The memory palace can be an especially powerful tool for remembering details that may otherwise be hard to translate from paper to memory. The goal is to imbue these details with such context (much like real, experiential memories) that you recall it better when testing yourself. Over time, with sufficient retrieval practice, the palace will fade and be replaced by a deeper semantic understanding of the material that was previously encoded in the palace. This natural dissolution of the palace is similar to the episodic-to-semantic memory transition that occurs in all of us. By turning experiences (episodic memories: a lion attacked me under that tree) into generalizable units of information (semantic memory: giant cats may attack humans), we can convert new information that we learn into adaptive expertise. With retrieval practice and spaced learning, we can harness the memory palace to instinctively learn otherwise abstract material.
It can be difficult, however, to decide what material is palace-appropriate. As we discuss in our top memory palace tips article, the most important thing to ask is: is this worth memorizing? You can most certainly use a memory palace to memorize textbooks cover-to-cover, but the utility of that is most likely low. After evaluating for utility, I try to ask myself: can I reach this conclusion using what I already know?
We recently got a question about using memory palaces to memorize the stages of wound healing and the key players at each stage. If you need to have this material on lock, then a palace is ideally suited for this topic. Each stage can be encoded using grouped loci (for example, each stage gets its own room, with several loci in each), which helps maintain the feel of chronicity between rooms.
Below is a table outlining how I might organize the material before putting it into Anki cards. Instead of memorizing the effector cells separate from the characteristics, I organized it in a way that makes sense to me knowing what I know. Sometimes I may choose to just memorize the key cell if the function of that cell in wound healing (eg, platelets) is obvious to me. But if I need an extra boost, I may choose to encode a little more (neutrophils exiting permeable vessels).
Lastly, as a resident, I probably wouldn’t memorize this material anymore. At this point in my learning, I have enough semantic knowledge about these processes that I can think of what happens during inflammation without much difficulty. However, at the early stages of learning, a systematic way of organizing these details can help create durable knowledge that can more easily translate into adaptive expertise.
