An idea that I’m kicking about: intuitive organisational schemas for knowledge.
I’ve previously observed that it’s easier to process and retain facts about places if you know where those places are on a map. Knowing the map gives you an intuitive schema to hang the information on. I am never going to have to navigate to Kiribati or the Pitcairn Islands, but I suspect some part of my brain which handles spatial orientation and navigation is putting in some overtime and helping me remember things about them.
I’m considering making an anki deck of people. Historical scientists, mathematicians and philosophers, and contemporary academic and industrial figures. It could include photos/portraits, their field, their active period, maybe their nationality, and specific theories, ideas or publications they’re known for. Much like knowing where Kiribati is on the map gives me a mental “space” to put facts about Kiribati, perhaps having a personal sense of Tooby and Cosmides and Trivers and Dunbar are will give me a similar “space” to put facts about ev-psych.
In principle, this shouldn’t be too hard. Without any assistance, most people remember details on hundreds of real-world acquaintances and thousands of celebrities and fictional characters. In practice, I remember struggling with the Monarchs of England deck, with eight Edwards, six Georges, and more Henrys than you can shake a stick at. I ended up solving this by watching films and plays featuring the monarchs in question, but this probably isn’t available for my deck of thinkers. None of them feature in the legend of Robin Hood.
Sounds like dual-coding hypothesis. TL;DR: more imaginable things are easier to remember because you’re working two distinct memory subsystems (verbal, visual).
As far as I understand the world championships in mnemonics all get won via memory places that use spatial memory.
At my present project of making phonemes learnable I specifically show the charts of phonemes along with my minimal pairs to give the user an orientation.
Venn diagrams are a nifty tool for giving knowledge a structure. I use them in Anki to distinguish essential, semiessential and nonessential amino acids. I however haven’t yet programmed automatic Venn diagram creation.
The supermemo principles by Wozniak suggest against learning multiple similar items at the same time. If you have a deck about British monarch there nothing wrong with spreading it out at 1 card per day.
As far as automatic remembering of detail about people goes, it often works via narratives. Narratives are difficult to display via Anki.
I personally had a heard times following along the who’s who of Game of Thrones on the other hand someone on LW has used the example of remembering facts about Game of Throne as a way to illustrate how easy it is to remember facts about certain subjects. .
I think this is what you’re talking about re: using Game of Thrones to remember facts. I do remember faces and people (and Game of Thrones characters) quite well, so I have fairly high hopes for this process, but it occurs to me that a lot of people on LW report face-blindness to varying degrees. This might not work so well for these people.
An excerpt from the introduction (tldr: beware of eating yourself):
This book is about how to make a complete map of everything you think for as
long as you like.
Whether that’s good or not, I don’t know- keeping a map of all your thoughts
has a freezing effect on the mind. It takes a lot of (albeit pleasurable) work,
but produces nothing but sight.
If you do the things described in this book, you will be immobilized for
the duration of your commitment.The immobilization will come on gradually,
but steadily. In the end, you will be incapable of going somewhere without
your cache of notes, and will always want a pen and paper w/ you. When you
do not have pen and paper, you will rely on complex memory pegging devices,
described in “The Memory Book”. You will never be without record,
and you will always record.
You may also articulate. Your thoughts will be clearer to you than
they have ever been before. You will see things you have never seen before.
When someone shows you one corner, you’ll have the other 3 in mind. This is
both good and bad. It means you will have the right information at the right
time in the right place. It also means you may have trouble shutting up. Your
mileage may vary.
I’ve previously observed that it’s easier to process and retain facts about places if you know where those places are on a map. Knowing the map gives you an intuitive schema to hang the information on.
Weirdly enough, since that comment a month ago, I’ve been sucked into learning about the fission of Yugoslavia, after years of knowing only the barest outlines of it — and I have noticed that knowing facts about the geography has helped me remember facts about the conflicts. I think it goes both ways, as well; knowledge of events helps cement knowledge of geography.
I’m considering making an anki deck of people. Historical scientists, mathematicians and philosophers,
As a kinetic learner I’m all about activities and doing things. I think reading over one card a day every day and reading over multiple ones would really help me learn something like that. There is also something to be said for life-long education including workshops, master classes, and such. That is much easier to do online now than ever before.
An idea that I’m kicking about: intuitive organisational schemas for knowledge.
I’ve previously observed that it’s easier to process and retain facts about places if you know where those places are on a map. Knowing the map gives you an intuitive schema to hang the information on. I am never going to have to navigate to Kiribati or the Pitcairn Islands, but I suspect some part of my brain which handles spatial orientation and navigation is putting in some overtime and helping me remember things about them.
I’m considering making an anki deck of people. Historical scientists, mathematicians and philosophers, and contemporary academic and industrial figures. It could include photos/portraits, their field, their active period, maybe their nationality, and specific theories, ideas or publications they’re known for. Much like knowing where Kiribati is on the map gives me a mental “space” to put facts about Kiribati, perhaps having a personal sense of Tooby and Cosmides and Trivers and Dunbar are will give me a similar “space” to put facts about ev-psych.
In principle, this shouldn’t be too hard. Without any assistance, most people remember details on hundreds of real-world acquaintances and thousands of celebrities and fictional characters. In practice, I remember struggling with the Monarchs of England deck, with eight Edwards, six Georges, and more Henrys than you can shake a stick at. I ended up solving this by watching films and plays featuring the monarchs in question, but this probably isn’t available for my deck of thinkers. None of them feature in the legend of Robin Hood.
Sounds like dual-coding hypothesis. TL;DR: more imaginable things are easier to remember because you’re working two distinct memory subsystems (verbal, visual).
As far as I understand the world championships in mnemonics all get won via memory places that use spatial memory. At my present project of making phonemes learnable I specifically show the charts of phonemes along with my minimal pairs to give the user an orientation.
Venn diagrams are a nifty tool for giving knowledge a structure. I use them in Anki to distinguish essential, semiessential and nonessential amino acids. I however haven’t yet programmed automatic Venn diagram creation.
The supermemo principles by Wozniak suggest against learning multiple similar items at the same time. If you have a deck about British monarch there nothing wrong with spreading it out at 1 card per day.
As far as automatic remembering of detail about people goes, it often works via narratives. Narratives are difficult to display via Anki.
I personally had a heard times following along the who’s who of Game of Thrones on the other hand someone on LW has used the example of remembering facts about Game of Throne as a way to illustrate how easy it is to remember facts about certain subjects. .
I think this is what you’re talking about re: using Game of Thrones to remember facts. I do remember faces and people (and Game of Thrones characters) quite well, so I have fairly high hopes for this process, but it occurs to me that a lot of people on LW report face-blindness to varying degrees. This might not work so well for these people.
Yes, that the thread I meant.
I have no problem with recognizing I meet in person again. I think the main issue is that I don’t consume much fiction.
I’ve posted this before, but I think it’s relevant here:
See: How to Make a Complete Map of Every Thought you Think [pdf]
An excerpt from the introduction (tldr: beware of eating yourself):
Weirdly enough, since that comment a month ago, I’ve been sucked into learning about the fission of Yugoslavia, after years of knowing only the barest outlines of it — and I have noticed that knowing facts about the geography has helped me remember facts about the conflicts. I think it goes both ways, as well; knowledge of events helps cement knowledge of geography.
Potentially useful.
As a kinetic learner I’m all about activities and doing things. I think reading over one card a day every day and reading over multiple ones would really help me learn something like that. There is also something to be said for life-long education including workshops, master classes, and such. That is much easier to do online now than ever before.