https://www.amazon.com/Vaughn-Cube-Multiplication-Petersons/dp/0768941776

Dean Vaughn has apparently renamed the method of loci as a commodity to be able to market a method for memorizing the multiplication tables.

https://forum.artofmemory.com/t/anyone-here-who-has-experience-with-the-vaughn-cube/41484

Dean Vaughn has a series of music theory videos from 2007 that utilizes what he calls a Vaughn cube which on first blush appears to be a standard numbered room as used in the method of loci.

Why is memory for online pieces weaker for most?

Is it the lack of sense of "physical" location for helping to store it? What about the seemingly ephemeral character of online data?

Following interruptions by colleagues or phone calls at work, people may frequently ask themselves "where was I?" more frequently than "what was I doing?" This colloquialism isn't surprising as our memories for visual items and location are much stronger than actions. Knowledge workers will look around at their environments for contextual clues for what they were doing and find them in piles of paper on their desks, tabs in their computer browser, or even documents (physical or virtual) on their desktops.

Example of someone in the wild using their body as a locus for attaching memories temporarily so that they can recall ideas for making note of later.

Just as there are deficits like dyslexia in the literate world, are there those who have similar deficits relating to location in the oral world? What do these look like? What are they called specifically?

There are definitely memory deficits withing cognitive neuropsychology. Is there a comprehensive list one could look at?

Some people aren't as good at spatial orientation as others. Women are stereotyped as being less good at direction and direction finding.

How does location affect our reading? Is it similar to methods of location and memory within oral traditions?

Something interesting here about a "gossipy collaboration" of an address book that crystallized a "sexual memory...told by spaces".

Groups in arts education rail against the loss of music, dance, and art in schools and indicate that it's important to a balanced education.

Why has no one embedded these learning tools, for yes they can be just that, into other spaces within classrooms? Indigenous educators over the millennia have done just this in passing on their societal and cultural knowledge. Why have we lost these teaching methods? Why don't we reintroduce them? How can classrooms and the tools within them become mnemonic media to assist both teachers and learners?

Perhaps we need to bring back examples of how to do these things at the higher levels? I've seen excercises in my daughter's grade school classrooms that bring art and manipulatives into the classroom as a base level, but are they being done specifically for these mnemonic reasons?

Michael Nielsen and Andy Matuschak have been working at creating a mnemonic medium for areas like quantum mechanics relying in part on spaced repetition. Why don't they go further and add in dance, movement, art, and music to aid in the process. This can be particularly useful for creating better neurodiverse outcomes as well. Education should be more multi-modal, more oral, and cease it's unending reliance on only literacy as it's sole tool.

How and where can we create a set of example exercises at various grade levels (similar to rites of knowledge initiation in Indigenous cultures, for lack of specific Western language) that embed all of these methods

Link to: - Ideas in The Extended Brain about movement, space, etc. - Nielsen/Matuschak mnemonic media work

The studies quoted here are in the mid 80s and early 90s before the rise of better and easier UI methods or more powerful search. I'd have to call this conclusion into question.

There's also a big difference in what people know, what people prefer, and what knowledgeable people can do most quickly.

Cross reference this with Dan Russell's research at Google that indicates that very few people know how to use ctrl-f to find or search for things in documents. - https://hyp.is/7a532uxjEeyYfTOctQHvTw/www.youtube.com/channel/UCh6KFtW4a4Ozr81GI1cxaBQ

Relate it to the idea of associative (memory) trails (Memex), songlines, and method of loci in remembering where things are -- our brains are designed to navigate using memory

Having a physical note taking system also stands as a physical reminder and representation of one's work and focus. It may be somewhat out of the way on a shelf, but it takes up space in a way that digital files and notes do not. This invites one into using and maintaining it.

Link to - tying a string on one's finger as a reminder - method of loci - orality

I too have seen this before, though the directions may have been different.

When thinking about an idea, map it discretely. North on the compass rose is where the idea comes from, South is where it leads to, West leads to things similar to the idea while East are ideas that are the opposite of it.

