Feats of memory anyone can do
-
0:01 - 0:04I'd like to invite you to close your eyes.
-
0:06 - 0:11Imagine yourself standing
outside the front door of your home. -
0:12 - 0:15I'd like you to notice
the color of the door, -
0:15 - 0:17the material that it's made out of.
-
0:19 - 0:25Now visualize a pack
of overweight nudists on bicycles. -
0:25 - 0:26(Laughter)
-
0:27 - 0:29They are competing
in a naked bicycle race, -
0:29 - 0:32and they are headed straight
for your front door. -
0:32 - 0:34I need you to actually see this.
-
0:34 - 0:38They are pedaling
really hard, they're sweaty, -
0:38 - 0:40they're bouncing around a lot.
-
0:41 - 0:44And they crash straight
into the front door of your home. -
0:46 - 0:49Bicycles fly everywhere,
wheels roll past you, -
0:49 - 0:51spokes end up in awkward places.
-
0:53 - 0:57Step over the threshold of your door
into your foyer, your hallway, -
0:57 - 0:58whatever's on the other side,
-
0:59 - 1:02and appreciate the quality of the light.
-
1:02 - 1:07The light is shining
down on Cookie Monster. -
1:09 - 1:13Cookie Monster is waving at you
from his perch on top of a tan horse. -
1:13 - 1:15It's a talking horse.
-
1:15 - 1:20You can practically feel
his blue fur tickling your nose. -
1:20 - 1:24You can smell the oatmeal raisin cookie
that he's about to shovel into his mouth. -
1:24 - 1:26Walk past him.
-
1:26 - 1:28Walk past him into your living room.
-
1:28 - 1:31In your living room,
in full imaginative broadband, -
1:31 - 1:34picture Britney Spears.
-
1:34 - 1:39She is scantily clad, she's dancing
on your coffee table, -
1:39 - 1:42and she's singing
"Hit Me Baby One More Time." -
1:42 - 1:45And then, follow me into your kitchen.
-
1:45 - 1:49In your kitchen, the floor has been
paved over with a yellow brick road, -
1:49 - 1:55and out of your oven are coming
towards you Dorothy, the Tin Man, -
1:55 - 1:58the Scarecrow and the Lion
from "The Wizard of Oz," -
1:58 - 2:00hand-in-hand, skipping
straight towards you. -
2:00 - 2:03Okay. Open your eyes.
-
2:05 - 2:08I want to tell you
about a very bizarre contest -
2:08 - 2:11that is held every spring
in New York City. -
2:11 - 2:14It's called the United States
Memory Championship. -
2:15 - 2:17And I had gone to cover
this contest a few years back -
2:17 - 2:19as a science journalist,
-
2:19 - 2:25expecting, I guess, that this was going
to be like the Superbowl of savants. -
2:25 - 2:29This was a bunch of guys and a few ladies,
-
2:29 - 2:32widely varying in both age
and hygienic upkeep. -
2:33 - 2:35(Laughter)
-
2:36 - 2:39They were memorizing
hundreds of random numbers, -
2:39 - 2:41looking at them just once.
-
2:41 - 2:45They were memorizing the names of dozens
and dozens and dozens of strangers. -
2:46 - 2:49They were memorizing
entire poems in just a few minutes. -
2:49 - 2:51They were competing
to see who could memorize -
2:51 - 2:54the order of a shuffled pack
of playing cards the fastest. -
2:55 - 2:57I was like, this is unbelievable.
-
2:57 - 3:00These people must be freaks of nature.
-
3:00 - 3:03And I started talking
to a few of the competitors. -
3:03 - 3:07This is a guy called Ed Cook,
who had come over from England, -
3:07 - 3:09where he had one
of the best-trained memories. -
3:09 - 3:12And I said to him,
"Ed, when did you realize -
3:13 - 3:14that you were a savant?"
-
3:15 - 3:17And Ed was like, "I'm not a savant.
-
3:17 - 3:20In fact, I have just an average memory.
-
3:20 - 3:23Everybody who competes
in this contest will tell you -
3:23 - 3:25that they have just an average memory.
