"There's a scene from the 2010s series Sherlock that I think about a lot. Sherlock Holmes (Benedict Cumberbatch) visits his mind palace to figure out how he and his friend/minion John Watson (Martin Freeman) got drugged. Words, phrases and images float around his head, and he moves them around with his hands. It's a memory technique, Watson explains to a confused onlooker. You plot a map of a location it doesn't have to be a real place and then you deposit memories there. Theoretically, he says, you can never forget anything, he says: All you have to do is find your way back to it."
"The scene is ridiculous. It's become a meme. It's also mostly nonsense. This seems more like run-of-the-mill free association, says Dr Nicole Long, associate professor of psychology at the University of Virginia, when I send her a clip. But the mind palace is a real mnemonic device, and Watson's description is fairly accurate, says Long. More commonly known as a memory palace, or, in academic circles, the method of loci, the technique dates back to ancient Greece. And it's still widely used: one study found that nine out of 10 superior memorists use the method of loci."
A visualized "mind palace" places words, phrases, and images at specific imagined locations to encode memories for later retrieval. The method of loci, also called a memory palace, dates back to ancient Greece and remains widely used by superior memorists. Popular depictions can exaggerate or conflate the technique with free association, but the core practice involves creating spatial retrieval cues by linking items to distinct loci within an imagined structure. Everyday forgetfulness often results from lack of deliberate encoding, and constructing a memory palace can provide structured cues to improve intentional recall.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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