What is this Memory skill called?

[Rivelli]

I am trying to find more information on these similar but somewhat different memory skills to obviously get more information about them and hopefully be able to do them but at the moment unable to use the right keyword to find it. In the movie Rain Man or some autistic people in general, they can compute calculations amazingly. Specifically in Rain Man I am thinking of when Hoffman instantly saying the correct amount of toothpicks that were dropped on the floor. Another example is when Derren Brown in one of his shows (S03E06 last segment to be exact) flipped through a desk of cards memorizing the order of every card and able to call out the single card missing and so on. In that segment, Derren said that Divernan (obviously spelled incorrectly) was the expert in these similar skills. That spelling of the name only brings up the city in ILL. I practice photoreading and imagestreaming but this seems more instant and aware side of the brain I assume.
Anyone know the name of these skill(s) and where I could find more information?

[Brutha]

The keyword you are searching for is mnemonics.

Another example is when Derren Brown in one of his shows (S03E06 last segment to be exact) flipped through a desk of cards memorizing the order of every card and able to call out the single card missing and so on.

That probably no example of memorization but of framing the situation to look like memorization through card tricks. Derren is a "mental illusionist".
He is probably not able to do that memory task in under five minutes of high concentration.

[Rivelli]

yes Derren clearly lies and is completely honest about it in the beginning of his episodes, I just seem to think that a lot of it is straight skill that he has been working on for years. I know of other poker pro's (Chris "Jesus" Fergison) that can do the same trick.

Derren is also the guy that made me aware of photoreading. (the one where me memorized the dictionary and other random books in 20 minutes). Perhaps he simply read the guys mind to guess the words or there was a camera over the book and an ear piece. That seems more unlikely than photoreading after learning about it. What about the blackjack segment where he always bet double on the right hands cause he knew the right cards were coming? He said in his head he was walking in a big room removing one of 4 stickers on each object that went for a specific card in the desk. Take away more stickers and look around the room, youll know what is left in the deck.

I think hes been practicing very hard at that stuff for years and he simply has the skill high enough to where it looks like magic. Can photoreading not take Derren that far for his book memorization trick? If it can, why cant other mnemonic skills work with enough effort to do the other tricks? Some of those tricks you cant really do unless you have the skill...right? There are other examples with other people as well, i just dont want this post to be really long.

as for the framing thing: i highly doubt it. once again, there are other people with just as good examples but people know Derren so its easier to get more replies as they know the examples I am talking about. I could get into Chessmasters memorizing chessboards at glances, if I did the post would be a lot longer though :P

[nick pagan]

The man that Derek mentions is Dominic O'Brien (this is your Divernan, I think).

I seriously recommend that you read Derek Brown's book "Tricks of the Mind" where he gives the truth and falsity behind what he and others do. The book has a terrific section on 'Further Reading' where you can many wonderful books to study afterwards.

Incidentally, in the book he totally trashes photoreading courses and NLP. I'd be interested to know whether photoreading works for you.

All the best,
Nick

Nick Pagan

[Brutha]

At present the person with the overall best memory (the person with the highest score) is Gunther Karsten with 46.35 seconds for a deck of cards (there are people who are faster for the deck of cards.
On average the person would need to go through halve of the cards again to find the missing cards with a sticker like method.
But Derren probably isn't that fast. There aren't many people who are faster than two minutes for a pack of cards in the world.

That high concentration time, where you can't talk at the same time. Derren on the other hand doesn't take that time when he does his presentation.

Forcing a card on a spectator is much easier and looks the same to a spectator like you who only sees a mysterious trick.

That seems more unlikely than photoreading after learning about it.

Derren doesn't believe in photoreading. If I remember right that trick is done through forcing page numbers.

Mnemonics is real and exists. There are things that some people can do and things that nobody can do.

When you want to know what's possible in the real world, you shouldn't look at what happens in movies like Rain Man or in Derren Browns shows. Most of the time Derren doesn't do what you think he does.
Read nonfiction

I could get into Chessmasters memorizing chessboards at glances, if I did the post would be a lot longer though :P

Chessmasters on the other hand don't use mnemonics to memorize chess boards.
They use simple their chess playing skill to memorize chessboards.

They look at a chess board and don't see that pawn has moved that much and that knight that much but they see: the XYZ opening at move 10. Perhaps with an interesting twist of having most the second pawn that you normally wouldn't move.

[Rivelli]

man. I'm always the logical guy. What a perfect example of someone believing what he wanted to when it was obviously false.

I am glad I got into photoreading before I found this out. I believe photoreading does work. Now that Derren was fake, I don't know how far photoreaing can go but I can easily get the main point of the book very quickly and learn the details much faster in combination of other techniques such as mind mapping. I even went to bookstores and picked out a stack of books to photoread. At the very least, so I could pick up on the details and learn faster than otherwise. I do a lot of the different things the learning strategies came out with and strongly believe in it.

As for the Chessmaster thing, you seem to be right on in regards to that as well. I believe I mixed up what Chess players did, memorizing the same common moves and Derren doing a similar thing practicing very hard for years with cards specifically.

Still doing many of the learning strategies which has memory stuff as well, I took your advice and bought the memory book that is on this site and a couple others used off amazon. I will also look into Derren's book and Dominic O'Brien. Thanks for the advice