A Sneak-peek into the Cognitive World

A Sneak-peek into the Cognitive World

Exquisitely placed on this Earth, humans are a peerless gift of God! This article is dedicated to accentuate the importance of the most remarkable part of the human body  ‘The Braaain!’ Only 15 centimetres long when fully grown, the brain has extremely high levels of memory and incredible speed of processing information. Research has revealed that the world’s fastest supercomputer has a speed of 54.092 petaFLOPS. A petaFLOP is a quadrillion (one thousand trillion) floating point calculations per second; but it does not come near the brain’s high operating speed. The awe striking fact is that our brain operates at a speed of 1 exaFLOP i.e. billion billion calculations per second.

Every individual in this brobdingnagian world has some or the other problem with remembering and recalling data, but there are a few unrevealed modus operandi through which we can hack and crack our memory. Many orthodox methods like rote repetition, flash cards, anxiously putting our hand on our forehead do not help because the brain does not respond well to brute force alone.

The brain is easily able to recollect information if we attach a visual, emotional or spatial allusion to what we want to memorise. The Hippocampus is the part of the brain which is associated with emotions, short and long term memory and spatial navigation. It is also known as the ‘Memory Bank’ of the brain. When there is an amalgamation of different contexts and the ability of spatial navigation - we get a Memory Palace! 

A Memory Palace is a memorisation technique that makes it easier to remember information by giving it a visual and spatial hook. It combines the things that we are bad at (memorising random data) with something that we have been doing for ages (spatial navigation and visual images). The idea of a memory palace is to assign pictures to things we want to remember, place them at well known locations in our mind and then trace a path. If the illustrations of the protean items we want to remember are humorous the brain will comprehend information quicker. We must also have a clean layout of the place we choose as our memory palace.

Analysis has revealed that people who use memory palace and other mnemonic ways to remember data surpass the people who don’t use these methods. These means help to hone the sagacity and persona of an individual and help him reach the apogee of knowledge. So, the next time you try to memorise American history, remember the image of Donald Trump playing cricket. :)