-
3:25 - 3:32We've all trained ourselves to perform
these utterly miraculous feats of memory -
3:32 - 3:34using a set of ancient techniques,
-
3:34 - 3:37techniques invented
2,500 years ago in Greece, -
3:37 - 3:42the same techniques that Cicero
had used to memorize his speeches, -
3:42 - 3:45that medieval scholars had used
to memorize entire books." -
3:46 - 3:49And I said, "Whoa. How come
I never heard of this before?" -
3:50 - 3:53And we were standing
outside the competition hall, -
3:53 - 3:59and Ed, who is a wonderful, brilliant,
but somewhat eccentric English guy, -
3:59 - 4:04says to me, "Josh, you're
an American journalist. -
4:04 - 4:05Do you know Britney Spears?"
-
4:06 - 4:10I'm like, "What? No. Why?"
-
4:11 - 4:13"Because I really want
to teach Britney Spears -
4:13 - 4:16how to memorize the order
of a shuffled pack of playing cards -
4:16 - 4:18on U.S. national television.
-
4:18 - 4:21It will prove to the world
that anybody can do this." -
4:21 - 4:24(Laughter)
-
4:26 - 4:30I was like, "Well, I'm not Britney Spears,
-
4:30 - 4:32but maybe you could teach me.
-
4:32 - 4:35I mean, you've got to start
somewhere, right?" -
4:35 - 4:38And that was the beginning
of a very strange journey for me. -
4:39 - 4:42I ended up spending
the better part of the next year -
4:42 - 4:44not only training my memory,
-
4:44 - 4:45but also investigating it,
-
4:45 - 4:47trying to understand how it works,
-
4:47 - 4:49why it sometimes doesn't work,
-
4:50 - 4:52and what its potential might be.
-
4:52 - 4:54And I met a host
of really interesting people. -
4:54 - 4:56This is a guy called E.P.
-
4:56 - 4:59He's an amnesic who had, very possibly,
-
4:59 - 5:01the worst memory in the world.
-
5:01 - 5:03His memory was so bad,
-
5:03 - 5:06that he didn't even remember
he had a memory problem, -
5:06 - 5:08which is amazing.
-
5:08 - 5:10And he was this incredibly tragic figure,
-
5:10 - 5:15but he was a window into the extent
to which our memories make us who we are. -
5:16 - 5:19At the other end
of the spectrum, I met this guy. -
5:19 - 5:22This is Kim Peek, he was the basis
for Dustin Hoffman's character -
5:22 - 5:24in the movie "Rain Man."
-
5:24 - 5:28We spent an afternoon together
in the Salt Lake City Public Library -
5:28 - 5:30memorizing phone books,
-
5:30 - 5:33which was scintillating.
-
5:33 - 5:36(Laughter)
-
5:36 - 5:40And I went back and I read
a whole host of memory treatises, -
5:40 - 5:44treatises written 2,000-plus
years ago in Latin, -
5:44 - 5:47in antiquity, and then later,
in the Middle Ages. -
5:47 - 5:50And I learned a whole bunch
of really interesting stuff. -
5:51 - 5:53One of the really interesting
things that I learned -
5:53 - 5:55is that once upon a time,
-
5:56 - 6:02this idea of having a trained,
disciplined, cultivated memory -
6:02 - 6:06was not nearly so alien
as it would seem to us to be today. -
6:07 - 6:11Once upon a time,
people invested in their memories, -
6:11 - 6:15in laboriously furnishing their minds.
-
6:17 - 6:18Over the last few millenia,
-
6:18 - 6:21we've invented a series of technologies --
-
6:21 - 6:23from the alphabet, to the scroll,
-
6:23 - 6:26to the codex, the printing
press, photography, -
6:26 - 6:28the computer, the smartphone --
-
6:28 - 6:31that have made it progressively
easier and easier -
6:31 - 6:33for us to externalize our memories,
-
6:33 - 6:39for us to essentially outsource
this fundamental human capacity. -
6:40 - 6:43These technologies have made
our modern world possible, -
6:43 - 6:44but they've also changed us.
