idw – Informationsdienst Wissenschaft
Nachrichten, Termine, Experten
Nachrichten, Termine, Experten
As most students are painfully aware, memory did not evolve to process abstract information – in evolutionary time scales, the systematic use of language and numbers is a rather recent human invention. For most of human and our predecessors’ existence, it was much more crucial to remember visual and spatial information: how do poisonous plants and dangerous animals look like, where is the place with fresh water and food, which route leads home to family and safety? Accordingly, humans have a hard time learning text book information, new names or languages, but recognize once-seen images with ease and quickly learn to navigate in highly complex new environments.
More than two thousand years ago, Greek and Roman orators acknowledged this bias of the human brain towards visuo-spatial information, and utilized it for the development of systematic mnemonic strategies to memorize their extensive speeches. The method of loci – also known as the memory palace technique – as the most prominent mnemonic strategy, for example, uses well-known routes to mentally associate new information with easily accessible visuo-spatial landmarks aiding later recall. Compared to their historic role in educational curricula, the method of loci and other mnemonic strategies have lost much attention in school settings, however experience a strong revival in the growing field of memory sports: memory athletes regularly demonstrate the power of mnemonic strategies in international memory championships, easily and quickly memorizing thousands of arbitrary and diverse chunks of information, from numbers and names to historic dates and abstract images.
Program
12:30
Registration
13:00
A history of mnemonics from ancient Greece to Victorian England
Seth Long, University of Nebraska
13:45
Contemporary mnemonics: memory training and memory sports
Boris Konrad, Donders Institute, Nijmegen
14:30
Coffee break
14:45
What memory training has to do with the neuroscience of memory
Robert Ajemian, McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
15:30
Cognitive neuroscience of mnemonics
Martin Dresler, Donders Institute
16:15
Coffee break
16:30
Mastering language complexity through memory palaces
Aaron Ralby, Linguisticator, Cambridge
17:15
A design oriented approach to virtual memory palaces
Jan-Paul Huttner, Technical University Braunschweig
18:00
Snack
18:45
Art of memory
Seet van Hout, Artist, Nijmegen
19:30
Mental maps for memories and space
Christian Doeller, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig
Information on participating / attending:
Registration: https://www.diejungeakademie.de/anmeldung-ars-memoriae/
Date:
12/07/2018 13:00 - 12/07/2018 20:30
Event venue:
Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften
Bibliothek
Unter den Linden 8
10117 Berlin
Berlin
Germany
Target group:
all interested persons
Email address:
Relevance:
local
Subject areas:
interdisciplinary
Types of events:
Conference / symposium / (annual) conference
Entry:
11/26/2018
Sender/author:
Anne Rohloff
Department:
Geschäftsstelle
Event is free:
yes
Language of the text:
English
URL of this event: http://idw-online.de/en/event62263
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