You often pass a thing that is motionless without notice, but if it moves it attracts your attention. While walking down the city street you pay little attention to the show windows, but if there is something moving in one you will stop to notice it. The sidewalk will even be blocked by the simple motion of some thing in the display. This is the use of motion to impel your attention. If you are in a crowd and see a friend whose attention you wish to attract, you wave your hand or handkerchief. Children like to see "the wheels go 'round," and we never lose the fascination which motion has for us. A person lacking in the power of concentration will fix his closest attention upon the moving picture or object.
Just as the motion picture is more attractive than the old style stereopticon, so motion introduced into the visual pictures for memory purposes will increase the impression upon the brain and increase your ability to recall it.
To still further strengthen the impression of the House, see it in motion instead of standing still. See it on wheels moving down the street or blown from the foundation by a strong wind. The farther you see the object move, or the more rapid the motion, the stronger the impression.
Third Aid—Unusual Associations
When you go home in the evening the first thing mentioned is the unusual happening of the day. Those things which have been most out of the ordinary are the first mentioned in your conversation. If some very unusual circumstance has thrust itself upon those at home, they will rush out to meet you, to tell you perhaps that "The cat devoured the canary." All unusual circumstances impress the mind in such a manner that they are very easily recalled. To see the House balanced on one corner instead of in its usual position upon the foundation, will strengthen the impression of the picture already made. Take advantage of this natural fact and when you wish to remember make the picture an unusual one, even make it grotesque or ludicrous.
There is no limit to the degree in which you can use these three natural mental operations. Your exaggeration of a pin can make it appear the size of a pencil or a telephone pole, or as tall as a twenty-story building. You can see it move a foot or two or swinging in a pendulum-like rhythm or dancing upon a hill.
Thus the use of these three principles makes it possible for you to place upon your brain an impression of whatever strength you choose. If the first one is not recalled readily you know how to make a stronger one. Simply exaggerate the size, move it farther or more rapidly and in a more unusual or ludicrous manner.