There is a very interesting book on this topic - memory competitions - the book is about how ordinary people using an ancient Roman technique (Memory palace) becomes extraordinary memorizers. Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Moonwalking-Einstein-Science-Remembering-Everything/dp/0143120530/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=" rel="nofollow">https://www.amazon.com/Moonwalking-Einstein-Science-Remember...</a><p>I could pickup the technique to help me in my day to day life. For very little investment in efforts it managed to drastically improve my life.<p>Context: I consider myself quite challenged when it comes to memorizing numbers.<p>The technique described in the book (and in this article) allowed me to remember details of a financial instrument which involves 32 numbers without any pattern. Whenever I have to use this instrument I have to input random 6 numbers out of those 32. Before I discovered this technique I had to pull out the hardcopy of the instrument every time for reference (it was painful - sometime it will be not in my possession, or it would be buried inside some cabinet etc.)<p>The technique that I use/adapted essentially is, I use mental map of a roadway which I’m intimately familiar with to place the 32 numbers on the various 32 landmark along the way (landmarks can be anything - a funny looking rock next to the road will also do. The key is one should be able to visualize it very clearly). So, whenever I need to retrieve numbers I mentally ’drive’ on the road and start checking out the landmarks. Example: I need to retrieve number corresponding to landmarks 5,9,15,20.. I start ‘driving’ reach landmark no. 5 and able to remember immediately this landmark is associated with number 29, then I move on and reach to next landmark, when I ‘reach’ that one I’m able to recollect that this landmark has number 89 associated with it, and so on…<p>Somewhere I read that it works so well because as a human species we have ability to remember geo spatial things much better than abstract things like numbers. I would guess that it has to do with our hunter-gatherer days when we were primarily dealing with spatial concepts; brain is hard wired to store those information much better than things like numbers.
Dumb question I've always wondered. How do you reset the memory palace? I feel like old things you stored would stick in your memory and get confusing.
Source study without The Verge garbage-ification<p><a href="http://www.cell.com/neuron/abstract/S0896-6273(17)30087-9" rel="nofollow">http://www.cell.com/neuron/abstract/S0896-6273(17)30087-9</a>
I started practicing the method of loci when I was in Toastmasters. Over the course of a year, I went from literally reading my entire speech off of paper, to speaking without any notes at all. That one change made an unbelievable difference in my confidence and helped turn me into a pretty damned good public speaker.<p>I highly recommend it to anyone who dislikes doing presentations.
From PGP's Passphrase FAQ:<p>> <i>"Shocking nonsense" means to make up a short phrase or sentence that is both nonsensical and shocking in the culture of the user, that is, it contains grossly obscene, racist, impossible or other extreme juxtaposition of ideas. This technique is permissable because the passphrase, by its nature, is never revealed to anyone with sensibilities to be offended.</i><p><a href="https://www.unix-ag.uni-kl.de/~conrad/krypto/passphrase-faq.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.unix-ag.uni-kl.de/~conrad/krypto/passphrase-faq....</a>
Interesting, Whenever i have trouble understanding an algorithm/code its usually because of not being able to remember what everything does. It usually not a due to a lack of logical reasoning.
> one group was trained in the method of loci, and they practiced using an online course for six weeks, 30 minutes per day.<p>Does someone know if the course referred to in the article is available to anyone?
I kind of used that technique when I was working as sales for small gastronomy single-use plasticware.<p>I went to a customer without notepad, he was telling me what he needs like 20-30 items with amounts, and the way I was able to remember that list was because at the time person was telling what he needs I was imagining place in the truck where I had what he needed.<p>So only reading that story I realised that I was using some technique that I never heard before.
I enjoyed Moonwalking with Einstein, but I felt that it was more story than technique.<p>I found [Unlimited Memory](<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Unlimited-Memory-Advanced-Strategies-Productive-ebook/dp/B00I3QS1XQ" rel="nofollow">https://www.amazon.com/Unlimited-Memory-Advanced-Strategies-...</a>) a nice follow-up to the former.
How unusual :) I'm reading Conceptual Blockbusting, based on the recommendation in programming pearls (another great book btw). It just walked me through the method of loci technique as a demonstration of using long term memory.
Does this explain why it's easy to remember complex concepts using analogies as we're mapping new ideas to something we're familar with?