FEATS OF MEMORY.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXI, Issue 184, 4 August 1900, Page 5 (Supplement)

FEATS OF MEMORY.

One of the most extraordinary feats of memory ever known was that of Pillsbury, recently the American champion chess player, when he played 20 simultaneous games without seeing any of the boards. One blindfold game is far beyond the power of ninety-nine out of a hundred chess players, but Pillsbury succeeded in the colossal task of remembering for several hours the constantly changing positions of 640 bits of wood.

Not only did he win 14, draw 5, and lose but one of these 20 games, but at the close also remembered the details of every play and corrected several mistakes which had been made in recording them.

Wonderful as this is it need not alarm Pillsbury's friends with fears of a mental, breakdown. He has merely given the world one of the most remarkable examples of what we call visualism—a peculiar and rarely cultivated function or memory. Visualising is simply a matter of concentration and development of a certain pictorial quality of memory. Those who are most likely to excel are those who devote themselves entirely to one mentsil pursuit. They develop the faculty o£ becoming oblivious of all that takes place around them,

There was once a minister who memorised his sermon by this method o£ visualising. He would reproduce in his mind the manuscript just as it had been written, so that wherever it was blotted he would have no difficulty in remembering it. Most of us have this power to some slight degree, and it may bo cultivated. One of the simplest methods of strengthening the memory in this line is to endeavour to recall what we have seen during a walk through the streets.

Some people seem to be entirely without this power o£ mental photography, and the following story is sometimes used in classrooms as a test:—The story relates that when Napoleon was visiting one of the military hospitals in Parts he stopped by the bedside of an old soldier who had lost both an. arm and a lag. The old fellow in t> t n ecstacy of loyalty sprang from the bed and drawing his sword cut off with a single blow his one remaining arm.

If Plllsbury was to b« told this story he would sec its absurdity at once, but a person who has no power of representing ideas as pictures, would believe It to be a possible occuri-ence.

We hear frequently of the mavellous achievement of some actor or actress who commits to memory several hundred thousand words in a single season. This is not done by visualising but by sequence. Change the sequence of the speeches and the memory often fails.

Memory is an exceedingly complex thing. It is not the highest type of mental function, and it is noticeable that this power of visualising decays as the power of abstract thought grows.