Memory palace: what is this memory technique?

The memory palace is a very useful resource for storing memories. Let's see why.

Not everyone has the same capacity to retain knowledge. However, there are ways to improve memory.

One of the best known techniques to achieve this purpose is known as the memory palace.. We will dedicate this article to analyze this method, knowing the characteristics that make it different from the rest and where apparently lies its effectiveness.

What is the memory palace. Definition and history

The memory palace, also known as the loci method, the technique of the mind palace or even the memory journey, is a resource to increase the retentive capacity, whose basis is the mental generation of a spatial scenario known by the subject, which will act as a guide to facilitate the memory..

Although it may seem a modern and cutting-edge method, the truth is that this system is one of the oldest known mnemonic methods. Its origin dates back to between the 6th and 5th century BC. The person who made it known was none other than Cicero, jurist, writer and general personality of the Roman Empire.

Cicero learned the palace system from the memory of another author, Simonides of Ceos, a poet of classical Greece, who was the one who, unbeknownst to him, was the one who, without knowing it, had the first to use the palace system in the Roman Empire.who was the one who, without knowing it, developed a method of recollection through a fortuitous event. Simonides was at the house of Scopas, a wealthy man who had found him to write a poem in his honor and tell it in front of his guests.

However, when Simonides finished, Scopas was not satisfied, because he claimed that the text quoted more other personalities (mythological) than himself, who was the protagonist, so he decided to pay only half of what had been agreed, summoning Simonides to get the rest of the money in the homes of the other characters mentioned in the poem.

But, as soon as they left the place, there was an earthquake, which reduced this and other houses in the area to rubble. When it came to finding out who had died in the house of Scopas, the work of Simonides was of great value, thanks to the palace of memory.How was this possible? Thanks to the way Simonides stored the memories.

This man was able to identify all the bodies found, because he remembered the exact position occupied by each of those present in the house of Scopas. Therefore, making use of the palace of memory, he only had to make a mental tour through the room in which he had been some time before, and locate one by one all those present.

This is the origin of the so-called method of loci, which also receives this name because, in Latin, the term loci means "of places", and refers to the use of spatial reference, i.e. to the specific place.that is to say, the specific place, as a system to achieve simpler and more detailed recall.

Recovery of the method in the Middle Ages

But that has not been the only historical moment in which the memory palace has been used. Several centuries later, in the Middle Ages, there were several groups of monks, whose task was to retain different parts of the Bible with the aim of narrating the scriptures later without the need to read them.

Even the theologian and philosopher, Thomas Aquinas, mentioned this methodology and recommended it as one of the means to study, meditate and achieve the goal Christians had in piety. He was not the only one who revitalized the use of Loci's method. Matteo Ricci, a Jesuit missionary, used this system to try to transfer the knowledge of Christianity to the countries of the East.

In fact, it was Ricci himself who baptized this methodology with the expression "memory palace". Later, towards the end of the 15th century, the astronomer Giordano Bruno tried to use the zodiacal constellations as spatial regions with which to memorize concepts.

However, not everyone approved of the use of the memory palace. For some authorities, this way of creating knowledge was not in line with what the divine mandates commanded. This was the case of the Protestant extremists in England, known as Puritans, whose arguments were supported by Erasmus of Rotterdam.

For another long period, the memory palace fell into disuse. But it was in the 19th century when it was recovered and began to be applied progressively, reaching its maximum popularity in the United States throughout the 20th century. In fact, this was the methodology used by the winners of the US Memory Championship, held in 1997.

How the memory palace works

We already know the history of the memory palace or loci method. Now let's delve into the elements on which it bases its effectiveness as a mnemonic rule. The system is as follows: the person who wants to remember a series of elements, the first thing to do is to choose a spatial place that he/she knows well, for example a house or the living room of a building..

These images are stored in long-term memory, so they are quality memories. The person will make a mental tour of this place by establishing a series of landmarks, or loci, i.e. places. At each of these points, he/she will try to visualize one of the elements he/she intends to remember, physically seeing it there.

The next step will be, of course, the recovery of the memory. To do this, the subject will again go through the mental images of the place he had used as a guide. While "walking" through the room or the evoked space, he will stop in front of each of the loci. In each of these places, he will "observe" the element that he had memorized..

This is how the full potential of the memory palace system is exploited. If sufficiently trained, it can be used to remember long chains of items. Obviously, the individual abilities that each subject has as a basis will also make a difference.

In that sense, we find world memory champions such as Clemens Mayer, who went so far as to use a mental run with 300 stops in which he handed out 1040 numbers in order to recall them after 30 minutes of memorization. Dominic O'Brien has used this technique to become world memory champion no less than eight times.

Another master of mnemonics, Gary Shang, was able to memorize more than 65,000 decimal places of the number pi, taking the virtues of the memory palace to the extreme.. This feat, logically, is within the reach of very few, no matter how well one masters the method of loci.

Memory palace training in six weeks

In the 2021 study by the team of researchers led by Wagner, the memory palace is used to test the performance that a group of people might experience against individuals specialized in the use of different mnemonic rules.

In a first phase, the authors focused on the group of mental athletes, studying the methods used by these individualsIn the first phase, the authors focused on the group of mental athletes, studying the methods used by these individuals, who in some cases were among the 50 people in the world best classified in the records of memory capacity, so we are talking about individuals with the highest abilities in this discipline.

With respect to individuals with average memorization abilities, two groups were established, one of which underwent a six-week training in different methods to facilitate recall through images, among which was the memory palace. The other was the control group, which did not receive such training.

The interest of the study lay in the application of the magnetic resonance technique, to observe what happened in the brains of these people when they retrieved the memories they had encoded using this methodology. The activation of the lateral prefrontal cortex decreased throughout the process.

On the other hand, activity was observed especially in the hippocampal area and the neocortex during the consolidation phase of the memories through the memory palace.. The study was extended for 4 months in order to review the long-term results. The research provides a graphical insight into the brain processes underlying this method of memorization.

Bibliographical references:

• Hale-Evans, R. (2006). Mind performance hacks: Tips & tools for overclocking your brain. O'Reilly.
• Legge, E.L.G., Madan, C.R., Ng, E.T., Caplan, J.B. (2012). Building a memory palace in minutes: Equivalent memory performance using virtual versus conventional environments with the Method of Loci. Acta psychologica. Elsevier.
• López, M., Jústiz, M., Cuenca, M. (2013). Methods, procedures and strategies for memorizing: necessary reflections for efficient study activity. Medical Humanities.
• López, M. (2016). The palace of memory. Círculo de Escritores. Universidad Iberoamericana Puebla.
• Wagner, I.C., Konrad, B.N., Schuster, P., Weisig, S., Repantis, D., Ohla, K., Kühn, S., Fernández, G., Steiger, A., Lamm, C., Czisch, M., Dresler, M. (2021). Durable memories and efficient neural coding through mnemonic training using the method of loci. Science.