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I have a problem. My medium and long term memory is pretty good, but my short term memory is apalling.

For example, I can know a specs card (using a F***E or a P**K), go on with a bit of patter and (especially if during the patter other cards are mentioned) immediately forget the card the spec looked at.

Is this common, or am I sub-standard?

I know there are mnemonic systems for remembering stacks, but is there anything for the short term?

Thanks,

Proteus

I have the same problem. It's why I always carry note pads with me!
As for remembering a forced card, I just always force the same card!

sub-standard

Far from it my friend, I forget all the time, its cos us magicians have some much packed ino our brains, to remeber how to perform the tricks that we forget the finer points lol

I quite often have trouble remembering peeked cards quickly. There's a couple of reasons for this, firstly peeking has to be done quickly and smoothly (as a rule) as you continue with patter so there's a lot going on in your head and not a lot of time to assimilate it. Secondly most of the tricks that I do don't require you to know the value of a card as they're based around controlling it. The public by and large have the assumption that knowing what card was picked is important in locating it, which makes no sense if you think about it logically. So anyway I don't usually attach much importance to a card's value and subsequently when I do have to remember one it's that little bit harder.

As others have said while peeking there's a lot going on, usually practice and time will help you in remembering the card you saw.

Same goes for forcing, as your routines and effects become second nature you will be better able to remember the card you forced. In the meantime you could always pick a couple standard cards to always force. This limits the possible choices and it might be easier to remmeber 1 of 4 instead of 1 of 52. If you're still having trouble with the limited number keep copies of the 4 about your person. If you get it wrong you can ask their card then reveal you had it as "the only card in this pocket" all along.

Finally, if time goes on and your memory continues to be a problem try looking into some mentalism effects. If you're familiar with the C***** T*** then you know you'll have a copy of the needed information about you incase you happen to forget before the reveal.

Best of luck.

Just studied memory for my psychology exam and so can guive y'all a hand with improving it!
First of all you all have a beautiful memory which is fantastic you just cant use it.
As far as I know (which is limited) there is no mediu term memory.
Atkinson and Shiffrins 1968 multi-store memory modelis:
Sensory store ---> Short term memory--> Long term memory
Short term memory last up to 0s and has a capacity of 7+/-2 objsects so to increase the amount foin into your LTM you can do a couple of things.
Group things together i.e. 7D will be remembered better than the seven of diamonds. If you get where Im goin.
You can also use acronyms i.e. BBC = british broadcasting center
Hopefully that helps.
A short repetition of the card of object to be remembered willhepl as well!
Man Im a geek!

I usually say the card name in my head a few times after I know what it is. It does help me, but I find a good key card helps memory if you use the same key card the same time.

I probably only force one card, in my whole act, so i have have always gone for the same card.
When i was working a local restaurant (3 x a week) i just changed the suit.

I've done this in the past as well. I found that the problem was that I wasn't practising right. I was practising the technique and patter but not taking into account that I was having to remember a card while all this was going on.

Nowadays if I'm practising an effect that requires a force (or if I want to glimpse) I will practise it using different cards. After a while of doing this it becomes second nature.

I think it was "The Secrets of Alkazar" that taught me this virtue of learning an effect exactly as it is performed. Sounds obvious but can be easily overlooked.

From personal experience, there are certain triggers which can cause my short-term memory to be reset, and in my experience this is largely responsible for the phenomenon known as absent mindedness. To which I am extremely susceptible.

Consider a fairly stereotypical example of absent-mindedness: you intend to put something in the oven (as the case may be) and then, acting on automatic, without really realising you're *doing* it, you put it in the fridge instead.

In my experience, when this sort of thing happens it's because my short-term memory has been momentarily reset by some trigger, usually a sudden influx of new sensory data. This might occur at the moment that I walk from (say) the living room into the kitchen, because the moment of entering a new room is one moment at which a sudden influx of sensory data occurs. In a magic show situation, a similar event might happen when I turn around after facing away from the spectator (and in that case, I find it helps to verbalise the thing I want to remember).

Another trigger can be an unexpected timing disruption, or something like that (everything I'm saying here is based on self-observation, which necessitates a certain vagueness on specifics). For example, it has often happened that, wishing to open a particular program on my Windows computer, I reach for the Start button, and perhaps get as far as a submenu before the computer pauses in order to load the contents of the menu. This pause (a timing disruption) causes my short term memory to be reset, and acting on automatic, I open the wrong program! This has happened to me countless times.

Incidentally, the above is one of the reasons why I said in another thread that I suspect I'd be susceptible to hypnosis. It stands to reason that if I'm susceptible to this sort of thing, then I might be susceptible to other manipulations of the mind as well.