The Roman Room System
Wednesday, November 27, 2013
The Roman Room technique, also known as the
Method of Loci, is an ancient and effective way of remembering
information where its structure is not important. As an example,
it serves as the basis of one of the powerful mnemonic systems
used to learn languages .
How to Use the Tool
To use the technique, imagine a room that you
know, such as your sitting room, bedroom, office or classroom.
Within the room are objects. Associate images representing the
information you want to remember with the objects in the room. To
recall information, simply take a tour around the room in your
mind, visualizing the known objects and their associated images.
The technique can be expanded by going into more detail, and
keying information to be remembered to smaller objects.
Alternatively you can open doors from your room into other rooms
and use the objects in them as well. As you need them, you can
build extensions to your rooms in your imagination, and fill them
with objects that would logically be there.
You can use other rooms to store other categories of information.
There is no need to restrict this information to rooms: you could
use a landscape or a town you know well, and populate it with
memory images.
The Roman Room technique is just one way of representing your
cognitive map of the information in an easily accessible way.
See the introduction to this chapter for information on how to
enhance the images used for this technique.
Example
For example, I can use my sitting room as a basis for the
technique. In this room I have the following objects:
Table, lamp, sofa, large bookcase, small bookcase, CD rack,
telephone, television, DVD player, chair, mirror, black and white
photographs, etc.
I may want to remember a list of World War I war poets:
Rupert Brooke, G.K. Chesterton, Walter de la Mare, Robert Graves,
Rudyard Kipling, Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon, W.B. Yates
I could visualize walking through my front door. Within this
image, someone has painted a picture on it showing a scene from
the Battle of the Somme. In the center of the picture is a man
sitting in a trench writing in a dirty exercise book.
I walk into the sitting room, and look at the table. On the top is
RUPERT the Bear sitting in a small BROOK (we do not need to worry
about where the water goes in our imagination!) This codes for
Rupert Brooke.
Someone seems to have done some moving: a CHEST has been left on
the sofa. Some jeans ( Alphabet System : G=Jeans) are hanging out of
one drawer, and some cake has been left on the top (K=Cake). This
codes for G K Chesterton.
The lamp has a small statuette of a brick WALL over which a female
horse (MARE) is about to jumping. This codes for Walter de la
Mare.
Key Points
The Roman Room technique is similar to the Journey method. It
works by pegging images coding for information to known things, in
this case to objects in a room.
The Roman Room technique is most effective for storing lists of
unlinked information, while the journey method is better for
storing lists of ordered items.
Tags:
Learning Skills, Skills
Method of Loci, is an ancient and effective way of remembering
information where its structure is not important. As an example,
it serves as the basis of one of the powerful mnemonic systems
used to learn languages .
How to Use the Tool
To use the technique, imagine a room that you
know, such as your sitting room, bedroom, office or classroom.
Within the room are objects. Associate images representing the
information you want to remember with the objects in the room. To
recall information, simply take a tour around the room in your
mind, visualizing the known objects and their associated images.
The technique can be expanded by going into more detail, and
keying information to be remembered to smaller objects.
Alternatively you can open doors from your room into other rooms
and use the objects in them as well. As you need them, you can
build extensions to your rooms in your imagination, and fill them
with objects that would logically be there.
You can use other rooms to store other categories of information.
There is no need to restrict this information to rooms: you could
use a landscape or a town you know well, and populate it with
memory images.
The Roman Room technique is just one way of representing your
cognitive map of the information in an easily accessible way.
See the introduction to this chapter for information on how to
enhance the images used for this technique.
Example
For example, I can use my sitting room as a basis for the
technique. In this room I have the following objects:
Table, lamp, sofa, large bookcase, small bookcase, CD rack,
telephone, television, DVD player, chair, mirror, black and white
photographs, etc.
I may want to remember a list of World War I war poets:
Rupert Brooke, G.K. Chesterton, Walter de la Mare, Robert Graves,
Rudyard Kipling, Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon, W.B. Yates
I could visualize walking through my front door. Within this
image, someone has painted a picture on it showing a scene from
the Battle of the Somme. In the center of the picture is a man
sitting in a trench writing in a dirty exercise book.
I walk into the sitting room, and look at the table. On the top is
RUPERT the Bear sitting in a small BROOK (we do not need to worry
about where the water goes in our imagination!) This codes for
Rupert Brooke.
Someone seems to have done some moving: a CHEST has been left on
the sofa. Some jeans ( Alphabet System : G=Jeans) are hanging out of
one drawer, and some cake has been left on the top (K=Cake). This
codes for G K Chesterton.
The lamp has a small statuette of a brick WALL over which a female
horse (MARE) is about to jumping. This codes for Walter de la
Mare.
Key Points
The Roman Room technique is similar to the Journey method. It
works by pegging images coding for information to known things, in
this case to objects in a room.
The Roman Room technique is most effective for storing lists of
unlinked information, while the journey method is better for
storing lists of ordered items.
