Vivid memory imaging technique – it works.
Reciting memory techniques are OK but you walk through the memory visually, hear it, smell it – the memory will embed much quicker and be easier to recall.
This principle underpins mind maps and memory palaces — and it transfers cleanly to interviews and high-pressure recall.
If you are structuring interview responses go ahead and use: STAR, Bullet points, Cue cards. All useful — but at the moment you actually need to recall the story under pressure that’s where there is a struggle. Not because people don’t know their experience, but because they’ve tried to memorise words instead of animated scenes activating their senses.
Decades ago, Tony Buzan argued that the human brain is fundamentally image-driven, not text-driven. His work on memory and mind mapping showed that we recall images, colour, emotion, sense and structure far more reliably than linear prose.
In other words: we remember images, not paragraphs.
The Visual Memory Principle (in practice)
Instead of memorising a script, you build a single vivid mental image that anchors the entire story.
From that anchor:
- Information branches visually, not linearly
- Colour encodes meaning (urgency, control, outcomes)
- Movement and exaggeration make recall effortless
- Noise and smell feature in mental imaging too, use them.
A MIRS (Memory Interview Recall System) Example — Vivid Visualisation
Here’s an example of how a complex programme story can be encoded visually, without scripting a single sentence.
Anchor image: the program is the absorption of a global trading business into a financial institution. The programme is in crisis. The task is to recover it.
Visualised as: A trading bull made of glass (the acquired business) inside, a giant glass ERP cube stamped with the acquiring organisation’s logo. From the cube, coloured branches/graph lines burst out, breaking the surface, glass tinkling, the smell of money emanates.
Situation — Red Graph Line
A world map with broken data cables and warning lights flashing across regions. Fragile, interconnected, time-critical.
Task — Blue Graph Line
You stand before an unruly orchestra, holding a conductor’s baton. Everyone is tuning up; it’s a cacophony. You tap the podium. Silence.
Action — Green Branch with leaves
The scene breaks into six bold unfurling “action leaves”:
- Governance reset — name tags slapped onto chests
- Module audit — a checklist clipboard ticking itself
- Integration web — a spider’s web with system logos stuck to it
- Reverse-engineered plan — a car reversing, calendar running backwards
- Transparency — stadium floodlights switched on
- Team uplift — physically lifting people upward
Each image is deliberately physical, exaggerated, and distinct.
Result — Gold Graph line
A dashboard glowing green, every indicator healthy. A stopwatch with both hands meeting at twelve.
Recommendations — Purple
Certificates with stamped seals and a rosette — assurance, credibility, readiness, endorsements.
Final Thought
Structured frameworks organise experience. Vivid visual memory makes it retrievable.
If you’ve ever gone blank in an interview despite deep experience, the issue isn’t confidence or competence.
It’s recall design.
Goodluck.
Best regards RichFM
References
Buzan, T. (1974). Use Your Head. BBC Books.
