Surprising truths about memory with Dr. Ranganath

Summary

Podcast Summary: Nudge – "Surprising Truths About Memory with Dr. Charan Ranganath"

Introduction In the episode titled "Surprising Truths About Memory," host Phil Agnew engages in an insightful conversation with Dr. Charan Ranganath, a renowned professor at the University of California, Davis, and author of the New York Times bestseller Why We Remember. Released on March 10, 2025, this episode delves deep into the mechanics of memory, debunking common misconceptions and offering practical strategies to enhance our ability to remember effectively.

Understanding Memory: Designed to Forget Phil Agnew opens the discussion by expressing his frustrations with forgetfulness, a sentiment many listeners will find relatable. Dr. Ranganath introduces a paradigm shift by asserting, “we're all designed to forget and that forgetting is actually good. And so rather than trying to remember more, we should try to remember better” (00:35). This foundational idea challenges the common belief that a better memory equates to remembering more information, emphasizing instead the quality and relevance of what we retain.

Historical Perspectives: Ebbinghaus’s Findings The conversation traces back to the 19th-century psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus, whose pioneering work on memory revealed the rapidity with which we forget. Phil cites Ebbinghaus’s research: “by the time this episode is over, there is a 50% chance you will have forgotten the name of that capital” (04:17). Dr. Ranganath elaborates on Ebbinghaus’s experiments with trigrams—meaningless three-letter combinations—to quantify forgetting rates, highlighting that “much of that forgetting happens within two hours of our experience” (06:46).

Types of Memory: Semantic vs. Episodic Dr. Ranganath distinguishes between semantic memory and episodic memory. Semantic memory pertains to general knowledge, such as knowing that "a cat is a cat," whereas episodic memory involves personal experiences tied to specific contexts, like remembering a particular event with one’s cat (10:37). This differentiation underscores that these memory types are processed and stored in distinct brain regions, allowing for more nuanced memory retention and recall.

Impact of Context and Lockdowns on Memory The episode explores how context plays a pivotal role in memory formation. Dr. Ranganath explains that visiting familiar places can trigger a cascade of related memories, a phenomenon known as "mental time travel" (12:12). He connects this to the COVID-19 lockdowns, noting that the lack of varied contexts during prolonged periods of isolation led to impoverished episodic memories and a skewed perception of time passing quickly despite slow days (12:59).

The Problem with Multitasking Phil raises concerns about multitasking, to which Dr. Ranganath responds, “there’s no such thing as multitasking. You just do multiple tasks badly at the same time” (16:36). He emphasizes that frequent task-switching drains executive function, leading to “impoverished memories of what happened” (18:28). Supporting this, the podcast references studies by cognitive neuroscientist Melina Uncuffer, indicating that media multitasking can significantly impair memory and even cause physical thinning of memory-related brain areas.

Strategies to Enhance Memory Dr. Ranganath shares actionable strategies inspired by memory athletes to improve memory retention:

1. Chunking and Spaced Repetition Drawing from George Miller’s research, which suggests humans can hold about seven (or fewer) items in short-term memory, chunking groups information into meaningful units. For example, using mnemonic devices like “Never Eat Soggy Waffles” to remember the planets (23:41). Spaced repetition involves reviewing information at increasing intervals to reinforce memory retention.

2. The Memory Palace (Method of Loci) Dr. Ranganath describes the Memory Palace technique, where individuals visualize placing information within a familiar spatial context, such as their childhood home. This method leverages spatial memory to enhance recall, as illustrated by memory champion Ron White’s ability to memorize and accurately recall a deck of cards by associating each card with specific locations in his mental palace (25:19).

3. Intentional Filming Contrary to mindless recording, Dr. Ranganath advises using devices like phones to capture specific, meaningful moments. “Filming with attention and intention can help with memory retention,” he explains, whereas random filming disrupts the experiential memory and results in “impoverished memory for the experience” (18:48).

Real-World Applications: LeBron James The podcast highlights the exceptional memory of NBA star LeBron James, who can vividly recall intricate details of basketball games. Dr. Ranganath clarifies that James’s ability stems not from superior memory but from structured knowledge and pattern recognition, allowing him to effectively reduce and encode information into essential forms (28:34). This example illustrates that with the right strategies, anyone can significantly enhance their memory capabilities.

