Have you seen the television program, The Mentalist? In one episode, he explains his card-counting skills, based on a memorized visual for each card. At the time, I thought, I could use that for all my passwords. Then I ran across an Internet article quoting an Irish professor of psychology, Ian Robertson, who recommends just that.
Recognizing what he calls “alphanumeric clutter," he says we all can remember more than we do. Visual imagery (“a longstanding method, not my creation”) is based on two steps: creating an easy-to-recall rhyming word for each number through 10 then seeing those pictures when you need to recall the code.
For instance, “one is bun, two is shoe, three is tree, etc.” So if your code is 233, you will “see” a shoe followed by two trees. (When you need to include a letter, visualize an apple, bee, cat etc.) Robertson says it is laborious at first but gets easier and such links remain imbedded in the brain more deeply and widely so that memory is more functional.
A bonus: you can honestly tell security you have no passwords on sticky notes.
Posted by Myrna Meadows, NRS, International Falls
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