full transcript
From the Ted Talk by Joshua Foer: Feats of memory anyone can do
Unscramble the Blue Letters
What Simonides figured out at that mmoent, is something that I think we all kind of intuitively know, which is that, as bad as we are at rerebmenimg names and phone numbers, and word-for-word instructions from our colleagues, we have really exceptional visual and spatial mimeeors. If I asked you to rncuoet the first 10 words of the story that I just told you about Simonides, chances are you would have a tough time with it. But, I would wager that if I asked you to recall who is sitting on top of a talking tan horse in your foyer right now, you would be able to see that.
The idea behind the meormy pacale is to create this iiemngad eifcdie in your mind's eye, and populate it with images of the things that you want to remember — the cizraer, weirder, more bizarre, funnier, raunchier, stinkier the image is, the more unforgettable it's likely to be. This is advice that goes back 2,000-plus years to the earliest Latin memory treatises.
Open Cloze
What Simonides figured out at that ______, is something that I think we all kind of intuitively know, which is that, as bad as we are at ___________ names and phone numbers, and word-for-word instructions from our colleagues, we have really exceptional visual and spatial ________. If I asked you to _______ the first 10 words of the story that I just told you about Simonides, chances are you would have a tough time with it. But, I would wager that if I asked you to recall who is sitting on top of a talking tan horse in your foyer right now, you would be able to see that.
The idea behind the ______ ______ is to create this ________ _______ in your mind's eye, and populate it with images of the things that you want to remember — the _______, weirder, more bizarre, funnier, raunchier, stinkier the image is, the more unforgettable it's likely to be. This is advice that goes back 2,000-plus years to the earliest Latin memory treatises.
Solution
- memories
- recount
- edifice
- memory
- moment
- imagined
- crazier
- palace
- remembering
Original Text
What Simonides figured out at that moment, is something that I think we all kind of intuitively know, which is that, as bad as we are at remembering names and phone numbers, and word-for-word instructions from our colleagues, we have really exceptional visual and spatial memories. If I asked you to recount the first 10 words of the story that I just told you about Simonides, chances are you would have a tough time with it. But, I would wager that if I asked you to recall who is sitting on top of a talking tan horse in your foyer right now, you would be able to see that.
The idea behind the memory palace is to create this imagined edifice in your mind's eye, and populate it with images of the things that you want to remember — the crazier, weirder, more bizarre, funnier, raunchier, stinkier the image is, the more unforgettable it's likely to be. This is advice that goes back 2,000-plus years to the earliest Latin memory treatises.
Frequently Occurring Word Combinations
ngrams of length 2
| collocation |
frequency |
| front door |
4 |
| playing cards |
4 |
| cookie monster |
3 |
| britney spears |
3 |
| memory champions |
3 |
| tan horse |
2 |
| bizarre contest |
2 |
| shuffled pack |
2 |
| guy called |
2 |
| average memory |
2 |
| strange journey |
2 |
| memory contest |
2 |
| remembering stuff |
2 |
| entire art |
2 |
| memory palace |
2 |
| great memories |
2 |
Important Words
- advice
- asked
- bad
- bizarre
- chances
- colleagues
- crazier
- create
- earliest
- edifice
- exceptional
- eye
- figured
- foyer
- funnier
- horse
- idea
- image
- images
- imagined
- instructions
- intuitively
- kind
- latin
- memories
- memory
- moment
- names
- numbers
- palace
- phone
- populate
- raunchier
- recall
- recount
- remember
- remembering
- simonides
- sitting
- spatial
- stinkier
- story
- talking
- tan
- time
- told
- top
- tough
- treatises
- unforgettable
- visual
- wager
- weirder
- words
- years