Conclusion: Remembering Better with Attention and Intention Phil summarizes the key takeaways: effective memory requires both attention and intention. By avoiding multitasking, employing chunking techniques, utilizing spaced repetition, and adopting structured memory strategies like the Memory Palace, individuals can improve their ability to remember significant information despite the brain’s natural tendency to forget.

Dr. Ranganath reinforces the message, “remember less and remember better” (20:22), encouraging listeners to focus on what truly matters to enhance their memory quality. Phil concludes by reminding listeners that remembering more is achievable for everyone, not just those with extraordinary talents, through dedicated effort and the application of these evidence-backed techniques.

Notable Quotes:

• Dr. Charan Ranganath: “We’re all designed to forget and that forgetting is actually good. And so rather than trying to remember more, we should try to remember better.” (00:35)

• Dr. Charan Ranganath: “Feeling insecure about memory is very, very normal.” (03:25)

• Dr. Charan Ranganath: “The way we direct our attention is crucial to the memories that we form.” (20:22)

• Dr. Charan Ranganath: “Remember less and remember better.” (20:22)

Timestamps:

• [00:35] - Introduction to Forgetting
• [03:25] - Normalizing Forgetfulness
• [04:17] - Ebbinghaus’s Forgetting Curve
• [06:46] - Rapid Forgetting Post-Experience
• [10:37] - Differentiating Semantic and Episodic Memory
• [12:12] - Contextual Memory and Lockdowns
• [12:59] - Impact of Monotony on Memory
• [16:36] - The Myth of Multitasking
• [18:28] - Impairment from Media Multitasking
• [18:48] - Intentional Filming for Memory
• [20:22] - The Role of Attention and Intention
• [23:41] - Chunking and Miller’s Rule
• [25:19] - Memory Palace Technique
• [28:34] - LeBron James’s Structured Memory

Final Thoughts This episode of Nudge offers a comprehensive exploration of memory, blending historical insights with modern research and practical advice. Dr. Charan Ranganath’s expertise provides listeners with a deeper understanding of how memory works and equips them with effective strategies to enhance their own memory capabilities. Whether you struggle with forgetfulness like Phil or seek to optimize your cognitive functions, the episode delivers valuable, actionable insights to remember better.

Transcript

[Phil Agnew]

I've spent a lot of my life chastising myself for forgetting. I'm annoyed when I can't find my keys. I'm frustrated when I double book an event. I'm infuriated when I try and recall the tiny bit of Spanish I Learned back in 2019. I feel frustrated because I feel my brain is not functioning properly. I should be able to remember more. I feel like everyone around me has a better memory than me. I felt like that until I read the book why We Remember. In this New York Times bestseller, the author presents a different point of view.

[Charan Ranganath]

And so the premise of the book is that we're all designed to forget and that forgetting is actually good. And so rather than trying to remember more, we should try to remember better.

[Phil Agnew]

Over the course of our hour long conversation, he revealed surprising truths about memory, debunking a lot of the conventional wisdom and reassuring me that forgetting is an entirely normal if you want to understand why we forget, and if you want some simple tactics to improve your memory, keep listening marketing in 2025 isn't getting any easier. Customers are more switched on, they're harder to reach, and they're quick to spot anything that isn't authentic. Most marketing teams are stretched thin. They're expected to do more with less, while proving that every pound spent is worth it. That's why HubSpot's 2025 Marketing Trends Report focuses on what actually works marketing teams. There's no fluff, it's just practical advice from teams that get results. Inside, you'll find a straightforward guide to using AI without any complex jargon. You'll find ready made templates for videos and visuals. You'll learn about a smarter way to work with influencers and finding people you can actually trust. And you'll even learn clear ways to prove to your boss that your marketing is paying off. All of it is based on solid research, but more importantly, it's useful. It's something you can apply straight away if you're dealing with tight budgets or tough targets, or just trying to keep up. This report should help to download HubSpot's 2025 Marketing Trends Report. Head to HubSpot.com marketing to download it for free. Today I am speaking to a professor who has spent the past 25 years studying the mechanisms of memory.

[Charan Ranganath]

I'm Charan Ranganath. I'm a professor at the center for Neuroscience in the Department of Psychology at the University of California at Davis. I'm a of the Dynamic Memory Lab and I'm author of the book why We Remember.

