Memory Palace: Not just for Sherlock

[ThatsMyFlossify]

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Hey all,

I recently read this book called Moonwalking with Einstein, where this guy talks about how to memorize things using ancient grecian techniques that expand on the mnemonics we've all come to love as students. I've since used it to memorize pi out to 560+ digits and catalog a trove of data from the anatomy class I took this fall. Has anyone heard about things like memory palaces? Other than from Sherlock, Hannibal, or The Mentalist?

I think it would be a fantastic tool for dental school (and the DAT, of course, but I already took it and am not looking for help so I posted it here haha). I wanted to share it with anybody who hasn't heard of it and, if you have heard of it, can we please geek out for a second?!

 

[arkenstone]

I've not heard of it, but that's interesting. Could you elaborate on it?

This semester I tried something different for comparative anatomy. I got some printer paper and punched holes in it for my binder. I tried to write notes in visually distinctive ways---basically elaborate outlining, putting some things boxed off in certain areas, different sizes, styles...typical stuff, just a lore more of it, made easier by no lines on the page. I wouldn't say that I have a photographic memory, but I do tend to see the page in my mind when a relevant question comes up on a test, so making the pages more distinctive helps me a lot. Worked well enough for an A!

 

[lexa_m]

I am a fan of Sherlock and was totally inspired when he explained his "Memory Palace"!! I thought it would be the coolest thing to figure out a way to do something similar for school work but I haven't figured out a way yet. Usually when I study I will organize my notes using different colors and groupings that make sense to me. During a test sometimes the first thing I see before thinking of an answer is a color or similar topics.

 

[sgv]

I've not heard of it, but that's interesting. Could you elaborate on it?

This semester I tried something different for comparative anatomy. I got some printer paper and punched holes in it for my binder. I tried to write notes in visually distinctive ways---basically elaborate outlining, putting some things boxed off in certain areas, different sizes, styles...typical stuff, just a lore more of it, made easier by no lines on the page. I wouldn't say that I have a photographic memory, but I do tend to see the page in my mind when a relevant question comes up on a test, so making the pages more distinctive helps me a lot. Worked well enough for an A!

I read halfway through that book. Got bored. Basically, the dude is a journalist and interviews some random dude who won a memory competition. The random dude supposedly used the skills he learned from the competition to ace all his exams by studying for just a few hours before the exam. The competition involved memorizing entire decks of cards and matching faces with names etc. It's pretty intense. The amount of content that they have to memorize and recall is unbelievable to normal people. The journalist gets convinced to enter into one of these contests and gives up several months of his life to train for it. He ends up winning like third place or something. The author argues that anyone can learn to memorize tons of stuff if they put in the time and effort on the skills. At first, coming up with associations will be slow and almost not worth the time. But with practice, you come up with associations faster and they become very worthwhile. I've tried my hand at learning some of these skills and they absolutely require you to be creative and have a crazy ass imagination to come up with linking words. Even perverse and vulgar which is why I stopped doing it. Seriously, back in the day, a puritan priest banned the use of mnemonics and memory palace because they often involved very perverse (and therefore memorable) linking words. Although the author says that almost anyone can learn this stuff, there's a limitation called the "7 plus or minus 2" rule that dictates how much working memory capacity that someone is innately gifted with. The author was slightly above average. What I found to be the biggest disadvantage to this was that practically in the clinic, you don't have enough time to go through your entire mnemonic sequence to figure out a drug/disease pathway in the middle of the sequence when a faculty "pimps" you and asks you a question about a patient.

Here's the origin behind memory palaces and other forms of mnemonics. Way back then when there was no printing presses, scholars and orators had to memorize books and speeches. They did this using memory palaces. What is a freaking memory palace? You come up with one building that you are very familiar with such as your house. Then when you need to memorize any sort of sequence, you assign each step to a particular item in your "memory palace"/your house. Then for each following step, you assign it to another item in your house and you work your way around the entire house. Then when you need to recall it, you just need to recall your own house instead of the entire glycolysis pathway or whatever you need to memorize.

Another method is used for memorizing number and letter sequences. For each number and letter you assign a very vividly memorable noun or action. You would have to memorize the association of the noun with each letter (26 letters) and each digit (0-10). If you got that memorized, whenever you have to recall a sequence of numbers/letters, you just make it into a sequence of stories (nouns and actions) by combining the associations. The key is to maximize the use of your visual memory so making the stories as vivid, outrageous and exciting as possible is necessary.

There's an entire forum dedicated to memorizing crap. http://mt.artofmemory.com/

 

[Greyangel6]

For me, the memory palace does not work that well... I barely know all my biochem structures with association with a location (as in the memory palace idea). So I basically tried something different by drawing it several times, and looking for stuff that can be easily triggered for a memory (NAD+ has nicotinamine + adenosine diphosphate)... I'm not going to say it doesn't work but I can for sure say it did not work well for me in any science class.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

His TED talk.

 

[LabCoatAndPearls]

A memory palace is great for memorizing things like long lists of random objects, but it's harder for upper-level biology concepts, I've found. I also read Moonwalking with Einstein and what I took most from it is that people are better at memorizing images than words. Now when I'm studying and I can't seem to remember a tough concept I always try to associate it with some sort of ridiculous image, the more absurd the better!

 

[snemo]

Hopefully this may still interest folks. I got into memory palaces initially via competitions (I've won the last two World Memory Championships). A little shameless self-promotion here: I run a site (MullenMemory.com) along with my wife, Cathy, where we explore memory palaces as learning tools, predominantly for use in medical school. We're both currently M3s. There are plenty of tutorials out there that will tell you what a memory palace is, but we look at how to actually implement them for medical school. It took some experimenting, but we've found the techniques to work exceptionally well for medical school when used properly (here are a few of our primary tips for those already familiar with memory palaces). We've got content about pharmacology, anatomy, and pathology, as well as lots of general tips for using memory palaces for heavy subjects like medicine. Best of luck!