-
6:45 - 6:47They've changed us culturally,
-
6:47 - 6:50and I would argue that they've
changed us cognitively. -
6:50 - 6:53Having little need to remember anymore,
-
6:53 - 6:55it sometimes seems
like we've forgotten how. -
6:56 - 6:58One of the last places on Earth
where you still find -
6:58 - 7:04people passionate about this idea of
a trained, disciplined, cultivated memory, -
7:04 - 7:06is at this totally singular
memory contest. -
7:06 - 7:08It's actually not that singular,
-
7:08 - 7:10there are contests held
all over the world. -
7:10 - 7:14And I was fascinated,
I wanted to know how do these guys do it. -
7:15 - 7:19A few years back a group of researchers
at University College London -
7:19 - 7:22brought a bunch of memory
champions into the lab. -
7:22 - 7:23They wanted to know:
-
7:23 - 7:26Do these guys have brains
that are somehow structurally, -
7:26 - 7:29anatomically different
from the rest of ours? -
7:29 - 7:31The answer was no.
-
7:33 - 7:35Are they smarter than the rest of us?
-
7:35 - 7:39They gave them a bunch of cognitive tests,
and the answer was: not really. -
7:39 - 7:42There was, however, one really
interesting and telling difference -
7:42 - 7:44between the brains of the memory champions
-
7:44 - 7:47and the control subjects
that they were comparing them to. -
7:48 - 7:51When they put these guys
in an fMRI machine, -
7:51 - 7:54scanned their brains
while they were memorizing numbers -
7:54 - 7:57and people's faces
and pictures of snowflakes, -
7:57 - 8:02they found that the memory champions were
lighting up different parts of the brain -
8:02 - 8:03than everyone else.
-
8:03 - 8:07Of note, they were using,
or they seemed to be using, -
8:07 - 8:11a part of the brain that's involved
in spatial memory and navigation. -
8:12 - 8:13Why?
-
8:13 - 8:16And is there something
that the rest of us can learn from this? -
8:18 - 8:25The sport of competitive memorizing
is driven by a kind of arms race where, -
8:25 - 8:30every year, somebody comes up with a new
way to remember more stuff more quickly, -
8:30 - 8:32and then the rest of the field
has to play catch-up. -
8:32 - 8:34This is my friend Ben Pridmore,
-
8:34 - 8:36three-time world memory champion.
-
8:36 - 8:41On his desk in front of him
are 36 shuffled packs of playing cards -
8:41 - 8:44that he is about to try
to memorize in one hour, -
8:44 - 8:48using a technique that he invented
and he alone has mastered. -
8:48 - 8:51He used a similar technique
-
8:51 - 8:58to memorize the precise order
of 4,140 random binary digits -
8:58 - 9:00in half an hour.
-
9:00 - 9:01(Laughter)
-
9:01 - 9:03Yeah.
-
9:04 - 9:06And while there are a whole host of ways
-
9:06 - 9:10of remembering stuff
in these competitions, -
9:10 - 9:13everything, all of the techniques
that are being used, -
9:13 - 9:15ultimately come down to a concept
-
9:16 - 9:19that psychologists refer to
as "elaborative encoding." -
9:19 - 9:22And it's well-illustrated
by a nifty paradox -
9:22 - 9:25known as the Baker/baker paradox,
which goes like this: -
9:25 - 9:28If I tell two people
to remember the same word, -
9:28 - 9:30if I say to you,
-
9:30 - 9:34"Remember that
there is a guy named Baker." -
9:34 - 9:35That's his name.
-
9:35 - 9:40And I say to you, "Remember
that there is a guy who is a baker." -
9:40 - 9:41Okay?
-
9:41 - 9:45And I come back to you
at some point later on, -
9:45 - 9:48and I say, "Do you remember that word
that I told you a while back? -
9:48 - 9:50Do you remember what it was?"
-
9:50 - 9:54The person who was told his name is Baker
-
9:54 - 9:57is less likely to remember the same word
-
9:57 - 10:00than the person was told
his job is a baker. -
10:00 - 10:03Same word, different amount
of remembering; that's weird. -
10:03 - 10:05What's going on here?
-
10:05 - 10:10Well, the name Baker
doesn't actually mean anything to you. -
10:10 - 10:14It is entirely untethered
from all of the other memories -
10:14 - 10:16floating around in your skull.
-
10:16 - 10:19But the common noun "baker" --
we know bakers. -
10:19 - 10:21Bakers wear funny white hats.
-
10:21 - 10:23Bakers have flour on their hands.
-
10:23 - 10:25Bakers smell good
when they come home from work. -
10:25 - 10:27Maybe we even know a baker.
