| Challenge | Jokes | Names |
|---|---|---|
| Keeping in STM | Right after hearing it, repeat the punchline (e.g., "The alligator! That's a good one!") | Right after hearing it, repeat the name: "Nice to meet you, Joe. Tell me Joe, ...." |
| Moving to LTM | Associate the joke with some image, preferably a mental cartoon of the joke. If you can't do that, try to picture the person telling the joke as well as
details about the context such as where you were, when it was, and what your mood was.
Relate the joke to yourself by thinking of someone you know who could have been a character in the joke or who would really like the joke. |
Associate some distinctive feature of the person (e.g., their unibrow) with an image for the name. For "joe" your image might be coffee ("a cup of joe"). Thinking about what the name could mean may help you form visual images. For example, Mark Baker is not just a name--it is two words: "mark" and "baker." So, you might see him as a baker with a mark on his face. |
| Have useful cue | Categorize the joke (e.g., political, self-deprecating, exaggeration, one-liner, lawyer joke, exercise joke, pun). Alternatively, you could use the peg word system to remember a number of jokes. | Find a distinctive, permanent aspect (e.g., you usually shouldn't use hair color or glasses) of the person to which to tie the name. Obviously, this is harder when people wear masks. |
| Overlearn to prevent forgetting | Jokes are often hard to remember because jokes often work because the punch line comes as a surprise--and so is not obviously connected to the rest of the joke (the set up). Fortunately, you can remember jokes by overlearning them, and overlearning them by telling them is fun. Because jokes are more effective when told at the right time, when overlearning them also overlearn a cue for the joke so your memory for the joke will be triggered in the right situation. | Picture the person and the name at least three times during the first month and then monthly thereafter. |