This is useful in situating information, particularly with respect to the similarities and opposites. One must generally train themselves to think about the opposites.

Many of the directions are directly related to putting information into a zettelkasten, in particular where X comes from (source), where it leads (commentary or links to other ides), what's similar to x are links to either closely related ideas or to an index. The opposite of X is the one which is left out in this system too.

*The compass*: <br>Saw that one before. Ugh, didn't like it.<br><br>Thinking about it though, it's a fitting metaphor to look at a note from different directions. I'm going to add this to my notes template(Just to try). All my notes have North & could use some other perspectives 🎉<br><br>🧶4/4 pic.twitter.com/CJctmC5Y39

— Alex Qwxlea (@QwxleaA) June 14, 2022

Link to - Indigenous map conceptualizations - direction finding - method of loci

Where has Scott gotten the phrase "memory castle" which he repeats many times here?

Jordan Peterson apparently has described using a memory palace (castle?) he used with 12 spaces for writing his book (presumably 12 Rules for life?).

Most of the object-based metaphors for the mind over the past two centuries are spaces or location-based: a cabinet, a theater, a room, or a house. This would seem to show a close association of our prior uses of mnemotechniques, particularly the method of loci, for remembering anything with the mind.

Are there any non-object/non-location based metaphors other than the tabula rasa mentioned by Matthew Daniel Eddy?

Linking one's ideas together is a means of contextualizing them as well as situating them in a particular location with respect to your other knowledge. This creation of structure and place (loci) helps to quicken one's memory of not on the new item, but the items to which it is attached.

Piotr Wozniak recommends against avoiding memorizing sets and prefers enumerations.

Is this a result of his not knowing the method of loci as a means of travelling through sets and remembering them easily? It's certainly evidence he wasn't aware of the as a general technique.

He does mention peg techniques, mind maps, and general mnemonic techniques.

Elizabeth Filips has digital versions of medical school notes online. She's drawn them (in software) by hand with color and occasional doodles in them (there's an image of Einstein's head with an E=mc^2 under it on one page) which makes them more memorable for having made them in the first place, but with the color and the pictures, they act as a memory palace.

I've found no evidence (yet) that she's using direct mnemonics or that she's been specifically trained in the method of loci or other techniques. This doesn't, however, mean that she's not tangentially using them without knowing about them explicitly.

One would suspect that this sort of evolutionary movement towards such techniques would have been how they evolved in the first place.

Even in the western tradition, the earliest methods of mnemonics tied ideas to locations, from whence we get the ideas of loci communes (in Latin) and thence commonplaces and commonplace books. The idea of loci communes was koinos topos in Greek from whence we have derived the word 'topic'.

Was this a carryover from other local oral traditions or a new innovation? Given the prevalence of very similar Indigenous methods around the world, it was assuredly not an innovation. Perhaps it was a rediscovery after the loss of some of these traditions locally in societies that were less reliant on orality and moving towards more reliance on literacy for their memories.

The use of mnemonic techniques through history have been crystalized into our language with phrases like "in the first place" and "passing on to the next point".

In Notre-Dame de Paris (1831) Victor Hugo depicts a scholar holding his first printed book. He turns away from his manuscripts to look at the cathedral and says "This will kill that" (Ceci tuera cela). Similarly the printed book made it far less necessary to store one's knowledge into cathedrals of memory.

much as prisoners escape from jails without guards.17 16 Drexel, Aurifodina, 258 17 Drexel, Aurifodina, 3–4.

Jeremias Drexel (1581 – 1638) recommended against the method of loci during the explosion of information in the late 16th and early 17th centuries.

Add Drexel to the list of reformers against the ars memoria in the early 1600s.)