-
10:27 - 10:29And when we first hear that word,
-
10:29 - 10:31we start putting these
associational hooks into it, -
10:31 - 10:35that make it easier to fish it
back out at some later date. -
10:36 - 10:40The entire art of what is going on
in these memory contests, -
10:40 - 10:44and the entire art of remembering
stuff better in everyday life, -
10:44 - 10:48is figuring out ways
to transform capital B Bakers -
10:48 - 10:50into lower-case B bakers --
-
10:50 - 10:53to take information
that is lacking in context, -
10:53 - 10:55in significance, in meaning,
-
10:55 - 10:57and transform it in some way,
-
10:57 - 11:01so that it becomes meaningful
in the light of all the other things -
11:01 - 11:03that you have in your mind.
-
11:05 - 11:08One of the more elaborate
techniques for doing this -
11:08 - 11:11dates back 2,500 years to Ancient Greece.
-
11:12 - 11:14It came to be known as the memory palace.
-
11:14 - 11:16The story behind its creation
goes like this: -
11:17 - 11:22There was a poet called Simonides,
who was attending a banquet. -
11:22 - 11:24He was actually the hired entertainment,
-
11:24 - 11:27because back then, if you wanted
to throw a really slamming party, -
11:27 - 11:30you didn't hire a D.J., you hired a poet.
-
11:30 - 11:36And he stands up, delivers his poem
from memory, walks out the door, -
11:36 - 11:38and at the moment he does,
-
11:38 - 11:39the banquet hall collapses.
-
11:41 - 11:43Kills everybody inside.
-
11:44 - 11:46It doesn't just kill everybody,
-
11:46 - 11:49it mangles the bodies
beyond all recognition. -
11:50 - 11:52Nobody can say who was inside,
-
11:52 - 11:55nobody can say where they were sitting.
-
11:55 - 11:57The bodies can't be properly buried.
-
11:57 - 12:00It's one tragedy compounding another.
-
12:02 - 12:04Simonides, standing outside,
-
12:04 - 12:06the sole survivor amid the wreckage,
-
12:06 - 12:10closes his eyes and has this realization,
-
12:10 - 12:12which is that in his mind's eye,
-
12:12 - 12:17he can see where each of the guests
at the banquet had been sitting. -
12:17 - 12:20And he takes the relatives by the hand,
-
12:20 - 12:22and guides them each
to their loved ones amid the wreckage. -
12:24 - 12:27What Simonides figured out at that moment,
-
12:27 - 12:30is something that I think
we all kind of intuitively know, -
12:30 - 12:35which is that, as bad as we are
at remembering names and phone numbers, -
12:35 - 12:38and word-for-word instructions
from our colleagues, -
12:38 - 12:43we have really exceptional
visual and spatial memories. -
12:44 - 12:48If I asked you to recount
the first 10 words of the story -
12:48 - 12:50that I just told you about Simonides,
-
12:50 - 12:53chances are you would have
a tough time with it. -
12:53 - 12:57But, I would wager
that if I asked you to recall -
12:57 - 13:02who is sitting on top
of a talking tan horse -
13:02 - 13:04in your foyer right now,
-
13:04 - 13:06you would be able to see that.
-
13:06 - 13:09The idea behind the memory palace
-
13:09 - 13:13is to create this imagined edifice
in your mind's eye, -
13:13 - 13:17and populate it with images
of the things that you want to remember -- -
13:17 - 13:21the crazier, weirder, more bizarre,
-
13:21 - 13:24funnier, raunchier, stinkier the image is,
-
13:25 - 13:27the more unforgettable it's likely to be.
-
13:27 - 13:30This is advice that goes
back 2,000-plus years -
13:30 - 13:32to the earliest Latin memory treatises.
-
13:33 - 13:34So how does this work?
-
13:34 - 13:41Let's say that you've been invited
to TED center stage to give a speech, -
13:41 - 13:44and you want to do it from memory,
-
13:44 - 13:49and you want to do it the way
that Cicero would have done it, -
13:49 - 13:52if he had been invited
to TEDxRome 2,000 years ago. -
13:52 - 13:54(Laughter)
-
13:54 - 13:55What you might do
-
13:55 - 14:00is picture yourself
at the front door of your house. -
14:01 - 14:06And you'd come up with some sort
of crazy, ridiculous, unforgettable image, -
14:06 - 14:09to remind you that the first thing
you want to talk about -
14:09 - 14:11is this totally bizarre contest.
