Notes on Memory palaces so far

Memory palaces have been effective for embryology. The linearity of the embryo's life provides a convenient pathway to remember the events on specific days post-fertilization. 

I have basically stacked mental pictures along routes inside my childhood home, although I ran out of space around day 20. A downside to this technique is that accessing the day number of a particular set of events requires accurate counting of the events in the pathway prior. Perhaps I should consider encoding the numerical information (days since fertilization) as letters, then convert these as an extra picture in the scene, but I am worried about overcrowding. 

As an extra note about Anatomy, we have finally reached the section on the face and skull, and I am surprised that I have retained so many structures from before medical school. This is confirmation that the technique works, even for longer terms, so I am prepared to go forward with the technique of planting the images directly onto Netter's plates or live bodies. 

I tried to put the brachial plexus together as a linear pathway inside a memory palace, however because the memory palace was so detached from the images of real bodies, I had trouble converting that knowledge on the Anatomy practical exam. I think this time, if I stick to real bodies for storing names of nerves and blood vessels, I will have a little more luck in retention of the names. 

I don't think there is need to encode obvious or logical information. Anatomical names that simply make sense based on the word roots probably are not as important to encode as others. However the process of encoding itself helps me retain information, so if I do have time after learning the logical decution method, I will follow the method on a second pass through. 

As far as Biochemistry or Histology, I have not yet tried the memory palace technique. I am running into a problem of too few palaces now, so I am reluctant to waste space on subjects that are not as linear or spatial,and thus, are harder to encode into visual/spatial information. 

I will work to get a basic grasp of the layout of my school's hospital because the large size of the building would make it an ideal memory palace. In fact, because the school is situated in a mini metropolis of hospitals, there are many memory palaces available to me. By learning more possible routes, I will gain more avilable loci for encoding purposes.

Netter Anatomy Plate 145: Back

Okay been taking an extended break before school started, but its the first week, and I'm Back. Which coincidentally, is what the first section for anatomy is.

So here goes, I am attempting the Netter's plates with the miniature "palace" being the back itself.

...

Okay, so I took 20 minutes for 24 items - thats 50 seconds per item.

I've decided to record my pictures just to keep track -

Trapezius muscle - Arnold Schwarzenegger doing trapeze

Deltoid muscle - a big triangle

Infraspinatus muscle - an infrared spine (a spine glowing red intermittently)

long head of triceps brachii muscle - A guy with a long head and GIGANTIC flabby triceps who cant press his break in a car

lateral head of triceps brachii muscle - a guy with a really flat and wide head who is pushing the break for his friend - with his head

tendon of triceps brachii muscle - the tension in a brake cord when the brake pedal is pressed

teres major muscle - Major Bison tearing through the skin, shouting "I'll tear you a new one!"

Latissimus dorsi muscle - A roman guy named Latissimus (lame, I know) who is really dork (glasses and braces) rising up through the ranks

Iliac crest - a guy who is ill because he has a giant crest sticking out of his chest

thoracolumbar fascia - a column of Thors fastened together

posterior superior iliac spine - my old boss (post-superior) ill on his death bed with a spinal problem, as I contemplate helping him (I didn't like him much...)

Intergluteal (natal) cleft - A weird guy with a moustache saying, "Enter the gluteus and turn left"...

Gluteal fold - old gluteus - a really old ass

Gluteus maximus - self explanatory

Greater trochanter of femus - two feminist protesters arguing over who is the greater chanter. One is proclaiming she is a pro-chanter, screaming, "Feminism!"

Sacrum - Sacred, Sacrifice - Jesus on the cross

Gluteus medius muscle - A meaty steak on a woman's naked ass... needless to say, gluteus medius is now my favorite...

Spinous process of T12 vertebra - A spiny processing machine, processing TLC as they sing, "Jason Waterfalls"

Medial border of scapula - I'm cutting into a meaty steak ranchero (border style) with a scalpel

Spine of scapula - a spine that has a scalpel blade attached

Spinous Process of C7 vertebra - a spiny processing machine that is going through a CT scan.

Ligamentum nuchae - the man's long ligaments are giving himself a nuggie

External occipital protuberance - Two oxen are upset and crying because they broke up with each other. They are sitting on the edge of long tubes protruding from this bump


I realize that I have slowed dramatically (50 seconds per item!), however, I am only counting the amount of time it takes to get through a quiz perfectly. I think that now school has started, I am going to start on a whole new scale

Memrise

I've been taking a bit of an extended break before school starts. I've been checking out memrise, which isn't bad for some of the other subjects in med school. However, it is pretty useless for anatomy as far as I can see. I'll get back to plates in a few weeks.

