I recently enjoyed Josh Foer's book - Moonwalking with Einstein - and was happy to find him headlining the list of talks that TED sends out to subscribers every week. The layout of the talk is sort of a fast paced mini version of his book, and if you find this topic remotely interesting I recommend checking out the full version. Looking back to my pre-Foer knowledge of memory training, I am shocked and slightly bashful to say that despite years of formal and informal education, it was nonexistent. That is neither the knowledge of memory training techniques nor the knowledge of the possibilities that they create. As Josh points out, the majority of the general population thinks that people who memorize thousands of digits of pi and decks of cards within minutes are savants or 'different' in some other way, so it was interesting to learn that there are very simple, easily understood techniques to complete these feats.
Well, simple and easily understood, but putting it into practice can be another story. The techniques are very effective but require training the brain in ways that it is likely not used to behaving, and one has to get into the habit of calling on the techniques whenever a new name, phone number or interesting fact comes your way. As Josh points out, the core effectiveness of the techniques lie in the fact that they force you to focus on the new information and manipulate it in ways that will make more mental connections to the data, so it can be more easily recalled by your brain later on. This is the key to the baker/Baker example. You can know the techniques, but if you are mentally lazy and don't force yourself to employ them regularly, you won't get very far in day to day memory improvement.
The way Josh finishes the TED Talk is also similar to the way he finishes his book: by reminding us that the most important benefit of focussing on improving memory is not the newfound ability to remember random facts or impress people at the bar by memorizing playing cards, it is that it forces us to spend more mental energy grounding ourselves in the real world; to pay attention to the people and experiences in our lives. After all, as Josh says "Our lives are the sum of our memories. How much are we willing to lose from our already short lives by not paying attention?"
The way Josh finishes the TED Talk is also similar to the way he finishes his book: by reminding us that the most important benefit of focussing on improving memory is not the newfound ability to remember random facts or impress people at the bar by memorizing playing cards, it is that it forces us to spend more mental energy grounding ourselves in the real world; to pay attention to the people and experiences in our lives. After all, as Josh says "Our lives are the sum of our memories. How much are we willing to lose from our already short lives by not paying attention?"
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