Memory techniques work, but for a particular kind of thing. They're good for lists, sequences, names and words: things that have no logic of their own for your memory to hold onto. They're less helpful for understanding a subject, and there you're better off testing yourself.
The best-known technique is the memory palace. You walk a route you know by heart, such as through your home, and place an image of each thing you want to remember at a spot along the way. In one study, young men with no prior experience practiced the technique for half an hour a day for six weeks. Their memory for word lists improved clearly more than that of people who had trained something else or not trained at all, and the difference was still there four months later.
Choose your path based on what you want to remember:
- A list or a sequence: the memory palace.
- Names: an image that links the name to the person.
- Words in another language: an image that resembles the word.
- Build a bigger palace if you want to take it further.
A first step today: pick ten spots in order in your home, starting at the front door and moving inward. Place your next shopping list along the route and see how much you remember at the store.
Memory techniques work, but for a particular kind of thing. They're good for lists, sequences, names and words: things that have no logic of their own for your memory to hold onto. They're less helpful for understanding a subject. This article explains how the best-known technique works, what a study of memory champions says about it, and where its limits are. It then gives you four paths based on what you want to remember.
The memory palace, step by step
The technique is often called the memory palace or the method of loci, and it has been used since ancient times. It builds on the fact that we're better at remembering places and images than loose words. You use a route you already know without thinking, turn each thing you want to remember into an image, and place it at a spot along the route.
- Pick a route Your home, your commute, a place you know by heart.
- Choose the spots The door, the hallway, the mirror, in a fixed order.
- Place an image at each spot Make it big, strange or funny.
- Walk the route in your mind Pick up the items one by one.
The images should be strange. Milk on the hallway rug is easy to forget. A cow standing in the hallway, blocking the door, is much harder to forget. The more an image stands out, the easier it is to find again.
What the memory champions showed
In 2017, Dresler and colleagues compared 23 of the world's best memory athletes with ordinary people of the same age and intelligence. The athletes remembered almost every word on a list of 72, while the others remembered about half. When the researchers measured brain activity, the difference lay in how different parts of the brain worked together.
Then came the interesting part. Fifty-one young men with no experience of memory techniques were divided into three groups. One group practiced the memory palace for half an hour a day, 40 sessions over six weeks. Another group trained working memory with a different kind of exercise, and a third didn't train at all. The memory palace group improved their memory for word lists clearly more than the other two, and the difference was still there when they were tested again four months later.
The study was small, all the participants were young men, and the test involved remembering lists of words. It shows that the technique can be learned and that the effect lasts. It doesn't show that it makes you better at understanding a subject.
Where the technique doesn't help
In 2013, Dunlosky and colleagues reviewed the research on ten common study techniques. One of the memory techniques, making an image of a word that sounds like the one you want to remember, received a low rating. It worked for suitable material, such as vocabulary, but the effect didn't always last over time, and the technique couldn't be used for most subjects. The highest ratings went to testing yourself and spacing out your review.
That's the limit. A memory technique helps you remember that things belong together, but not why. If you memorize every step of photosynthesis with a memory palace, you'll be able to recite them, but not explain what happens if one step is missing. That's why memory techniques are a complement. Understanding is built by explaining and testing, as in the guide to study techniques, and anything you need to know for an exam has to be reviewed at intervals, as in studying for an exam.
Four paths, based on what you want to remember
A list or a sequence. For when you need to remember a shopping list, the points of a speech or the steps of a process. Use the memory palace with one spot per item. First step: pick ten spots in order in your home and place your next list there.
Names. For when you forget a name the moment you hear it. Say the name out loud right away, and make an image that links the name to the person. If her name is Rose, picture her with a rose in her hair. First step: the next time you meet someone new, use their name in the first sentence of your reply.
Words in another language. For when you're learning vocabulary. Find a word in your own language that sounds similar, and make an image of the two together. It works for words, but it doesn't replace quizzing yourself. There's more on that in learning a new language. First step: pick five words you struggle with and make an image for each one.
Build a bigger palace. For when you want to take it further, and this is the most demanding path. Build several routes with twenty spots each, and practice placing new lists in them every day, like the participants in the study. First step: build a second route today, at work or at school, and walk it in your mind before you fall asleep.
A first step today: pick ten spots in order in your home, starting at the front door and moving inward. Place your next shopping list along the route and see how much you remember at the store.
This is the understanding and a first step. Atlas is where it becomes a habit. Under Learning you'll find Today's question, Teach it and Fifteen minutes of new, and if you add Study & career as its own area, you'll also get Explain it yourself. If you want to practice the memory palace, you can make it an exercise of your own and log each session, so you can see over the weeks how often it actually happened. Try Atlas free for 7 days, and cancel whenever you like.