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Mary Whiton Calkins created paired learning in 1894. This method connects two things together, like a word and a picture. In her experiment, she painted different numbers with different colors. Then she showed them to people to see if they could remember which color went with which number.

We can see this discovery in two fictional stories about memory problems. In the film Memento (2000) by Christopher Nolan, Leonard Shelby has a memory problem. He cannot remember anything new for more than a few minutes. To help himself, Leonard writes notes and takes Polaroid photos. He creates connections between images and information. This is like using Calkins's method in a desperate way. These two characters show us what happens when our natural ability to connect information stops working.

Calkins found two important things: First, bright colors were easier to remember than plain colors. Second, how often people saw a number was more important than anything else for remembering it. She learned that when things compete, being recent loses to being bright. But being bright and being recent both lose to being repeated often.