"This is a technique that can be learned by everyone," commented Wagner. Overall, the study shows that the mnemonic method of loci approach could be key to developing an extraordinary memory, not just "memory champions" or TV detectives. These changes would help consolidate memories of the words stored in the loci mind palace. How else might the method of loci technique improve memory? Wagner and colleagues suggest that the technique’s focus on association between words and novel locations could help release hormones from the brainstem that trigger changes to the connections between brain cells. The authors suggest in the paper that these findings are in line with changes in “neural efficiency,” a hypothesis that proposes that intelligent or highly skilled individuals display lower brain activity during cognitive tasks. Interestingly, whilst the levels of activation decreased, levels of brain connectivity between the hippocampus and the neocortex, the site of higher thinking in the brain, increased. Supporting this finding, their memory athletes also had lower brain activation than the non-expert control groups. Whilst the team expected to observe increased activity in their trained group, especially in regions related to memory recall such as the hippocampus and medial temporal lobe, they discovered that there was a decrease in activation in these regions. After training, the method of loci volunteers were asked to deploy their newly learned technique, placing the words that they had seen in their “memory palace”. Before and after training, all three volunteer groups were presented with previously unstudied words and asked to commit them to memory. To investigate whether this evidence was backed up by physiological changes in the brain, the team examined their participants’ brain activity data, recorded from MRI scans. The volunteers who had studied method of loci once again outperformed the other groups – they were able to recall 20 more words than they could pre-training, whereas participants given working memory training had lost all the benefits of their training. To confirm this, the team analyzed a subset of volunteers from each group who were asked to return to the lab four months later and take the same memory tests. "The technique helps to boost long-term memory," said Wagner. Later, the method of loci group performed better than other groups at recalling words after 24 hours, racking up 56 words versus 30 and 27 for the working memory-trained and untrained groups. Participants allocated to the method of loci training group were better at recalling words from a list after 20 minutes (which is commonly how memory athletes are assessed in competition), averaging 62 words, versus 42 words for volunteers given working memory training and just 36 words for volunteers with no training. Memory ability and brain function were assessed before and after these training regimens whilst participants underwent MRI scans. A final, passive group was given no training at all. One cohort was trained in the art of loci mnemonics over a six-week period, whilst a second group was given working memory training. The researchers then divided 50 volunteers with no knowledge of the method of loci technique into three groups. The athletes flexed their memory muscles, recalling 72 words on average from a list they were shown previously, versus just 43 for the control group. Some top athletes from the championships were tested in an initial study against a group including several members of the high-IQ society Mensa. The method of loci technique is applied outside of our TV screens in events such as the World Memory Championships, where competitors flaunt their ability to recall strings of individual words. Study co-author Isabella Wagner from of Radboud University Medical Center in the Netherlands explained to Technology Networks that although the loci technique has been shown previously to boost memory, unanswered questions remain: "There have only been a handful of studies exploring how works in the brain and whether "memory champions" are actually different from other people or better at something that can be trained." The memory athletes all showed exceptional ability in using the method of loci, a memory-enhancing mnemonic device originally devised in Ancient Greece. The findings, published by an international team of researchers in Science Advances, examined a cohort of the world’s top “memory athletes” – individuals who have shown mastery of mass information recall – and a group of non-expert participants. A recall technique used by Benedict Cumberbatch’s modern-day interpretation of Sherlock Holmes can create enduring memory enhancement that remains intact four months later, according to a new study.
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