The loci method, infallible to remember anything

Are there mnemonic techniques that allow us to memorize everything? Of course, the ability to process data from the human brain It is limited, but that does not mean that, following the proper methodology and with a little patience, tricks cannot be used to expand our memory to impressive limits.

If you have ever investigated on the subject, you will have realized that there are real specialists in exploiting the resources of your memory. Individuals who, having trained their mind day by day, manage to reproduce data with astonishing ease.

In this sense, the loci method is one of the most useful tools.

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Story-based memory

Traditional education based on lectures (teachers talk, students are silent) has been based for years on idea that human beings store memories as pieces of information that "enter" our brain one by one, separately.

Thus, in compulsory education classes it has been very common to see lessons in which the teacher recites the names of a series of rivers, names of kings or parts of the body, in the best case adding to this bombardment of data an element of musicality to facilitate the memorization.

However, today there are many researchers in memory and cognitive science in general who hold a radically opposite idea: that it is much easier for us to memorize things when we integrate them into a narrative, something that happens in a specific space and time. A way of understanding memory that is based on the way things tended to be remembered thousands of years ago.

The memory of oral tradition

Nowadays writing and the ease of printing texts mean that almost everyone has an artificial "expansion" of their ability to remember things. Writing is, in practice, the possibility of creating memory repositories that we can access with relative ease every time we need to consult certain data. However, the fact that this tool is based on the existence of a certain degree of technology (writing, printing and computers) means that humanity has not always been able to enjoy this second memory composed of sheets of paper and systems computer scientists.

However, many civilizations came to prosper and had a very detailed knowledge of the environment in which they lived, and even managed to create very complex laws, norms and systems of values ​​and beliefs that acted as cohesive Social. How was it possible for members of these cultures to memorize this type of information without having constant access to the scriptures? Possibly, this was possible to oral tradition and mythology. What had to be memorized was explained in the form of a narrative, something that can be visualized and related to an environment that is easy to remember vividly.

What is the loci method?

The loci method It is a technique to facilitate memorization whose creation is attributed to the Greek poet Simónides de Ceos.

The term "loci", which is Latin for "place", gives a clue as to what this method is; In it, the pieces of information to be memorized are related to a three-dimensional environment that we can vividly remember and evoke. Thus, the loci method takes advantage of the spatial memory to "expand" our entire ability to remember things in general.

Its regular use does not make our spontaneous memorization improve or make us remember many things that we have not even proposed to evoke later, Rather, it is a tool that we can deliberately use at specific moments to accumulate a lot of information and not forget it (without the help of the writing). So that, can be used as an effective study method: allows us to retain much more information to be retrieved later.

Locating memories in any narrative plot

The fact that following the loci method we introduce a notion of space to our memories makes it possible to create narratives that allow us to easily memorize what we want to remember. For example, if we want to memorize the main tasks that we have to do throughout the week we can create a vivid narrative in which all these elements are present. It does not matter if it is totally surreal and, in fact, the more fun it is, the more hook it will have and the easier it will be to remember. The key is to evoke many details of the space or spaces in which the action takes place, taking into account all the sensations that each moment transmits: touch, smell, colors, etc.

In this way, each piece of information that we must remember will spontaneously lead us to the next: a mob of people (representing the meeting to which we must attend on Monday) chases us through the square of our city, and we hide from it in an ATM (representing the banking procedures that we have to carry out on Wednesday).

Ultimately, the loci method may not allow us to have a supernatural brain, but it is certainly useful in many contexts. Perhaps that is why it is used both by people who want to improve their work performance and by world champions of memorization.

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