The Method Of Loci, Almost Infallible To Remember Anything
Are there mnemonic techniques that allow us to memorize everything? Of course, the human brain’s capacity to process data is limited, but that does not mean that, following the appropriate methodology and with a little patience, tricks cannot be used to expand our memory to impressive limits.
If you have ever researched the topic, you will have realized that there are real specialists in exploiting your memory resources. Individuals who, having trained their minds day by day, manage to reproduce data with astonishing ease.
In this sense, The method of loci is one of the most useful tools
Traditional education based on lectures (teachers talk, students remain silent) has been based for years on the idea that human beings store memories as pieces of information that “enter” our brain one by one, separately.
Thus, in compulsory education classes it has been very common to see lessons in which the teacher recites the names of a series of rivers, names of kings or parts of the body, in the best of cases adding to this bombardment of data an element of musicality to facilitate memorization.
However, currently there are many researchers of memory and cognitive sciences in general who hold a radically opposite idea: that It is much easier for us to memorize things when we integrate them into a narrative, something that happens in a certain space and time. A way of understanding memory that is based on the way things tended to be remembered thousands of years ago.
Nowadays, writing and the ease of printing texts mean that practically everyone has an artificial “expansion” of their ability to remember things. Writing is, in practice, the possibility of creating repositories of memories that we can access with relative ease every time we need to consult certain data. However, the fact that this tool is based on the existence of a certain degree of technology (writing, printing and computers) means that humanity has not always been able to enjoy this second memory composed of sheets of paper and computer systems.
However, many civilizations managed to prosper and achieved very detailed knowledge about the environment in which they lived, and even managed to create very complex laws, norms, and value and belief systems that acted as social cohesion. How was it possible for members of these cultures to memorize this type of information without having constant access to scriptures? Possibly, this was possible through oral tradition and mythology What was to be memorized was explained in the form of a narrative, something that could be visualized and related to an environment that was easy to remember vividly.
What is the method of loci?
He loci method It is a technique to facilitate memorization whose creation is attributed to the Greek poet Simonides of Ceos.
The term “loci”, which is Latin for “place”, gives a clue as to what this method is; In it, the pieces of information that we want to memorize are related to a three-dimensional environment that we can remember and evoke vividly. In this way, the method of loci takes advantage of spatial memory to “expand” our entire ability to remember things in general.
Its regular use does not improve our spontaneous memorization or make us remember many things that we have not even intended to recall later, but rather it is a tool that we can use deliberately at specific moments to accumulate a lot of information and not forget it (without the help of the writing). Thus, it can be used as an effective study method: it allows us to retain much more information to be able to be retrieved later.
Placing memories in any narrative plot
The fact that following the method of loci we introduce a notion of space to our memories makes it possible to create narratives that allow us to easily memorize what we want to remember. For example, if we want to memorize the main tasks that we have to do throughout the week, we can create a vivid narrative in which all these elements are present. It doesn’t matter if it is totally surreal and, in fact, the funnier it is, the more hook it will have and the easier it will be for us to remember The key is to evoke many details of the space or spaces in which the action takes place, taking into account all the sensations that each moment transmits: touch, smell, colors, etc.
In this way, each piece of information that we must remember will spontaneously lead us to the next: a mob of people (representing the meeting we must attend on Monday) chases us through our city square, and we hide from them in an ATM. (representing the banking procedures that we have to carry out on Wednesday).
In short, the method of loci may not allow us to enjoy a supernatural brain, but it is certainly useful in a multitude of contexts. Perhaps that is why it is used both by people who want to improve their work performance and by world champions of memorization.