-
14:11 - 14:13(Laughter)
-
14:13 - 14:15And then you'd go inside your house,
-
14:15 - 14:19and you would see an image
of Cookie Monster on top of Mister Ed. -
14:19 - 14:21And that would remind you
-
14:21 - 14:23that you would want to then
introduce your friend Ed Cook. -
14:24 - 14:26And then you'd see
an image of Britney Spears -
14:26 - 14:29to remind you of this funny
anecdote you want to tell. -
14:29 - 14:31And you'd go into your kitchen,
-
14:31 - 14:33and the fourth topic
you were going to talk about -
14:33 - 14:36was this strange journey
that you went on for a year, -
14:36 - 14:39and you'd have some friends
to help you remember that. -
14:41 - 14:45This is how Roman orators
memorized their speeches -- -
14:45 - 14:48not word-for-word, which is just
going to screw you up, -
14:48 - 14:50but topic-for-topic.
-
14:51 - 14:53In fact, the phrase "topic sentence" --
-
14:55 - 14:57that comes from the Greek word "topos,"
-
14:57 - 14:59which means "place."
-
14:59 - 15:03That's a vestige of when people used
to think about oratory and rhetoric -
15:03 - 15:05in these sorts of spatial terms.
-
15:05 - 15:07The phrase "in the first place,"
-
15:07 - 15:10that's like "in the first place
of your memory palace." -
15:11 - 15:12I thought this was just fascinating,
-
15:12 - 15:14and I got really into it.
-
15:14 - 15:17And I went to a few more
of these memory contests, -
15:17 - 15:19and I had this notion
that I might write something longer -
15:19 - 15:22about this subculture
of competitive memorizers. -
15:23 - 15:24But there was a problem.
-
15:25 - 15:28The problem was that a memory contest
-
15:28 - 15:31is a pathologically boring event.
-
15:31 - 15:34(Laughter)
-
15:34 - 15:38Truly, it is like a bunch of people
sitting around taking the SATs -- -
15:39 - 15:40I mean, the most dramatic it gets
-
15:40 - 15:43is when somebody
starts massaging their temples. -
15:43 - 15:45And I'm a journalist,
I need something to write about. -
15:45 - 15:49I know that there's incredible stuff
happening in these people's minds, -
15:49 - 15:50but I don't have access to it.
-
15:50 - 15:54And I realized, if I was going
to tell this story, -
15:54 - 15:56I needed to walk
in their shoes a little bit. -
15:56 - 16:00And so I started trying
to spend 15 or 20 minutes -
16:00 - 16:02every morning, before I sat
down with my New York Times, -
16:02 - 16:05just trying to remember something.
-
16:05 - 16:07Maybe it was a poem,
-
16:07 - 16:10maybe it was names from an old yearbook
that I bought at a flea market. -
16:11 - 16:16And I found that this was shockingly fun.
-
16:17 - 16:18I never would have expected that.
-
16:19 - 16:22It was fun because this is actually
not about training your memory. -
16:22 - 16:25What you're doing, is you're trying
to get better and better -
16:25 - 16:27at creating, at dreaming up,
-
16:27 - 16:30these utterly ludicrous,
raunchy, hilarious, -
16:30 - 16:33and hopefully unforgettable
images in your mind's eye. -
16:34 - 16:36And I got pretty into it.
-
16:36 - 16:42This is me wearing my standard
competitive memorizer's training kit. -
16:42 - 16:43(Laughter)
-
16:43 - 16:44It's a pair of earmuffs
-
16:44 - 16:48and a set of safety goggles
that have been masked over -
16:48 - 16:50except for two small pinholes,
-
16:50 - 16:55because distraction is the competitive
memorizer's greatest enemy. -
16:57 - 17:00I ended up coming back
to that same contest -
17:00 - 17:02that I had covered a year earlier,
-
17:02 - 17:04and I had this notion
that I might enter it, -
17:04 - 17:07sort of as an experiment
in participatory journalism. -
17:08 - 17:11It'd make, I thought, maybe
a nice epilogue to all my research. -
17:11 - 17:14Problem was, the experiment went haywire.
