How to train like a memory athlete

While it might seem like nothing more than neurological party tricks - and it's an approach we certainly don't advocate in place of thorough revision - there's no denying that the skillset of "memory athletes" can be impressive.

Munkhshur Narmandakh was once able to employ mnemonics techniques to commit more than 6,000 binary digits to memory in just 30 minutes.

Alex Mullen, a three-time World Memory Champion, used a similar approach to memorize the order of a deck of cards in just 15 seconds, a record at the time.

That record was later broken by Shijir-Erdene Bat-Enkh, who memorized the order of a deck in just 12 seconds.

But how was it done, and could everyday learners make use of such approaches?

One strategy, referred to as the method of loci, or "memory palace," was first developed in ancient Greece but was popularized by Frances Yates' 1966 book The Art of Memory.

This involves mentally placing objects associated with memory in "rooms" in your mind.

The mental dwelling grows as your memories grow, so it may as well be as beautiful and intricate as a palace. Elaborative encoding is then used, as detail is added through visual, auditory, olfactory or other sensory cues.

Approximately 90 percent of superior memorizers utilize the method of loci to some extent - not least because sensory representations activate memories in ways mere memorization can't hope to emulate.

Let's look at how the method of loci might be used to answer an exam question.

Perhaps you want to memorize the causes of World War I in Europe.

Begin by imagining a journey through a space you know well (most people use their homes).

Take a mental walk around your space (hallway, living room, dining room, kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, etc).

Now make a list of what you want to memorize: the World War I was caused by the arms race, the European alliance system, longstanding French-German distrust, etc).

Place a representative object in each space. Make sure that the object is striking (the approach can fail when objects "fade" into the background), and only add one in each space.

In the above example, we might imagine a dreadnaught in the hallway, diplomats clothed in different European flags shaking hands in the living room, and a German dachshund and French poodle fighting on the dining room table.

Really work on those images. Brain scans of superior memorizers have shown that visualization and special awareness are a vital part of the method of loci.

The method has had its champions for several thousand years.

The 2006World Memory Champion,Clemens Mayer, used a 300-point-long journey through his house to memorize 1,040 random digits in 30 minutes.

Gary Shang has used the method of loci to memorizepito over 65,536 digits. That should be enough to get you through the end of year exams.

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