This document discusses using a "memory palace" technique to improve memorization. It explains that a memory palace involves visualizing places like a palace and assigning memories to different rooms or areas to help recall information. An example is given of using a bizarre image of a radish swinging in a circle to remember the difference between a radius and diameter in geometry. The document suggests that creating vivid mental images and associating them with concepts can help memories stick better than traditional memorization methods.
2. Memory Palace for Learning
Improve your memorizing power
(Includes exercises and Q&A)
3. Building a Memory Palace for Learning
and improve your memorizing power
What is a Memory Palace?
Can visualizing places like memory palace help you remember vocabulary better?
This picture from the Royal Palace in Phnom Penh in case if you all want to know
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4. Building a Memory Palace for Learning
and improve your memorizing power
How Does This Work?
Brain is just brighter as stars
the Royal Palace in Phnom Penh
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5. Building a Memory Palace for Learning
and improve your memorizing power
How Do You Get Memories to Stick in the First Place?
the Royal Palace in Phnom Penh
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6. Building a Memory Palace for Learning
and improve your memorizing power
But Does This Work with Language Learning?
the Royal Palace in Phnom Penh
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8. Swinging
RADISH (example)
Example: Students learning geometry sometimes confuse the diameter
and radius of a circle. The bizarre picture in a previous slide of a radish
swinging inside a circle is a Keyword Method trick for remembering the
difference.
Note: The "radius" is a line from the center of the circle to the edge. The
"diameter" is a line from edge-to-edge passing through the center.
Study the image for a few moments. With that silly picture in mind,
could you ever again confuse radius with diameter?
When someone mentions "radius" in the future, the sound of that word
should remind you of radish. The image of a radish swinging inside a
circle should pop into your mind instantly.
The radish is swinging back-and-forth from the center. Thus, "radius"
means the distance from the center of the circle to the edge. Easy,
right?
The hippocampus (named after its resemblance to the seahorse, from the Greek hippos meaning "horse" and kampos meaning "sea monster") is a major component of the brains of humans and other vertebrates. It belongs to the limbic system and plays important roles in the consolidation of information from short-term memory to long-term memory and spatial navigation. Humans and other mammals have two hippocampi, one in each side of the brain. The hippocampus is located under the cerebral cortex; and in primates it is located in the medial temporal lobe, underneath the cortical surface. It contains two main interlocking parts: Ammon's hornand the dentate gyrus.
Your brain is hardwired to remember things visually
Let me ask everyone...What is a Memory Palace?A memory palace is a place you imagine – it could be an actual palace, or a building, or a city – with plenty of distinct locations in it. Then you go around to different locations in this place and plant things you want to remember.Later, when you want to recall information, you travel through this place in your mind and recall what you’ve planted. For example, if your memory palace is your house and you want to remember the American presidents, you’d place the presidents at places around your house:George Washington in the front hallwayJohn Adams in the guest bathroomThomas Jefferson on the couchJames Madison on the television…and so on.This technique, also referred to as the method of loci or journey technique, has reportedly been used for thousands of years, dating back to Roman and Greek orators who used it to memorize long speeches. It’s still used today by participants in memory competitions.
How Does This Work?Basically, your brain is very good at remembering spatial information. Once you give information a spatial context, you activate more of your brain.So by placing information in an imagined location, you’re using more of your peanut, which contributes to forming stronger memories.
How Do You Get Memories to Stick in the First Place?When you’re using this technique, you still have to associate the item with a location. Using the example that just we talked, anyway tell me,how would you remember that George Washington was in the hallway and not on the couch?Pause…..Well, there are plenty of ways to do this:Think of something ridiculous. If you use your house as a memory palace, then imagine George Washington chopping a cherry tree down in your hallway.Pause…..How you will remember that James Madison was stamping up and down on the TV?Pause….Well, Play on the words. James Madison has “mad” and “son” in his last name. Imagine an angry child – a “mad son” – stamping up and down on the TV.Pause…..Think of something emotionally charged. Using disturbing or emotionally evocative imagery helps memories sticks.Pause…..=> Use places you know well so that you don’t have to provide the spatial details. (I actually don’t want to do this personally, as I don’t want to mix up my real memories with what I imagine.)Pause…..For language learning:How you will remember Spanish word for Beach Umbrella : “Parasol”For language learning, you’d most likely use a combination of all three. If you wanted to remember that the Spanish word for beach umbrella was parasol, you could break the word’s sounds down into “par” (as in, par for the course) and “soul” (as in, a ghost). So you could imagine some ghosts playing golf around a beach umbrella.If all this sounds convoluted to you, you’re right. It absolutely is. It’s an unnatural way to learn information.
But Does This Work with Language Learning?The jury is still out on whether this has any real impact on language learning. Use of memory palaces to build vocabulary has been around for years, usually labelled as the keyword method.This is one of the useful method of building vocabulary in a second language is the keyword method.Question ->What is the keyword method?Mnemonic technique in which an association is made between two ideas by forming a visual image of one or more concrete objects (keywords) that either sound similar to, or symbolically represent, those ideas.Pause…Next question ->What will remind you if there is an Swinging RADISH?Swinging RADISH reminds you of RADIUS (This will explain you in detail in next slide)Recently, Joshua Foer wrote an article in the Guardian about how he learned the African language of Lingala using mnemonics and related memory tricks. He doesn’t call out memory palaces by name, but he has written extensively about memory palaces in the past, and by his description, his techniques resemble the methods.But no one can agree on whether this all actually works. Even Foer reported limited success with learning Lingala.Supporters of the method say:=> You can remember a lot of information, fast.=> It doesn’t cost anything.=> There is some cognitive research and neuroscience backing up its effectiveness.Opponents say:=> It requires as much time and attention as more traditional language studying.=> It works better with concrete imagery than with abstract imagery, and doesn’t do anything to help you learn grammar or language mechanics.=> With it, you remember words in a sequential list, in an unnatural order – i.e., in a context unlike anything it’ll be in actual use.=> You won’t be able to recall what you’ve learned fast enough to use it in speech or comprehension.In the end, I feel there’s enough to this method to make everyonewant to give it a try. It probably won’t ever form the bedrock of anylanguage studying or memorizing everything, but it might be a good, fast way to learn something new and improve memory.
Memory Techniques: The Memory Palace System http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMIx8pzYBlohttp://www.wikihow.com/Build-a-Memory-Palacehttp://www.languagesurfer.com/2013/03/27/building-a-memory-palace-for-language-learning/http://www.theguardian.com/education/2012/nov/09/learn-language-in-three-monthshttp://www.advancedthinkingskills.com/memoryfornumbers/msmenu.htm
