Wups! Sorry about that, Gary. And Emilio, your fortitude is an example to
us all!
 
As to the methods of memorizing shells, it's a combination. For me, it's
largely visual; I read about shells and examine them by sight. Some of the
memory is tactile/kinesthetic; as Emilio Lopez says, the whole experience
can return. I rarely have the opportunity to discuss shells with anyone
else in person, so their spoken names are often alien to me. I had a decade
of experience as a paleontologist before I realized that my pronunciation
of Ostrea as "o-STRAY-ah" (a good Latin pronunciation) was unrecognizable
to other North Americans, who uniformly pronounce the same word as a
homonym of "Austria." On the other hand, I have less of a problem
communicating with European paleontologists. It is safe to say that very
little of my "shell memory" is auditory.
 
I have a good memory for written information and an excellent memory for
music, a relatively poor memory for spoken information and an absolutely
wretched one for knots, origami, and dance steps! None of this has to do
with my ability to hear, which is above average since I hardly ever
attended rock concerts in my youth.
 
If you are curious to determine whether you remember things best by
reading, by listening, or by other means, then recall how your teachers
taught and which ones reached you the best. Did you pay the best attention
to material written on the blackboard, drawn as sketches, or spoken out
loud? Can you remember spoken instructions better if you have written them
down, even if you do not consult the written note afterward? Do you prefer
to use the phone or email to communicate? These kinds of questions can help
clarify how you remember things best. A good teacher uses more than one
method simultaneously, because every classroom contains people of different
abilities.
 
Andrew K. Rindsberg
Geological Survey of Alabama