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from the soylentils-minds-are-more-like-memory-gutters dept.
Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
There's been a long-standing debate about whether memory athletes are born with superior memories, or whether their abilities are due to their training regimens. These tend to include an ancient memorization strategy called the method of loci, which involves visualizing important pieces of information placed at key stops along a mental journey. This journey can be an imaginary walk through your house or a local park, or your drive to work. The important thing is that you can mentally move back through it to retrieve the pieces of information you stored. (The ancient Greeks are said to have used it to remember important texts.)
To find out what's going on in top-level rememberers' brains, Konrad teamed up with neuroscientist Martin Dresler at Radboud University in the Netherlands. They recruited 23 of the top 50 memory competitors in the world. All were between the ages of 20 and 36. Then, the scientists scanned the memory athletes' brains while they were just relaxing, and also while they memorized a list of 72 words.
The team, and their co-investigators at Stanford University, found that the memory athletes' brains don't appear to be built any differently from yours or mine, according to results they published in the journal Neuron. "That was quite surprising, since these are really the best memorizers in the world," Dresler says. "And still, they didn't show a single memory structure, any single region or collection of regions that was anatomically strikingly different from normal control subjects."
Even so, their brains don't work the way yours or mine does. The athletes were able to recall at least 70 of the 72 words they studied — compared to an average of only 39 words for the non-athletes they were compared to. What's more, while the professional rememberers' brains were structurally similar to the control group, the memory athletes' brain scans showed unique patterns of activity, where brain regions that are involved in memory and cognition were statistically more likely to fire together.
The method of loci is also known as the memory palace, and Konrad says the first step is to make up a set of locations. The place doesn't matter as much as your familiarity with it. Then you create a map in your mind with a series of stops. The first stop might be your front door. The second could be the table next to it where you put down your sunglasses. Then, when you're given a list of words to memorize, you visualize scenes that link the words with each stop.
[Editor's Note: there is a nice TED talk on the memory palace method and memory competitors here]
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 21 2017, @11:36PM (8 children)
...all alike.
(Score: 3, Funny) by aristarchus on Tuesday March 21 2017, @11:58PM (7 children)
I just wish I could remember what it was we used to do in Ancient Greece to remember stuff.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 22 2017, @12:26AM
...drugs?
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 22 2017, @02:52AM (5 children)
Associate facts with the little boys you've diddled. Associate numerical data with how many times you stroke that particular boy. FFS - you said Ancient Greece.
(Score: 2, Troll) by aristarchus on Wednesday March 22 2017, @05:50AM (4 children)
Hmm, must be a Catholic! For some reason, that is the only thing they take from ancient Greece, and of course they do it badly, exploitation from a position of authority, with no concern for their victims! "Abstinence makes the Church grow Fondlers", as I once saw it expressed. So, no, that wasn't it. And if you don't understand man-boy love, I suggest you stay very far away from the Church and the American Republican Party, they seem to be thick with it. Milo Youcanpullmywhatsit is out, but only because he spoke openly about what is an open secret. And Trump? All boy military academy? Do you know what goes on there? Well, of course you do! It is like a microcosm of Arkansas. Father says, "squeal like a pig!", and so, sadly, you squealed like a pig. Have you considered post-traumatic stress therapy? It could help.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 24 2017, @02:40AM (3 children)
Typical queer response - you project your own life's motivation onto everyone and everything you see. ie, "I like little boys, so everyone must like little boys"
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Friday March 24 2017, @04:40AM
You brought it up, you little pederast! So who is projecting now? Let me guess, you "cannot recall." That is a Republican defense, from the days of the Reagan era Iran-Contra Affair! Ollie! And the Bush people tried to use it as well! Well here is my advice: send lots of emails. Later, some one will be able to find them and restore your memory. Tweeting does not seem to work as well. Just saying.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 24 2017, @07:32AM (1 child)
Recovering Altar Boy on aisle 12! Send shrinks and lawyers as fast as you can! Poor AC! How many times? Show us on the doll. Why do you hate aristarchus? He was just trying to help you. Get help. There are people out there who will help you, and not betray you like happened in your youth. It is alright to come forward, to admit what happened, make the bastards pay, and get over it. The first step is yours.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 25 2017, @02:19PM
Well, if you insist -
Aristarchus touched me here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and here - wouldn't it be easier to show you where he did not touch me?