Joshua Foer: Feats of memory anyone can do

http://www.ted.com There are people who can quickly memorize lists of thousands of numbers, the order of all the cards in a deck (or ten!), and much more. Science writer Joshua Foer describes the technique -- called the memory palace -- and shows off its most remarkable feature: anyone can learn how to use it, including him.

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[madogmgd]

I actually have used this technique throughout high school.

I would study for my spanish exams 10 minutes before the test and ace them.

Everyone thought I was a genius but I didn't think too much of it. Didn't know it was an actual technique used by people.

[Philip Oswald]

After watching this, I invested about 4 hours over a two day period allocating a memorable character each playing card. It took about 15 mins to make a memory palace with 52 spaces. It took me 25 mins further to commit a shuffled pack of cards to memory. I made three mistakes. One month later and I can now do it in about 5 minutes, and I get faster each time remember a pack! This technique is insanely effective. Thank you Joshua Foer for spreading the word.

[Jesse Christe]

You could, for example, have an image (that has been pre-memorized) in your head for every different 5 digit combination...i.e. 01011, 00111, 10110, etc. would all conjure a different image in your mind...and simply create a chronological story using these images.

[jimlap777]

Yes, but if you think of it, he'd probably argue that understanding something to remember it is exactly what he proposes when he talks about ways to compact information before storing it.

[k0mmu]

because u need to actually understand how it works its not about remembering the words he says. After completely understanding

something u instantly gonna remember it for a long long time.

[Ween Scim]

i do this without even using technique, not sure how.

[Chris Hickey]

I'm the same way...it's amazing how quickly you progress

[jimlap777]

Depends what he has to learn. If it is just "by heart", he'll be fine. If it's something like engineering class where you must understand complex stuff, it won't work as good..

[Shigeshi Cheney]

That was a great speech, I try using this technique from now on. I've searched for all kinds of other memory techniques, but never really found one that works.

[Winston Kathirkamanathan]

that was powerful and helpful, bless.