Skull: Lateral View

This plate was a doozy. 37 items. Took 16:25. Slowing Down! That's an average of 26 seconds per, a huge increase from last week.

Of course, the exhaustion is an issue. I can go through a 6 item plate and a 15 item plate really easily, but a 37 item plate... that is a lot to cram in at once.

I really felt it in testing; I missed two that I knew I should have gotten, but I was getting impatient and tired.

I ended up only getting 32 out of 37, and I didn't remember an important word (did not properly encode the word "deep" in one of the images). But I ended up counting this as right in the practice test, because I just didn't have the heart to mark the whole "Groove for posterior deep temporal artery (temporal bone)" wrong because of the word "deep".

So, only 86%. Not good enough. On the next plate, I'll have to improve my times. 

One problem I ran into is encoding the mnemonic images onto the exact location of the item. I was slightly off on my placement of the "pterion" and the "mastoid process (temporal bone)". I have to concentrate next time on really burning the onto the representative structure.

The other way to improve is to take breaks. I think even 16 minutes straight is a bit too long. I need to take mini-breaks every 10 minutes. Maybe 30 seconds every 10 minutes, just to give my brain a breather.

Finished Plate 2A

whew, took me another 12:30, but i got through them all (31 items)

total 23:30 with a 30 minute break between.

Now lets see how much time it takes to run back through....

Tried to run back through, but decided, fuck it, lets just test and see how i do.

confusing lesser and inferior. both involve making the picture smaller. I think from now on, ill involve a "less than" sign in words with "lesser"

making lots of spelling mistakes. i hope they dont take off for these in medical school

I missed two. One I remembered halfway through the test - I've got to remember to skip these, because the pictures are there... they just take a little bit to come back to me. 

The pictures are a little slow to recall. I need to be able to pull them back up more quickly than I burned them. Also, one of the two I missed, I missed because I forgot half of the picture (infraorbital), which was hanging above the rest of the image (foramen of maxilla). I should not be in so much of a rush that I move on to the next item without waiting for the whole picture to be clear. Also, perhaps I should work on making the images "tighter", or less spread out, so that parts of it do not get lost. 

A weird thing is that I am actually picking up some comprehension ideas, despite straight memorization with memory palaces. I figured out which bones are which, and then the rest is the linguistics. Linguistics will be a huge help here.

I am still wondering if it is better to use a memory palace or actually integrate the pictures onto a mental skull. I will try the second approach with the next plate and see if I get any faster / better. 

Second Attempt

Did 11 of 31 items on plate 2 in 11 minutes.

Averages to 1 minute per item, but i am definitely slowing down.

One thing that really got me is that I am so busy making up images for the item, that i forget to also imagine the part of the face that it corresponds to.

So i get a list of names, but no correlation to where those names are located. 

If i make sure and put both parts of the information - the name and the location - in at once, then it should go a little bit quicker.

However, getting saturated is a huge problem. If I was getting tired after 11 plates.... I need to get my stamina up.

sometimes the pictures are getting crazy complicated.

For that wierd little hole in the cheek bone, zygomaticofacial foramen of the zygomatic bone, the picture is soooo complicated.

My shorthand for zygomatic is a little multicell zygote.

so there is a chick getting blasted with zygotes in the face (facial)

and grabbing grass and leaves off the ground and eating them (foraging = foramen)
and she is kneeling down in front of a giant zygote (of the zygomatic)

with a bone coming out of her....  (bone)
This whole picture is happening inside of a pore (represented by my fireplace)

in a huge cheek, that takes up the whole living room wall.

total time to memorize was probably around 2 minutes - which seems far too long if I have to get through the 93 plates (!), most of which have multiple views!

If we estimate about 30-35 items per plate, thats about 110 hours for the head and neck alone. And thats for one class - Anatomy. 

I have to improve my times.

First Attempt

Began process of memorizing plates from Netters. The first took approximately 1:30, but I missed 4 or 5 out of 30. 

I took an additional 20 minutes to review and was able to get 29 out of 30. 

I used a process of superimposing the pneumonic images on the anatomical image. I did not use a memory palace. 

Next time, I am going to try to memorize a plate with a memory palace, my old house, since that is my only current working memory palace. I will still superimpose an image on the anatomical image, but I think the memory palace will be better because it will allow me to zoom in on the images, and store them in some kind of logical order, so that I can quickly see nearby structures as part of the same continuous palace.