[Phil Agnew]

Available worldwide now, Charan's book is a New York Times bestseller. It has been voted the book of the year by Times, London, Amazon Books and the Financial Times. In it, he offers a radically new explanation for how and why we remember.

[Charan Ranganath]

I was approached in 2020 about writing a self help book about memory. I wanted to instead write a book to reframe how people think about memory. And so the premise of the book is that we're all designed to forget and that forgetting is actually good. And so rather than trying to remember more, we should try to remember better. But basically the point of the book is really that memory is a resource that we want to take with us and use so we can understand the present and navigate the future.

[Phil Agnew]

To start, Charan was quick to reassure me that my anxiety about forgetfulness was entirely normal.

[Charan Ranganath]

Feeling insecure about memory is very, very normal. When I tell people I'm a memory expert, 70 to 90% of people in the audience will tell me that they have a bad memory or that they wish they could remember more. But the fact of the matter is that everyone who's been studied forgets and that in fact, many of the details of our experiences are forgotten within 24 hours. Probably the majority of those details. We often get the gist of what happened and we can keep it with us. But there's so much that we forget. Forgetting is the default in the brain, and rather than asking, why do I forget so much? We should really be asking, why do we remember anything at all?

[Phil Agnew]

Hermann Ebbinghaus pioneered the study of memory back in the 19th century. His findings, which still hold true today, reveal just how quickly we forget. For example, let me tell you a small the capital of Tuvalu is Funafuti. According to Ebbinghaus research, by the time this episode is over, there is a 50% chance you will have forgotten the name of that capital. Tomorrow there is only a 33 chance you'll remember it. And by next week, it is highly unlikely that you will be able to recall Tuvalu's capital at all. Contrary to popular belief, our brains aren't video cameras recording everything we see and everything we hear. They are quite different.

[Charan Ranganath]

In fact. Actually, our brains are extraordinarily economical with the kinds of memories that we form. And so it's not at all like a photograph or a video camera. We get some details, but a lot of what we get is information that we interpret through the lens of our prior knowledge. I think one of the big myths that people really have is that memory should be effortless. And it should be completely accurate. Neither are true. Learning and remembering is often quite effortful. Sometimes we get memories for free, but often it requires a lot of intention and a lot of focus and sometimes it's inaccurate. And we have to be very careful to monitor the accuracy of our memories and be careful about that. I think those are some very common myths that I hope to bust in the book.

[Phil Agnew]

Forming a solid memory won't happen naturally. Naturally our brains will try to forget. To make a memory stand out, Choran writes, how we need attention and intention. He gives an example. Say you typically lose your keys. Rather than blaming your poor memory, you could do this. You could take a moment to focus on something that is unique to the specific time and place where you put your keys, such as the colour of the countertop or the stack of unopened mail next to the keys. Churan says that with a little bit of mindful intention, we can combat our brain's natural inclination to tune things out and build more distinctive memories that have a fighting chance against all the interfering clamour of daily life. Chiran knows this should work because it builds on Ebbinghaus's pioneering work on memory.

[Charan Ranganath]

Herman Ebbinghaus was a foundational figure in memory research. He was arguably the first person to try to quantify how people remember and how people forget. A lot of philosophers and, and others had described memory, but you couldn't really quantify it. And so what Ebbinghaus did was he came up with this approach where he would basically, he would take these meaningless words that he made up, like zug or baff or something like that. There were these three letter words, he called them trigrams. And so he would just get these massive numbers of these trigrams and try to memorize them. And then later on he would look at how long it would take for him to forget this information. And what he found was the speed at which he forgot that information was incredibly rapid. He would lose this information very, very quickly. Within one day, he would have lost, let's say, 60 to 80% of what he had tried to memorize before. It's remarkable, really, and, and much of that forgetting happens within two hours of our experience.

[Phil Agnew]

Now, it should be said that Ebbinghaus discovered tactics to remember more as well. He pioneered an approach known as spaced repetition. He'd review his nonsense words at increasing intervals. So once a day and then once every three days, and then once a week and then once a fortnight, review the capital of Tuvalu over this interval and you will definitely remember it. If you don't do this, it's highly likely you'll forget.