While dealing with the information overload, educators may have inadvertently thrown out the baby with the bath water. While information still tends to increase and have increased complexity, some areas also show compression and concatenation and new theories subsume old information into their models. This means that one might know and understand Einstein which means that memorizing Newton's work is no longer needed at some point. Where should one draw the line of memorization for subsuming the knowledge of their culture? Aren't both old and new methods for memory usable? Keep the ars memoria while also using written methods.

The sorting function is also done by mental links from one space to another similar to the method of loci in Western culture. cross reference the idea of songlines

Can we, like Shepherds, tell a merry Tale? Stephen Duck, The Thresher's Tale (poem)

There's a link here to shepherds and a bardic tradition. In some sense, shepherds have lots of time to kill during the day and thus potentially tell stories. But they're also moving around their environment which also makes it easier for them to have used songline-like methods for attaching their memories to their environment.

How far back might this tradition go in our literate culture?

I also wonder at the influence of time on oral traditions as the result of this. Lynne Kelly describes calendrical devices in a variety of indigenous settings in Knowledge and Power in Prehistoric Societies for potential use in annual spaced repetition. What about the spaced repetition within daily cycles of regular work as described in this paper with respect to shepherds, fishing communities, and crofting?

The daily cycle of life may have been a part of the spaced repetition for memory.

How might we show this?

A quick example that comes to mind is the French children's song Alouette, Gentille Alouette which details how one kills, cleans, and dresses a chicken for cooking.

Research shows that high-resolution monitors make thinking easier. This also seems true of classrooms which use large posters and maps as teaching aids at lower grades.

Why don't we use these methods as we grow older?

When used in mnemonic traditions, one can use vast spaces to create memory palaces that become thinking vistas within the brain. How can we better leverage these effects while still maintaining the effectiveness of focused journeys?

I wonder how much of our genetic programming is based on centuries of evolution with humans moving around their landscapes and attaching their memories to them?

Within Lynne Kelly's thesis about stone circles, henges, etc. most of the locations have roads and entryways into them which require movement much less the idea of dancing and singing attached to memory performance as well.

Far beyond this, they're most likely used as mnemonic devices to associate the important information with a more memorable image for storing in one's memory palace.

I'd start with the basics of 0-9 of the Major System and then introduce the method of loci. Once they've got those two basics down reasonably I'd expand their Major system up to 99 at a minimum.

The tougher part then is expanding your pedagogy to build these tools into the curriculum so that you're actively using them with your content.

You might appreciate the experience from Lynne Kelly here: https://www.lynnekelly.com.au/?p=4794. Her excellent book Memory Craft also has some interesting examples and stories for children including the use of what she calls rapscallions for use in multiplication tables, languages, and other educational applications. Her book also has a wealth of other methods and potential applications depending on the subjects you're teaching.

I'd love to hear your experiences as you progress with your class.

The commonplace tabulae created by Linnaeus used spatial layout which also served as memory aids.

Carl Linnaeus didn't completely invent the commonplace cabinet (arcae), but did expand it with his spatial arrangement of plants within his botanical garden.

Garberson's Libraries, Memory and the Space of Knowledge has more on prior examples apparently.

the way through the eighteenth century.

Direct linguistic analogies for commonplacing one's notes and the placing of ideas into the memory via the word locus.

I seem to recall reading anecdotes of aboriginal peoples who knew areas and water holes in places they'd never visited in their lives. I'm wondering how they may have encoded these in songlines for places they'd never been to and physically seen.

It would seem that it's better to use a physical space when you have access to it, but I don't think I have as much issue adding things to pre-existing palaces/songlines as Kelly describes here. I wonder how this works out for others?

Lynne Kelly is correct here that we need better delineations of the words we're using here.

To some of us, we're taking historical methods and expanding them into larger super sets based on our personal experiences. I've read enough of Kelly's work and her personal experiences on her website (and that of many others) that I better understand the shorthand she uses when she describes pieces.

Even in the literature throughout the middle ages and the Renaissance we see this same sort of picking and choosing of methods in descriptions of various texts. Some will choose to focus on one or two keys, which seemed to work for them, but they'd leave out the others which means that subsequent generations would miss out on the lost bits and pieces.

