Most Hillsdale students have had to memorize a poem at some point in their academic career.
Nelson Dellis, a three-time U.S. Memory Champion, can memorize a completely new poem in just 20 minutes — line breaks and punctuation too.
Dellis, along with psychologist Mary Pyc, a memory research scientist, will be on campus today and Friday to discuss their work. The Psychology Department, the psychology honorary Psi Chi, and the Speech Studies program are sponsoring these visitors.
Pyc will lecture on her own at 4 p.m. today in Lane 125 about what factors aid in learning. Her research focuses on memory and its educational applications.
“She worked under a grant studying people with superior memories,” Assistant Professor of Psychology Jeri Little said. “She studied people like Dellis and some other people who are ranked globally. What she’s interested in seeing is where they’re very, very good and where they aren’t so good. So what does this memory training improve and what it doesn’t improve.”
Pyc and Dellis will present together at 4 p.m. Friday in Dow A&B. Pyc will discuss how we can learn to improve our own memories from individuals with superior memory skills. Dellis will demonstrate his own memory abilities and discuss how he became a memory champion.
“I think Dellis can memorize six decks of cards,” Associate Professor of Psychology Kari McArthur said. “He’s got a record for [memorizing] one deck very quickly. It’s really impressive.”
Dellis first became interested in memory after his grandmother had Alzheimer’s.
“He found out that there were these memory athletes and that they could do really impressive things, and he wondered what that was about, and he got into that,” Little said. “Now he does some charity work using these skills in order to raise awareness and money for Alzheimer’s research.”
Dellis would be the first to point out that he uses skills other people can learn as well.
“He’s a smart person but he wouldn’t consider himself to be especially smart,” Little said. “He just says that he uses skills that other people can use.”
In addition to these two presenters, Psi Chi will be hosting Hillsdale’s own memory challenge in the two weeks after Dellis and Pyc present. It will be held from 4-5:30 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 13, in Lane 125. Senior Katie Norton, president of Hillsdale’s Psi Chi chapter, urges students to come out and see Dellis and then use his techniques in Hillsdale’s memory challenge.
“Students can uses these techniques even if they don’t want to enter the memory challenge,” she said. “People can use them for studying for exams.”
The memory challenge is open to the entire campus, including faculty and staff.
“We’re going to go out and seek students and faculty and staff as well who might want to participate,” McArthur said. “We don’t want it to get too competitive. We want it to be a fun evening.”
Students can also learn these mnemonic devices in psychology courses offered here at Hillsdale.
“We talk about [mnemonic devices] in our psychology courses, but I don’t think students realize the full potential of what you can actually do with certain techniques in order to improve your memory,” Little said. “It’s very applicable to students’ daily lives.”