[Charan Ranganath]

Memory researchers often don't make this point clear, although everybody in my field knows it, which is the implications are that the majority of our experiences will be forgotten. And in fact, your listeners, if they take away, let's say, a little bit more than half of what I'm telling them within four hours, then we've done a great job. We've succeeded beyond my wildest dreams. Most likely people won't remember a single word that I said, but if they get the basic ideas that, and they keep, they hold onto them, that's a huge success.

[Phil Agnew]

However, ebbinghaus research is 130 years old. We must have learned much more about memory since then.

[Charan Ranganath]

We have dramatically improved our understanding of memory since Ebbinghaus. I'll just give a couple of key examples that I describe in the book. One of the big things that we learned is there's different kinds of memory in the brain. Endel Tolving, a psychologist who made massive contributions to the study of memory, came up with this idea in the 1970s. Basically, he was coming from this approach of looking at the work of people like Ebbinghaus and many people since then, and they would see memory as this kind of repository of associations. So basically, you know, cat is somewhat related to a dog. You know, cat has fur, and you can memorize new information. Like, you know, I had a cat named Snoop and I can memorize that information, but it was all one big storage space. And what Endel argued is, is no, we have at least two different kinds of memory. One is this knowledge of the world, the knowledge about cats that we have. But another is my memories of spending time with my cat and the time that he escaped from my house and he came back, he had clearly gotten into some fight and he had a broken tooth. And so. So those are the kinds of memories for events that once they're uniquely associated with a particular time in our life.

[Phil Agnew]

Semantic memory is general knowledge. It's not tied to personal experience. It's how we know a cat is a cat and a dog is a dog. But episodic memory is different. It's personal experience that happens once. It's Ciran's memory of his cat's fight. These two memory types are different. In fact, there's evidence to say that they form different parts of the brain.

[Charan Ranganath]

Semantic memory is organized by content, sort of what happened, who was there. Episodic memory is organized by context, meaning when did something happen, where did something happen? Because episodic Memory is organized by context. When we remember something, we can travel back in time to that moment. And this is something that I found in our neuroscience research. And many people found other kinds of evidence for this Just by studying people's behavior. But basically, what we've found is if you scan people's brains and they remember something, the brain activity seems to reboot to the state that it was in when that event took place. And people are much better at remembering other stuff that happened during that time period.

[Phil Agnew]

Episodic memory explains why a perfumed smell can make us remember our first crush. It explains why a song might transport us back to a feeling we had at school. And it explains why tasting fresh fish might conjure up memories of a childhood holiday. It also explains why people get better at remembering something. When they physically visit the place where the memories were originally formed.

[Charan Ranganath]

You go back to your school that you haven't been to since you were a child, and it brings back some memory of being on the playground. But then, mentally, you are back in time, and you can actually pull up other information from that same period of time. And sometimes memories come flooding back as a result. Context is an extraordinarily powerful tool to remember, and it's an extraordinarily powerful vehicle for mental time travel.

[Phil Agnew]

When we physically visit an old school, that context allows us to remember additional information. This is why the coronavirus lockdowns actually harmed our memories. With all of our memories being made within one location or even one room, we struggled to remember as much.

[Charan Ranganath]

When I talk about context in the brain, I'm not talking about it as this kind of a clock that we have. It's really more of a sense of the world changing around us. But the problem is, during lockdowns, we were basically stuck in our chairs for much of the day, doing the same thing, sitting in front of the computer for long periods of time. And so our context didn't change nearly as much. And so I was doing remote teaching at the time to keep the students attention. I would give people these polls and ask them to respond. And so one day, I just had the idea. I just asked people, do you feel like the days go by more slowly or more quickly or about the same as they did before lockdowns? Almost everyone in this class, and it must have had about 150 to 180 people. Almost everyone in the class said that the days were passing by more slowly. And I'm sure many listeners here who lived through the lockdowns can relate to this. Now, then I asked the question, do you feel like the weeks were passing more slowly or more quickly. Not as many, but about 80% said the weeks were passing by more quickly. During the course of a day, people were doing the same thing over and over, and so they didn't feel like time was passing very quickly because of the fact that our contexts weren't changing much. But at the end of the week, you look back and you say, well, what happened? And all you've got is I sat in front of the computer. And so the kind of poverty you have in episodic memories because you're doing so much repetitive stuff and these memories are just kind of blurring all into one experience. It felt like time was passing by too quickly.

