The Roman Room System

Do you need to remember top nootropics, but you don’t have a pen and paper at hand? All you need to do is visualize a space in your mind where you can place all the items in the list, and then mentally go back to it whenever you require.

X Research source As a visual association technique, it works especially well for visual students or those who are needed to remember lists of unrelated words or things (like a shopping or to-do list). X Research source.

Memory strategies adopted in ancient Roman and Greek rhetorical writings The approach of loci (loci being Latin for “places”) is a technique of memory enhancement which uses visualizations of familiar spatial environments in order to enhance the recall of details. The technique of loci is likewise called the memory journey, memory palace, or mind palace technique.

Lots of memory contest champions report utilizing this strategy to recall faces, digits, and lists of words. The term is usually found in specialised deal with psychology, neurobiology, and memory, though it was used in the exact same general method at least as early as the first half of the nineteenth century in deal with rhetoric, reasoning, and viewpoint.

The Roman Room Technique: How it works

In this technique the subject remembers the layout of some building, or the plan of stores on a street, or any geographical entity which is made up of a number of discrete loci. When wanting to bear in mind a set of items the subject ‘walks’ through these loci in their creativity and commits an item to each one by forming an image in between the item and any feature of that locus.

The effectiveness of this method has been well established (Ross and Lawrence 1968, Crovitz 1969, 1971, Briggs, Hawkins and Crovitz 1970, Lea 1975), as is the very little disturbance seen with its use. The items to be kept in mind in this mnemonic system are mentally associated with specific physical locations. The technique counts on remembered spatial relationships to establish order and recollect memorial content.

Then in the competitors they require only deposit the image that they have related to each item at the loci. To recall, they backtrack the path, “stop” at each locus, and “observe” the image. They then equate this back to the associated product. For example, Ed Cooke, a World Memory Champ Rival, explains to Josh Foer in his book how he utilizes the technique of loci.

Cooke also recommends that the more extravagant and vulgar the sign utilized to remember the product, the more most likely it will stick. Memory champs elaborate on this by integrating images. Eight-time World Memory Champion Dominic O’Brien uses this strategy. The 2006 World Memory Champ, Clemens Mayer, used a 300-point-long journey through his home for his world record in “number half marathon”, memorising 1040 random digits in a half-hour.

The strategy is taught as a metacognitive strategy in learning-to-learn courses. It is usually used to encoding the crucial concepts of a subject. Two techniques are: Connect the essential ideas of a subject and after that deep-learn those key concepts in relation to each other, and Analyze the key ideas of a subject in depth, re-arrange the ideas in relation to an argument, then link the ideas to loci in excellent order.

The Roman Room Technique: What does the research say?

A research study at the University of Maryland assessed individuals capability to accurately remember 2 sets of familiar faces, using a conventional desktop, and with a head-mounted screen. The study was developed to leverage the approach of loci strategy, with virtual environments looking like memory palaces. The study found an 8.8% recall enhancement in favor of the head-mounted display screen, in part due to participants being able to leverage their vestibular and proprioceptive sensations.

However, due to the strength of spatial memory, just mentally putting items in real or pictured locations without additional elaboration can be efficient for basic associations. A variation of the “approach of loci” includes creating fictional places (homes, palaces, roads, and cities) to which the same treatment is applied. It is accepted that there is a higher cost included in the preliminary setup, but thereafter the performance remains in line with the standard loci method.

In many cases it refers broadly to what is otherwise known as the art of memory, the origins of which are associated, according to tradition, in the story of Simonides of Ceos and the collapsing banquet hall. For example, after relating the story of how Simonides depended on remembered seating arrangements to recollect the faces of just recently deceased visitors, Stephen M.

Referring to mnemonic approaches, Verlee Williams discusses, “One such technique is the ‘loci’ method, which was established by Simonides, a Greek poet of the fifth and sixth centuries BC.” Loftus points out the structure story of Simonides (more or less taken from Frances Yates) and explains some of one of the most standard aspects of using area in the art of memory.

While location or position certainly figured prominently in ancient mnemonic techniques, no classification equivalent to “approach of loci” was used solely to refer to mnemonic plans trusting space for organization. In other cases the designation is typically constant, however more particular: “The Approach of Loci is a Mnemonic Device involving the development of a Visual Map of one’s home.” This term can be deceptive: the ancient concepts and methods of the art of memory, hastily glossed in a few of the works, pointed out above, depended similarly upon images and places.

The Roman Room Memory System: Summarized

Training in the art or arts of memory as a whole, as attested in classical antiquity, was even more inclusive and detailed in the treatment of this topic. Brain scans of “exceptional memorizers”, 90% of whom use the approach of loci strategy, have revealed that it includes activation of regions of the brain included in spatial awareness, such as the median parietal cortex, retrosplenial cortex, and the right posterior hippocampus.

Patients who have medial parietal cortex damage have difficulty connecting landmarks with certain areas; a lot of these patients are not able to provide or follow directions and often get lost. The retrosplenial cortex is likewise connected to memory and navigation. In one study on the results of selective granular retrosplenial cortex lesions in rats, the researcher discovered that damage to the retrosplenial cortex caused impaired spatial learning abilities.

Marcus Guffoggio

Marcus Guffoggio is a keen researcher into every aspect of the human memory. He does whatever he can to push his brain, knowledge and psyche to the next level. He enjoys utilizing various memory systems, as well as experimenting with various nootropics to get the most out of his mental and cognitive performance.