Interesting. So your suggestion could be boiled down to “just smash the two words/concepts together in any way possible, logic be damned!”. I’ve definitely not approached it like that so far, I’ve always tried to find some logical path to follow (but clearly it doesn’t always work). I’ve been hesitant to rely too much on visual mnemonics as I’m probably a 1 or 2 out of 10 on the visual imagery scale (or maybe I’m completely aphantastic and I’m just tricking myself? I think I can see glimpses of visual imagery but they’re in this weird abstract thought-space and I’m not sure if they’re imagery or just the concept of imagery… hard to put into words). But I’ll give it a go, maybe even just the idea of a visual mnemonic will be enough.
Regarding the memory palace technique, that does make sense that integrating the mnemonics in with the environment could be more effective. So do “full” memory palaces end up being, essentially, familiar scenes with a bunch of bizarre events occurring? I was reading this thread (I can’t seem to include links but the URL path (after the domain name) is /t/many-and-i-mean-it-useful-tips-you-need-to-learn-massive-vocabulary-with-mnemonics/29486) where the author talks about using alphabetically-ordered memory palaces to memorize 15,000 words. For example:
So I guess it’s unclear to me what “keeping” words means. Of course, only the author can accurately describe their own experience, but would you expect this to mean that, for instance, on the table there are 13 unique little events/scenes happening that decode into words? How do people go about remembering that there are 13? I suppose at my table there are 6 chairs and 6 placemats so maybe 1 word per chair, 1 word per placemat, and 1 for the center of the table. I guess that could work?
But gosh, even when I do a mental walkthrough of a place I know extremely well (like my house), I wouldn’t describe it as “effortless”. Or I guess, it’s fairly effortless to do an extremely low-detail walkthrough perhaps? E.g. I walk through the door and to the right is a coat rack with four hooks and under that is a shoe rack with two levels, etc. etc. But I’m still actively having to recall these items, or put another way, I’m actively recalling facts. So if I decided that the first coat rack hook was storing the word, I dunno, “bat” or something, and so I imagined a bat hanging off the first hook, it seems like I would still have to actively remember that there should be a bat there… and what’s to stop me from just forgetting that?
Sorry, I’m definitely off-topic now, and I hope I’m not asking dumb questions that have been answered a thousand times. But every time I’ve read about the memory palace technique, I’ve always come away with the feeling of “wow, some people’s brains can do that?”.