[Phil Agnew]

The days were boring, they lacked novelty. So the time passed slowly, but we formed so few significant memories that on reflection, it felt like the weeks passed very quickly. A monotonous month spent indoors might seem slow in the moment, but our lack of memories will make it feel fast. When reviewing it in the future, say you're on an exciting city break, exploring a new capital with your partner. During that day, the time will fly by, but your memory of that event will seem long and rich. Our brains aren't video cameras. They are actually designed to forget, and they're designed to forget a lot. But we can fight forgetfulness. There are strategies that anyone can use to remember more, and Charan will share those after this quick break. He'll even share some scientific evidence on why filming with your phone at a concert will worsen your experience. This podcast is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals and the podcast I would like to recommend today is Content is Profit. It is hosted by my friends Luis and Fonzie. On the show, they showcase the secrets and strategies about how your business can achieve a frictionless sale. The duo talk about frameworks, strategies, tactics, and even bring special guests on to provide you all the information you need to turn your content into into profit. I think it's a fantastic show. There's loads of fantastic episodes they've created, including one episode with me. So go and listen to Content is Profit wherever you get your podcasts. Hello and welcome back to Nudge with me, Phil Agnew. So far, Joran's explained how our memory works, but I wanted to know how I could remember more. I asked Charan for advice and he started by telling me to stop multitasking.

[Charan Ranganath]

My friend Earl Miller said it best, which is there's no such thing as multitasking. You just do multiple tasks badly at the same time, people really switch back and forth between different tasks that they're doing. And so just to make this concrete, let's say if I thought I wanted to be efficient, I could check my email while we're talking and I could be, look, sending text messages while we're talking. But what happens is, is that every time that I switch between these different tasks, I have to use a little bit of my mental control, what we call executive function, to pull up the new idea that I want to be following. If I want to read an email, I have to pull up. Okay, how do what, what's involved in reading email now? I'm behind schedule, though, on being able to keep up with what you're talking about because I was doing this other thing. And so because we switch back and forth between these different tasks, we're sacrificing our experiences in the different things that we are doing. It's more tiring, it's more stressful, and we are left with these very impoverished memories of what happened.

[Phil Agnew]

Cognitive neuroscientist Melina Uncuffer of UC San Francisco and her colleagues have shown that media multitasking, so toggling between different media streams such as text messages and email, that can dramatically impair memory. Sitting in a lecture while checking WhatsApp is a sure fire way to forget what's being said. There is even evidence to suggest that parts of the brain designated for memory become physically thinned out in people who consistently multitask. Those of us who regularly attempt to do multiple things at once actually get worse at remembering everything.

[Charan Ranganath]

In fact, every time we switch, there's a good reason to think that we're probably encoding a fragment of these memories. And so that's going to be really hard to remember later on.

[Phil Agnew]

And this is why using your phone to film something you want to remember, like a concert or a sport event, well, that's a pretty silly idea.

[Charan Ranganath]

The underlying assumption is you want to have a memory of what the performer is doing. Realistically, you don't go to a concert just to hear the songs. You go to the concert for the experience, the experience of hearing the songs. When we mindlessly film things, we pull ourselves out of that experience. To make matters worse, most people don't actually go back to these videos again and again. And so what you're left with is this very impoverished memory for the experience. Now you can film a concert in a way that's very mindful. You can say, hey, here's a moment that I really want to remember and I'm Going to use the camera to actually focus me on it. This, whether it's something that the artist is saying that's really moving you, or like a particular song that you love, or, you know, filming your friends and the reactions that you're having to this thing. And if you go back to those smaller number of photos and videos that you have and you pull up those memories that are associated with them, that's a great way to create a memorable experience as opposed to a forgettable one.

[Phil Agnew]

Filming is okay if it's done with attention and intention. If you intentionally want to capture your friend's reaction to her favourite song coming on, then that'll help with memory retention. If you mindlessly film at random intervals, you'll only harm your memory of your favourite concert. But Chiran was quick to tell me that there is a difference between attention and intention. And understanding this difference could be key to helping us improve our memories.

