Simonides' Memory

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Simonides mnemonic technique

This memory trick was invented after a grisly event in ancient Greece. Back in around 500 BC, a Greek who won a wrestling match in the Olympic games celebrated by having a feast at his house. A man named Simonides gave a speech praising the wrestler, then he left the banquet hall. While he was out, the roof collapsed, crushing everyone inside. though the bodies of the guests were mangled beyond recognition, Simonides could remember where each person had been seated. By doing that, he could name all of the people who were at the feast. Knowing where each person was sitting helped him remember who was there.

Simonides realized that he could use his imagination and a set of locations to help him remember other things. The trick you just learned is the same as Simonides's trick -- but you used places in your house instead of seats at a banquet table.

This trick helps you remember for the same reasons that telling yourself a story about the pictures helped you remember. You are connecting all these different things and you are picturing them in your mind.

With this trick you are doing one more thing: you are giving yourself a hint that helps you pull out the memory of something. Sometimes all you need to help you remember something is a little hint. When you think "bathtub," that tells you to remember "duck" (or whatever you put in your bathtub).

First, walk through your house and find 10 different places where you could put something. For instance, you could put something on the couch in the living room, the top of the TV set, on the counter in the kitchen, the refrigerator, the bathtub, your own bed, and so on.
Choose any 10 places you like, but make sure that you can walk from one to the next easily and in the same order every time. Spend a little bit of time imagining yourself walking from one place to another, looking at each one. Make sure that you can remember all 10 places.
Next, look at the pictures you are want memorize for two minutes. When you look at the pictures, imagine each object in one of the places in your house. The sillier the picture you imagine, the more likely you are to remember it.

Do the same thing for every other item on the list. Imagine yourself walking from one place to another in your house and seeing the things you've imagined.

Any time you need to remember a list, you can use the same set of locations in your house. One warning: creating a new list usually wipes out the old one. So if you need to remember more than one list you need to have more than one set of locations.

Try these tricks when you have to remember a list of things -- whether it's stuff you need to buy at the store or vocabulary words for school -- and see how your memory improves!

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Here, the notion of the memory palace is not only reiterated, it is actually created. Yates elaborates on this and even expounds upon this.

"Simonedes' invetion of the art of memory rested, not only on his discovery of the importance of order for memory, but also on the discovery that the sense of sight is the strongest of all the senses." p. 4

Also, I am greatly intrigued by the idea expressed in The Art of Memory that there are "two kinds of memory. ...The natural memory is that which is engrafted in our minds, born simultaneously with thought. The artificial memory is a memory strengthened or confirmed by training. A good natural memory can be improved by this discipline and persons less well endowed can have their weak memories improved by the art." p. 5