Page:Memory; how to develop, train, and use it - Atkinson - 1919.djvu/153

Rh said: “If I perform a sum mentally, it always proceeds in a visible form in my mind; indeed, I can conceive of no other way possible of doing mental arithmetic.”

We have known office boys who could never remember the number of an address until it were distinctly repeated to them several times—then they memorized the sound and never forget it. Others forget the sounds, or failed to register them in the mind, but after once seeing the number on the door of an office or store, could repeat it at a moments notice, saying that they mentally “could see the figures on the door.” You will find by a little questioning that the majority of people remember figures or numbers in this way, and that very few can remember them as abstract things. For that matter it is difficult for the majority of persons to even think of a number, abstractly. Try it yourself, and ascertain whether you do not remember the number as either a sound of words, or else as the mental image or visualization of the form of the figures. And, by the way, which ever it happens to be, sight or sound, that particular kind of remembrance is your best way of