[Charan Ranganath]

Often when we do form memories, they're related to whatever we pay attention to. So if you actually compare older and younger people, older people are usually worse at remembering the things that they're supposed to be paying attention to, but they're not worse at the things that are supposed to be ignored on the periphery. So that's an interesting phenomenon right there. And it tells you that the way we direct our attention is crucial to the memories that we form. I talk about intention in that way, which means that if you go into an experience with the knowledge that much of it will be forgotten. You need to start off and just ask yourself, what's the important thing that I want to remember in the first place? So again, rather than assuming it's just going to come to you, you need to start off with the intention of really trying to get the information that's most valuable to you. The biggest thing is, is that people just don't focus on what they want to remember in the first place. They don't come in with any kind of intention. And so that to me is really important because if not, you're just going to get kind of a random sample of your experiences in the attempt to remember more, you're remembering worse. And so my philosophy is to remember less and remember better.

[Phil Agnew]

Which probably leads you to wonder, what strategies can we use to remember more? Well, Chiran says we can follow the strategies used by the so called memory athletes.

[Charan Ranganath]

There's a whole group of people called memory athletes. And these people go into competitions to see how much they can memorize. And so they might try to memorize a deck of cards or they Might try to memorize the digits of PI as many as they can. Yenya Wintersole did a beautiful example where she created a video showing that she had memorized the entire IKEA catalog.

[Phil Agnew]

The IKEA catalog that she memorized is 328 pages long. With her eyes shut, she was asked to recall what was on page 16, and she described the picture perfectly.

[Charan Ranganath]

The dad is wearing glasses.

[Phil Agnew]

The son, I don't think so.

[Charan Ranganath]

On the hemnes bookcase on the top, there's, like a trumpet, then a little.

[Phil Agnew]

Sculpture in bluish darkish, and that's also wearing glasses.

[Charan Ranganath]

Now, when you look at these things, you think, okay, this person must have some great ability. But in fact, what they're doing is they have strategies that allow them to memorize less so that they can remember more. Our world is extraordinarily complicated if you want to memorize anything. It really helps if you can meaningfully reduce the amount of information that you're trying to memorize. If I were to tell you Jane took her dog to the supermarket to buy some groceries, there's not really a whole lot of words you would have to memorize there. You could really just encode that as one event, as one concept, basically. And so we have all of this structured knowledge in our brains that allow us to reduce the amount of information that we're trying to memorize.

[Phil Agnew]

In 1956, George Miller published a famous paper on the limits of human memory. His research showed that we can only hold about seven items in our mind at once. Now, newer studies have actually suggested that the limit is closer to three or four. However, you can bypass this limit by using chunking. Chunking compresses information into meaningful units, Making it easier to retain and recall. You probably unconsciously use chunking to make information easier to recall. Already. You might say, never eat shredded wheat to remember the compass directions, for example. Or you might say, my very easy method just speeds up naming to remember the planets in our solar system system. Rather than remembering the order of eight different planets, Chunking means we only have to remember one structure, one sentence. And this allows us to overcome George Miller's limit.

[Charan Ranganath]

And it just so happens when you have these memory athletes, they're using systematic strategies that are tuned up to memorizing all this arbitrary information. They're basically taking all this arbitrary information and structuring it. So you can find videos of memory athletes where they get an entire deck of cards, and they have to just look quickly and memorize them in order. And what you find is, is that people will often have a way of recoding the cards into, like, particular names that then they can make a story out of these names or they can make a story out of these characters.

[Phil Agnew]

Chiran is bang on. Here's a recording of memory champion Ron White explaining how he memorizes a deck of cards in just two minutes.

[C]

But you have to turn every card into a picture. Queen of hearts. And you make that somebody that you love because it's a heart and queen is a woman, so maybe your mom. And then let's make the jack of clubs be a singer because they sing in a dance club and their name starts with J. I like Johnny Cash. So once you've done this for every single card, you have 52 pictures for 52 cards. Then next you need to implement a technique called the Mind Palace.

[Charan Ranganath]

And other things that people might be familiar with are the memory palace. For anyone who's seen the show Sherlock, you might be familiar with this. Sherlock uses this trick where when he has to memorize something, he imagines putting it in a particular place, in a context that he knows. So, for instance, if you had your child at home, you could imagine putting all these things that you have to memorize in different rooms of the house. And this goes back to, I believe, the ancient Greeks used this technique, which was called the method of loci. And so what you can do is by putting all these objects or all these words or whatever it is they memorize into this mental house that you have, you can then walk through the house and see all of these things that you're trying to remember.

