In this edition of QuEST, Memory Champion Nelson Dellis discusses memory competitions, encoding using the person-action-object method, and memory palaces.
Key Moments and Questions in the video include:
Kevin Schmidt Introduction
Nelson Dellis introduction
How Nelson came to doing memory competitions
Washington University and study memory and altitude
Cap discusses principles of consciousness
How does bandwidth fit in - could you give some guiding ideas?
Strategy of compression / chunking information / storing information - memory palace
Memorizing 10,000 digits of pi - needed huge memory palace (2000 locations)
What kinds of things can you remember?
Follow-up: Can you remember dance steps, can you remember foreign words, what things are you good at remembering, and what not?
Get information into the mind fast, then review
Do you lose something you said when you reuse a memory palace?
Reuse memory palaces - get reused a lot in memory competitions (cards)
Don’t want to lose - specific memory palace for that occasion and don’t reuse
Can you share a technique you used to improve your memory?
Can you tell us about the US championship experience?
Can you talk about how you parse memorizing a face you’ve never seen before?
International competitions have names to memorize that are from all different countries and languages
Look for feature to anchor the name face to a location in your memory palace
When I get caught up in something, I work on it in my sleep and dream about that, do you do the same when you are encoding?
Follow-up: Is this like photographic memory, or does it have to be conscious?
Autobiographical (hyperthynesia) memory?
Different types of memory palaces for different occasions, what features do the long-term storage palaces have that the short-term don’t?
Frequency of use - palaces that don’t get reused / reviewed become empty
You used the word ‘review’ in a few different ways - what is your learning process like for your definition of review?
Again, frequency of active recall/review
Discussion of what the championships are like - what kinds of challenges and how to approach them
Is there hope for someone like me to work on memory training - are there some people who can’t do memory training or can anybody do it?
Yes, anyone, perhaps except for people with aphantasia
Memory techniques can help regardless of age
How many repetitions do you need for declarative memory to become procedural?
Have you used your memory techniques to distract your consciousness / overcome your ‘conscious stopping’?
Discuss how to group digits of pi for memorizing - explain how to encode into a memory palace
Case Number AFRL-2024-2587 More