Conclusion
It is clear from these studies that students in the medical and allied health professions expect that memorization will play a substantial role in their training, and that they are receptive to learning techniques that can improve recall performance on memory tasks. In addition, the students sampled in this work viewed training on the Australian Aboriginal method, in particular, as meaningful, interesting, and fun. The attractiveness of this approach, combined with the clear quantitative improvement in recall after a single, short training session, suggests that memory techniques based on Indigenous knowledge can be beneficially incorporated into health professions education.
You guys should read the original paper (@Josh 's link above) before commenting. Have a look at how significant the difference is between the two “memory groups.” This might come down to sample size or might show the quality of instructions given rather than method used.
Group 1: Memory palace technique.
Participants received a brief, whiteboard-assisted seminar on the history and use of the memory palace, and collaboratively illustrated a schematic diagram of a simple memory palace, using a brief story containing student-suggested items, e.g. a cat, a guitar, food items, etc. Students were free to ask questions and seek clarification about the technique, and were encouraged to begin creating their internal ’memory palace’ using the remembered floor plan of their childhood home.
Group 2: Australian Aboriginal memorization technique.
Group 2 participants were given an overview of the Australian Aboriginal memorization technique by an experienced Australian Aboriginal educator, including a short description of how Elders instruct young people, and the elements of place-based narrative, image, and metaphor. To construct a narrative around the butterfly word list (Fig 1A), the instructor walked students around a rock garden located on campus which contained multiple rocks, plants and concrete slabs arranged in the shape of a large, stylized footprint (Fig 1B & 1C).
Not clear to me why it had to be their childhood homes in the first group. Is that a requirement for a memory place to be a memory palace? And, how exactly is the stone garden on campus not a memory palace itself?