-
17:15 - 17:16I won the contest --
-
17:16 - 17:18(Laughter)
-
17:18 - 17:20which really wasn't supposed to happen.
-
17:20 - 17:27(Applause)
-
17:27 - 17:31Now, it is nice to be able
to memorize speeches -
17:31 - 17:35and phone numbers and shopping lists,
-
17:35 - 17:37but it's actually kind
of beside the point. -
17:38 - 17:39These are just tricks.
-
17:40 - 17:44They work because they're based
on some pretty basic principles -
17:45 - 17:46about how our brains work.
-
17:47 - 17:50And you don't have to be
building memory palaces -
17:50 - 17:52or memorizing packs of playing cards
-
17:53 - 17:57to benefit from a little bit of insight
about how your mind works. -
17:57 - 17:59We often talk about people
with great memories -
17:59 - 18:01as though it were some sort
of an innate gift, -
18:01 - 18:03but that is not the case.
-
18:04 - 18:06Great memories are learned.
-
18:07 - 18:10At the most basic level,
we remember when we pay attention. -
18:11 - 18:13We remember when we are deeply engaged.
-
18:13 - 18:18We remember when we are able to take
a piece of information and experience, -
18:18 - 18:20and figure out why it is meaningful to us,
-
18:20 - 18:22why it is significant, why it's colorful,
-
18:22 - 18:26when we're able to transform it
in some way that makes sense -
18:26 - 18:29in the light of all of the other
things floating around in our minds, -
18:30 - 18:33when we're able to transform
Bakers into bakers. -
18:35 - 18:37The memory palace,
these memory techniques -- -
18:37 - 18:39they're just shortcuts.
-
18:39 - 18:41In fact, they're not
even really shortcuts. -
18:42 - 18:44They work because they make you work.
-
18:45 - 18:48They force a kind of depth of processing,
-
18:48 - 18:50a kind of mindfulness,
-
18:50 - 18:54that most of us don't normally
walk around exercising. -
18:54 - 18:56But there actually are no shortcuts.
-
18:57 - 18:59This is how stuff is made memorable.
-
19:00 - 19:04And I think if there's one thing
that I want to leave you with, -
19:04 - 19:10it's what E.P., the amnesic who couldn't
even remember he had a memory problem, -
19:10 - 19:12left me with,
-
19:12 - 19:18which is the notion that our lives
are the sum of our memories. -
19:19 - 19:25How much are we willing to lose
-
19:25 - 19:29from our already short lives,
-
19:29 - 19:34by losing ourselves
in our Blackberries, our iPhones, -
19:34 - 19:39by not paying attention
to the human being across from us -
19:39 - 19:41who is talking with us,
-
19:41 - 19:45by being so lazy that we're not
willing to process deeply? -
19:47 - 19:49I learned firsthand
-
19:49 - 19:53that there are incredible
memory capacities -
19:53 - 19:55latent in all of us.
-
19:55 - 19:58But if you want to live a memorable life,
-
19:58 - 20:01you have to be the kind of person
-
20:01 - 20:03who remembers to remember.
-
20:03 - 20:04Thank you.
-
20:04 - 20:08(Applause)
- Title:
- Feats of memory anyone can do
- Speaker:
- Joshua Foer
- Description:
-
There are people who can quickly memorize lists of thousands of numbers, the order of all the cards in a deck (or ten!), and much more. Science writer Joshua Foer describes the technique -- called the memory palace -- and shows off its most remarkable feature: anyone can learn how to use it, including him.
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TEDTalks
- Duration:
- 20:28
Camille Martínez edited English subtitles for Feats of memory anyone can do | ||
Krystian Aparta edited English subtitles for Feats of memory anyone can do | ||
Krystian Aparta commented on English subtitles for Feats of memory anyone can do | ||
Jenny Zurawell edited English subtitles for Feats of memory anyone can do | ||
Lin Lyn edited English subtitles for Feats of memory anyone can do | ||
Lin Lyn edited English subtitles for Feats of memory anyone can do | ||
Anteja Jež edited English subtitles for Feats of memory anyone can do | ||
Anteja Jež edited English subtitles for Feats of memory anyone can do |
Krystian Aparta
The English transcript was updated on 5/29/2015.