell me so much. I was in such a good mood that when I left the metro, I kissed two women I didn’t know. They thought I was either drunk or crazy. When I asked them if they knew where I could buy flowers at this hour, and if they knew where maternity ward 18 was, they thawed a bit and giggled, saying they couldn’t help. I disappeared into the darkness, the girls remained, discussing the ‘young father’, forgetting the insolent kisser.
People remember the last thing they hear in a conversation – just as we were taught.
Partial reproduction and forgetting
You may have noticed this effect yourself when you have not had time to study all the material for an exam. The question that you didn’t study for because you thought the topic is the one that’s the most difficult to answer during an exam.
For someone who remembers a lot of information about an event, it’s more difficult to recall a specific detail if they were asked about another detail before. It will be more difficult for a witness to describe the colour of an offender’s jacket if they were first asked about the shape of the attacker’s glasses. This pattern is often used to confuse a witness in court, especially if they only had a glimpse of the offender. By asking questions about
minor details and interrupting at the right time, a manipulative lawyer dents a witness’s confidence and catches them on discrepancies in their testimony.
If you want your informant to forget about a question that you asked, at the next meeting with them, go over all the other questions again. The informant will put the original question out of their mind, or at least let it recede in their memory. Consider this rule when instructing an agent. Beware of a random check of learned material: it can fade unchecked information out of memory.
★ Train your brain – Matches. Level 3
Don’t forget to keep practicing with your matches! To remember the location of matches better, group them into geometric figures. Maybe the randomly spilled matches remind you of something? Use this image for memorization.
Do not give up if you cannot perform an exercise well. Keep on trying or come back to the previous level. Repeat the exercises regularly.
Zeigarnik effect
The Zeigarnik effect states that uncompleted or interrupted tasks are remembered better than completed tasks. Sitting in a cafe, psychologists Kurt Lewin and Blum Zeigarnik noticed that the waiter didn’t write down their order, but fulfilled it exactly. When the waiter was then asked about the order of the visitors who had just left, he could not remember anything.
Subsequent experiments have shown that interrupted intellectual tasks are remembered twice as well as completed tasks. Perhaps this effect of incomplete action can be explained by preservation of motivational tension, which activates memory. The motivation disappears when the task is completed and a person forgets everything that was associated with the action.
The Zeigarnik effect is very useful in practice. For example, if you are writing a long text and stop in the middle of a chapter without finishing it, it will be easier for you to get back to work the next time. It will help you to recall where you’ve left off and what you wanted to write more easily and faster.
The effect of the unfinished action can be applied by interacting with other people. If you interrupt a conversation in the middle while tension is at its highest and without having drawn a conclusion, the impact on the interlocutor will be much stronger. They will look back on the issue, think about it and be more likely to agree with your point of view.
Test yourself
According to the KGB scientific consultant, what is the main direction military psychologists are taking in the field of suggestive techniques improvement?
A) Removing doubt of the perceived information in a hypnotic trance
B) Removing pain in a hypnotic trance
C) Increasing people’s physical strength in a hypnotic trance
D) The ability to hypnotize anyone without the help of the hypnotized
3
FREELANCE INTELLIGENCE OPERATIVE
Intelligence is not the main job of an agent. They are often in touch with other agents, giving them assignments, providing necessary equipment and valuable information. Meanwhile, an agent will live an ordinary life: working, meeting with friends while gathering information and performing intelligence tasks.
Forgetting
Forgetting is a very important function of memory. It protects the brain from an information overload.
Firstly, we forget excessive information that has not been used for a long time. This information is impossible and impractical to store in its original form, so the brain processes and generalizes it. Sometimes this sort of generalization takes the form of intuition – a feeling that cannot be explained logically. In this way, the brain gives us instinctive clues, building on the experience of similar situations we have actually forgotten.
Secondly, we forget any unpleasant information. Painful memories, such as the death of relatives or a dangerous accident or disaster, a crime, or an act that goes against one’s values and beliefs, are unconsciously pushed out of the memory, restoring one’s psychological comfort.
The act of forgetting is time-dependent: the more time that has passed from the moment the information was received, the higher the chance of forgetting. Long breaks from an intelligence operation can do a lot of harm to the case. Losing a sense of context might require an agent to start all over again.
However, a small pause of a week or two might be useful. It allows a broadening of perspective. Unimportant details and little things fade into the background, allowing for a more complete perception and the ability to look at the problem in a new way. Previously unnoticed patterns become apparent. New ideas form.
In psychology, there is a theory that a person cannot forget information once it is assimilated, but rather can lose access to it. Forgotten information doesn’t disappear forever; in special circumstances, it can be recalled again. This is proven by an experiment involving neurosurgery, when stimulation of some areas of the cerebral cortex evokes forgotten memories.
