Page 250 - A Mind For Numbers: How to Excel at Math and Science

Chapter 10: Enhancing Your Memory

1 Eleanor Maguire and colleagues (2003) studied individuals renowned for outstanding memory feats in
forums such as the World Memory Championships. “Using neuropsychological measures, as well as
structural and functional brain imaging,” they found “superior memory was not driven by exceptional
intellectual ability or structural brain differences. Rather, [they] found that superior memorizers used a
spatial learning strategy, engaging brain regions such as the hippocampus that are critical for memory
and for spatial memory in particular.”
Tony Buzan has done much to bring the importance of memory techniques to the popular eye. His
book Use Your Perfect Memory (Buzan, 1991) provides further information about some popular
techniques.
2 Eleanor Maguire and colleagues (2003) note that memory techniques are often regarded as being too
complicated to use, but some techniques, such as the memory palace, can indeed be very natural and
helpful in allowing us to remember information that is important to us.
3 Cai et al. 2013; Foer 2011. Denise Cai and colleagues’ work indicates that specialization in one
hemisphere (often the left) for language is accompanied by similar specialization in the other
hemisphere for visuospatial capabilities. Specialization of a function in one hemisphere, in other words,
appears to cause specialization of the other function in the other hemisphere.
4 Ross and Lawrence 1968.
5 Baddeley et al. 2009, pp. 363–365.
6 http://www.ted.com/talks/joshua_foer_feats_of_memory_anyone_can_do.html.
7 http://www.skillstoolbox.com/career-and-education-skills/learning-skills/memory-
skills/mnemonics/applications-of-mnemonic-systems/how-to-memorize-formulas/.
8 A sense of the importance of spatial reasoning is provided in Kell et al. 2013.