Having a larger superset of methods to choose from as well as encouraging further explorations is certainly desired.

Anecdotal mention here of someone using sketchnotes or doodling as a mnemonic device.

Sketchnotes could be a means of implementing visual method of loci in one's note taking. Like creating a faux memory palace. Also somewhat similar, expecially in the case of the leaf doodle mentioned above, to the idea of drolleries, but in this case, they're not taking advantage of the memory's greater capacity of imagination to make things even more memorable for long term retention.

https://www.reddit.com/r/commonplacebook/comments/jb8x3d/what_does_your_indexing_system_look_like/

Brief discussion of indexing systems for commonplace books. Locke's system is mentioned. Another person uses a clunky system at the bottom of pages to create threaded links.

Intriguingly, one person mentions visiting theirs often enough that they remember where things are. (spaced repetition with a bit of method of loci going on here)

This notion of using spatial memory to encode other concepts - or even the P-A-O sytem where a 2 digit number encodes a person performing an action is an interesting idea for someone like me who forgets quite a bit.

I would question this statement, as annotated separately in this article. I have a feeling that the mnemonic tradition into the 1800's was more heavily influenced by the rise of the idea of the major system and not so much by the memory palace or the method of loci. This definitely seems to be the case in the United States based on my readings.

What is gained and lost in the Ramist tradition versus the method of loci?

There is some simplicity to be sure and structure/organization aid in the structured memory.

We lose the addition work, creativity, and invention. We also loose some of the interest that students might have. I recently read something to the effect that we always seem to make education boring and dull. (cross reference this, which I haven't read: https://daily.jstor.org/why-school-is-boring/)

How does this interact with Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's idea of flow? Does Ramism beat out the fun of flow?

How also, is this similar to Kelly's idea of the third archive as a means of bringing these all back together?

Similar to Yates' theory.

In looking at this, I immediately wonder about the nature of the treatises. I would suspect there's a slow decline of treatises on the method of loci while the 1800's sees an increase of those writing about the major system and which I've found generally aren't aware of the method of loci or earlier methods.

When reading Yates and thinking about the disappearance of these traditions in the West, I've wanted to delve into this exact question!

Glad to see the work has already been done for me.

Here's the tl;dr version of the study:

Australian Aboriginal memorization methods >> Western method of loci methods

I'm saddened to see the erasure of the Australian Aboriginal approach (possibly better termed Songlines or Dreaming for specificity) here only to have it lumped into the Western method. This is worse when their general results show the Australian approach to be significantly better.

This may be due to over-familiarity with the techniques which are broadly similar, but for rigor and respect they should remain separate in this paper.

A full one, but not necessarily a good one, particularly for beginners.

As someone who knows both methods and has likely practiced them in reasonable depth, I'm curious what Dr. @LynneKelly thinks. I'd love to see this same study done to include song, dance, painting, etc. to expand the potential effects.

If nothing else, it's good to see some positive research on the methods which will hopefully draw more attention to the pedagogy and classroom use.

Dr. Reser said the Monash School of Rural Health is considering incorporating these memory tools into the medical curriculum once teaching returns to a post-COVID normal. “This year we hope to offer this to students as a way to not only facilitate their learning but to reduce the stress associated with a course that requires a lot of rote learning,” he said. —https://scitechdaily.com/ancient-australian-aboriginal-memory-tool-superior-to-memory-palace-learning-technique/

Great news on Memory. Was song and art used too?

Color also adds creativity and additional loci to one's pages which also can help to make them more memorable.

This appears to be the longer book form of the prior paper I'd noticed. I'll buy and download a copy shortly.

Oh! This looks cool! and apparently a longer book length version has just come out too...

Read chapter 11 "Memorizing Number" to see what Gardner says about available techniques. He only covers the phoenetic major system and some basic associative techniques.

No mention of the method of loci. Some interesting references listed for the chapter however.