Imagine the path you usually take to the supermarket. Now imagine the many identifiable landmarks that exist between your home and the store – like a specific garden, stop sign or gas station.
Take these landmarks and associate them with things you’re trying to remember, like items on your shopping list. So, for the garden, we will assign mustard. For the stop sign, we’ll add ketchup and for the gas station, we’ll use relish. Once at the supermarket, you will be able to recall these items simply by rethinking your trip to the supermarket and the associated landmarks.
This mnemonic, called the “loci method”, has been around for centuries and is surprisingly effective. New search published in Science Advances on Wednesday, suggests that this technique is good for bothlong-term and long-term memoryterm recall. Furthermore, the loci method reconnects the brain, allowing for improved storage and recovery of longterm memories, according to the new discoveries. The study was conducted by neuroscientist Isabella Wagner, from Radboud University Medical Center, in the Netherlands.
“It’s so effective that memory athletes, those who train and have superior memories, use them, also,” Jeni Pathman, an assistant professor at York University in Toronto, explained in an email, referring to the technique.
This method, which dates back to ancient Greece, works well because it allows us to use well-known sites or routes that serve as a kind of “scaffolding”, as Wagner explained in an email. This allows us to incorporate new – but completely unrelated – information into a “framework” we already know, she said.
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“In addition, it definitely helps to form unusual, new or even bizarre associations that attract attention,” said Wagner. “The combination of prior knowledge and novelty is very powerful for increasing memory.”
That the loci method is good for shortterm evocation is well known, but its effect on long-term memories is poorly understood, as is the effect of this technique on the brain. To find out, Wagner and his colleagues recruited 17 important memory athletes – all experts in the loci method – and 50 non-experts. These 50 individuals were divided into three groups, one who underwent a rigorous six-week training course in the loci method, one group that received working memory training and a group with no memory training.
“We wanted to see if newbies could train the loci method to such an extent that they would reach performance levels close to true memory champions and also if their brain processes would become similar to those of trained champions,” explained Wagner.
All participants underwent fMRI scanners before and after training, which was done to assess their memory performance and study brain function.
With brain scans, scientists can “indirectly create images of the activity of neurons in the brain”, allowing them to identify regions that are “involved during the study of new information, during memory or at rest, which is important to stabilize the information in the brain for a longer period, “said Wagner, to whom he added:” This is also why a good night’s sleep or a nap is very important! “
In terms of the memorization task, participants were asked to memorize lists of random words. Then, triplets of words were shown, that is, three words at a time, and asked if the words were presented in the same order or in a different order in relation to the way they appeared during the training.
Four months later, participants took the test to see if they were still able to remember some of the words memorized from the training sessions. The loci group method recalled an average of 50 words, the working memory group recalled about 30 words, and the untrained group recalled only 27 words on average.
“Performance was still remarkably good after four months, showing that participants were still able to successfully use the loci method to improve their memory,” said Wagner. “This was not a surprise to us, as we already expected the training to have a lasting effect.”
The analysis of brain images showed a decrease in activity in the lateral prefrontal, posterior para-hippocampal and retrosplenial cortices – areas associated with task-based activation. By “task-based activation”, scientists are referring to the brain processes that take place during the study and the recall of random word lists. This was observed both in memory athletes and in non-specialists who received training.
“We found that training led to decreased brain activation in regions that are normally involved in (spatial) memory processing and that are important for long-term memory,” explained Wagner. “This was somewhat surprising to us, as better performance is usually associated with a greater involvement of different regions of the brain. What we saw here is the opposite: training has decreased activity in these regions, so that lower brain activation leads to better memory. “
This can be interpreted as “neural efficiency,” she said, as fewer resources may be needed to achieve improved performance.
At the same time, the training resulted in increased neural connections between the hippocampus and the cortex. This helps in storing long-term memories, which could explain why the participants’ recall was so good four months later.
“This study is important because, not only did it show that ordinary people can practice using this technique to create lasting memories, but it also showed how it can affect their brains,” Jeni Pathman, an assistant professor at York University in Toronto, said in an e -mail. “Those who were in the memory training group showed activity in the brain during learning and the memory that was most similar to memory athletes.”
Pathman’s only complaint was the relatively small sample size, which she said was “understandable, given the nature of this work”. In terms of the future work needed, Pathman said it would be “important to extend this study on creating lasting memories to other age groups or to groups that may have more problems with memory”, as they may be able to benefit as well.
Good point.
In fact, the loci method may be useful for people with age-related cognitive decline, but future research will have to find that out. For now, we can take advantage of these new discoveries while we make the garden, stop and put gas in the supermarket.