[Phil Agnew]

There is a very important lesson here. A memory expert like Rong White won't just remember more because he is gifted with an incredible brain. No, he structures what he sees into easy to remember chunks. This means he can overcome Miller's rule of seven because he doesn't need to remember 52 cards. He just needs to remember objects in his childhood house and link them to each card. Herb Simon, a 1970s psychologist, proved that memory experts aren't any different from us by studying chess grandmasters. These grandmasters have an uncanny ability to recall chess positions from real games with remarkable accuracy. Just like the protagonist in Queen's Gambit, they literally can play an entire game of chess in their head. However, in Herb Simon's test, he created chess boards that had pieces placed randomly all over the board in positions that totally violated the rules of chess. When the grandmasters were asked to memorise these boards, boards where the positions of the pieces violated the rules, the grandmaster's memory, their ability to Recall that board significantly dropped. It dropped back down to amateur levels. They didn't remember any more than the rest of us. It showed that these people, these grandmasters, they don't have superior memory. They just have structures and patterns that they use to remember more. And it's not just chess players and card counters. Basketball players can do the same.

[Charan Ranganath]

So one thing I talk about is LeBron James. And LeBron James has got the NBA record for scoring all time in his career. And so he's clearly one of the greatest basketball players of all time. But he also has an incredible memory for basketball games. So he would go on press conferences and people would say, describe what happened during this game. The start of the fourth, I think they cut at the 14. Do you have any idea of what happened there?

[D]

What happened? We ran him the first possession. We ran him down all the way to two on the shot clock. Marcus Morris missed a jump shot, followed it up. He got. They got a dunk. We came back down. We ran a set for Jordan Crawford, I mean, Jordan Clarkson, and he came off and missed it. They rebounded and we came back on the defensive end and we got a stop. They took it out on the sideline. Jason Tatum took the ball out, threw it to Marcus Smart in the short corner. He made it three. We come back down, missed another shot. Tatum came down and went 94ft. Did a euro step. I made a right hand layup. Timeout. There you go.

[Charan Ranganath]

And he could describe it so well that if you put him talking about the video, the game, and a video of the game, it almost looks like he's watching a video of the game in his mind. But in fact, what he's really using is he's using his structured knowledge of all of the different games that he's seen. So it's as if he has a mental library. Because he studied the game, he's intelligently dissecting the game so that when he's in real time on the court, he's not seeing everything. He's actually reducing that information into its essential form.

[Phil Agnew]

Great. Memory doesn't come naturally, at least not for most of us. First, it requires attention. If we multitask and get distracted, we will forget. But that is not enough. It also requires intention. That could be by following Ebbinghaus advice and repeating the memory in spaced intervals. Or we could use Ron White's technique to chunk our memories into structures that we can find and easily recall. Now, none of this is actually easy. It takes a lot of time and effort. But it is possible, even for forgetful people like me to remember more. So let's stop beating ourselves up about our memory. Forgetting, as Charan says, is entirely natural. It's actually a sign of a functioning brain. And it's important for all of us to remember that. Remembering more is within reach for all of us. Remembering more is within reach for all of us. It's not limited to those with extraordinary talent. All it requires is a bit of attention and intention. Okay, folks, I will finish today's show by asking, how many of you remember the capital of Tuvalu? Be honest, don't look it up. Do you remember what the capital is? If you did well done, you were paying attention. If not, well, it seems like I have more work to do to make this podcast a bit more engaging. I would like to know if you remembered. So please do send me an email to let me know. Everyone who subscribes to my newsletter actually gets my email address and I respond to every email. So to let me know, just go to nudgepodcast.com, click newsletter, hit subscribe, and then respond to my email to let me know. Or you can just click the link in the show notes. The link to my newsletter is there too. I want to say a massive thank you to Chiran for coming on the show. He was a wonderful guest and he's a fantastic author. His book why We Remember is the best book I've ever read on memory, at least from my memory. But seriously, it was fantastic. I've left a link to it in the show notes, so click there to go pick up a copy. Truran will be back on Nudge in a few weeks for another episode. There he'll share the curious story of a Satanist who had her memory altered. It's a cracker, so subscribe to Nudge wherever you get your podcasts to make sure you don't miss it. That's all for this week, folks. Thank you so much for listening. Bye.