But direct stimulation of the cortex is not the only way to recall something that has been forgotten. A few methods for recalling were mentioned earlier. The most important aspect of all of them is a mental reproduction of the situation in which the information was received.
Method of loci
The story method is not the only way to remember a list of words. The story is not important in itself – it is only a means of associating words, encoding them into images and placing them in emotionally tinged situations. Associativity, imagery and emotion, which are necessary for successful memorization, underlie one more method – the method of loci. The story method connects images with a storyline, the method of loci places them in a familiar location: in a house, in a room or on the street.
The method of loci originated in ancient history. There is a legend recounted by the Roman orator Marcus Tullius Cicero that the method of loci was invented by the Greek poet Simonides of Ceos, who lived in the fifth and sixth centuries BC. Simonides was at a feast when he was summoned by some unknown people. The poet went outside, and at this time the roof collapsed. All the other guests died. It was impossible to identify the bodies, but Simonides remembered every place at the table, and thus helped people to find the bodies of their relatives.
Cicero, who described this incident in his treatise ‘On the Orator’, concluded that in order to memorize a list of objects, it is necessary to form their mental images and place them in an imaginary location. The order of places will keep the order of memorized items.
Cicero himself used the method of loci when he memorized his speeches. Rehearsing the speech, he walked through his villa, and each room was associated with a particular topic or idea.
Another great example of using the method of loci is the ‘Theatre of Memory’ of Giulio Camillo. During the Renaissance, in the sixteenth century, this philosopher and alchemist attempted to create a comprehensive system of human knowledge, putting it in a special building – the theatre of memory. Each area of knowledge had its place there, all areas were linked, and compounded a complete picture. Camillo even started construction of a wooden building for the theatre, but did not complete it. He also didn’t finish the fundamental work that described the theatre in detail. However, the idea of a visual representation of knowledge and links between its parts had a major impact on Camillo’s contemporaries.
The art of memory has always been associated with government, international relations and intelligence services. Simonides of Ceos is known to have had political influence in Greece because of his poems about the Greek–Persian wars. In addition, he was a diplomat who resolved conflicts and prevented bloodshed. Cicero was a significant figure in Roman politics. His unique eloquence and memory gained him popularity and got him elected consul. Giulio Camillo’s employer was Francis I, who ruled France for thirty years.
Aristotle, Seneca, Augustine of Hippo, Albert the Great, Thomas Aquinas, Giordano Bruno, René Descartes, Francis Bacon, Wilhelm Leibniz – this is a very incomplete list of famous people who have contributed to the theory and practice of memory. Each of them was an influential man of his day, and some of them were engaged in the
intelligence service and espionage.
Method
It’s best to begin mastering the method with a small, well-known place: say, the apartment you live in. Imagine it. Find areas (loci) where you can position and arrange various objects.
For example, there is an entrance hall, a living room, a hallway, a kitchen and a bathroom in your apartment. Mentally go round every room counter-clockwise. (If it’s too difficult, actually go through the apartment and look carefully around the rooms.) Here’s what you might notice:
1. Entrance hall:
a small bench;
a cupboard with three compartments;
a coat rack.
2. Living room:
a corner shelf;
two bookshelves;
a sofa;
a desk;
a windowsill;
a sideboard;
a painting hanging on a nail.
3. Hallway;
4. Kitchen:
cat’s bowls on the floor;
a table;
a small sofa,
etc.
Thus, even in a small apartment it’s easy to find twenty or thirty places where you can put items. Obviously, your apartment and the location of the items will be different, but the point is you should know them well.
Here is a list of words you might recognize:
fireworks
orange
car
clock
sofa
painting
algebra
doctor
magazine
staff
skyscraper
meteorite
Here is how you can remember it:
You walk through the door and immediately see fireworks. Flaming Catherine wheels are attached to the bench in the hallway. They are whistling and spinning, scattering hot sparks. The hallway is filled with smoke and a strong smell of gunpowder. There is a bright juicy orange in the first compartment of the cupboard. It is so big that in order to put it into the cupboard, you had to squeeze it. The peel has split, smelly and sticky juice is flowing into the adjacent second compartment of the cupboard, where you can see a tiny car. The acidic orange juice is dripping onto the car, and its body is being covered with red spots of rust. A big wall clock is ticking in the third compartment of the cupboard. It measures out how much time the rapidly rusting car has left. There is a coat rack next to the cupboard and you can see a cosy green velvet sofa hanging on it. Carrying a sofa around is convenient. You always have a place to sit down when you are tired. But where can you leave a sofa? On the rack, of course.
