Non-specialized real-time memorization techniques

General Memory Chat
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Memory palaces are good if you have a significant amount of time to dedicate to memorizing lists, but I don’t think they are suitable as a general memorization technique. I can’t imagine populating a memory palace on the fly as I am reading something or as someone is talking to me. How, then, do people remember the gist of conversations or text so naturally? I am not very good at it. I usually forget most of what I read unless I use a memory palace. I try to visualize paragraphs as symbols, and the symbols do often stick for a while (several weeks), but I cannot translate the symbols back into meaning. I still have no good way to extract and encode the gist of a conversation.

I am not looking to have a memory so powerful that I can recall every fact I’ve be exposed to. However, I would love if I could improve my overall memory from average to far above average, being able to recall the gist of most of what I have read or heard if I put in some effort to memorize it during exposure. Has anyone here accomplished this? If so, how did you go about it? Even if there is no single technique, if there is a combination of techniques that you found effective, I would love to know about them and when each is applied.

Real Time memorization
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I think it’s a good question. Probably most people who are experts in a given area can do this “naturally” with text or conversations in their area of expertise because most of what is being said isn’t really new to them. They don’t have to struggle with any specialized terms or concepts. An expert in, say, music theory might be able to listen to a 1 hour lecture on music theory and come about explaining clearly every new that is said, but might be lost in a 1 hour lecture on, say, Japanese art history (assuming no expertise in the latter).

I think tips used in reading comprehension coaching might be helpful. One idea is coming up with a set of questions beforehand and then just trying to put everything you read in the context if whether it answers those questions. With reading, being able to take multiple passes quickly helps, because the author may not disclose the point of the text until the end. If you read the last summary paragraphs in an essay first, for example, it helps when reading the essay, because the essay might just be providing examples and arguments in favor of what is summarized. If you see a movie with a surprise ending the second time, you notice a lot more the second time because you know the twist. It’s the same effect.

I think it is helpful to have a realistic sense of how much new information you want to retain or is likely to be conveyed. For example, in a U.S. political speech at the highest levels, almost nothing new will be said. I’m serious. 98% of it will be pointless platitudes, feel-good ancedotes or things everyone (or at least everyone with the same ideology of the candidate) agrees with. So you can relax, listen with a pretty serious filter and not miss much, as long as you catch the parts that might be slightly controversial.

In a dense text or conversation in an area where you have no knowledge or expertise, it’s going to rough. It’ll be like a foreign language that you don’t know.

My wife likes to watch TV mysteries. Inspector Morse, that sort of thing. I can’t follow that stuff. She can. Too many characters just acting randomly as far as I can tell. I’ve considered just using names and faces techniques to see if I can at least remember the people in the story to see if it would help. It might make it less boring.

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I sometimes ask questions before reading a chapter. I get answers to those questions but I generally forget what I read anyway. I’ll remember for a week or two and then forget. I’m not convinced asking the questions helps me remember much better. I did try this for a while back in undergrad over the course of several months. My grades did not change (that’s not to say they were bad :)). Perhaps it presents a slight improvement, but that’s about it. Your mileage may vary, of course. That said, I think there must be a much more powerful and general strategy or set of strategies that applies to reading and listening. That is, I believe there is a strategy or set of strategies that highly intelligent individuals employ for solving problems and encoding information such that previous solutions are easily recalled / previous memories are easily recalled. What follows is my reasoning.

I know at least one person who remembers most of what he reads and hears (not verbatim, but the gist) and retains it for a very long time. He was doing a PhD in Mathematics, but switched to an MS in Computer Science. Years after stopping mathematics, he could still list off to me all kinds of obscure properties of conic sections. He claimed to think purely in images, even when dealing with abstract concepts. I recall once asking him how he was going to remember a conversation I was having with him at that very moment, and he said he was having the conversation with me in real-time and, very literally, recording it visually as accurately as possible. He also mentioned that when he hears something it immediately brings up a large collection of associated images that he can flip through in his mind. I cannot be sure if he told the truth, but I am sure of his extraordinary memory. It may simply be a case of different biology, which sucks if true. Alternatively, he has come across a way to encode memories with numerous associations and in exactly the right representation to make an impact on the memory such that it does not easily deteriorate. I am sure most people encode memories in this way every so often, but probably not on purpose. It’s not clear to me how one could effectively encode memories in this way on purpose. How does one know what associations are appropriate unless they naturally come to him? How does one know which image best represents an abstract concept such that when the symbol is recalled again it will be easily translated back to the concept?

(Another example of an individual with similar (but far greater) memorization capacity was Jon von Neumann. I’m pretty sure Neumann had some form of biological advantage though.)

I read a study roughly a year ago that imaged the brain activity of highly intelligent individuals (group A) as they solved puzzles. Individuals of average intelligence (group B) were asked to solve the same puzzles, and the brain images of both groups were compared. The investigators found that the group A had more activity in all brain regions compared with group B. Group A combined multiple representations of the problem to help solve it more efficiently. What’s more, they showed /less/ activation when solving a problem that is very similar to a previously solved one. Thus, group A uses their brain more efficiently when dealing with previously encountered information. This doesn’t sound like group A has a biological advantage over group B, though they obviously are a category of people that have developed their brains in an integrative fashion. A biological advantage would be something like a category of people with neural pathways that decay more slowly due to better upkeep. I believe my friend falls into the former category, while someone like Neumann falls into the latter category. I’m wondering how exactly the former category starts down this path in early childhood to form this way of thinking. I also wonder if this is something an intelligent, but not ‘highly’ (say, 150+ IQ) intelligent individual can learn over time with deliberate practice.

As mentioned at the beginning of this post, I believe there is a strategy for improving memorization in general, one that may take time to develop but nonetheless exists. I believe some people are either naturally wired to discover this strategy or happened upon it at an early age. I also believe that the brain is plastic enough even at an advanced age to allow adults to employ the strategy effectively with significant deliberate practice. Assuming these beliefs are true, the problem becomes determining exactly the strategy comprises and developing the strategy. This is the problem I want to solve. Am I just spouting nonsense, or is something here worth pursuing? Has anyone else on this forum come to a similar conclusion and actively tried to develop such a strategy? If so, have you seen any success?