Research note 04 · 2 min read · Updated 4 November 2026
The method of loci: how the memory palace works
The method of loci, often called a memory palace, places things you want to remember at locations along a route you already know. It is more than two thousand years old and still used by memory champions.
Classical writers credited the method to the poet Simonides of Ceos, and Roman texts on rhetoric describe it as a way for speakers to remember long speeches. Frances Yates traced its history from antiquity through the Renaissance in The Art of Memory.
Choose a route you know well, such as the walk through your home. Pick a series of fixed stops in order: the door, the hall table, the kitchen sink. For each item you want to remember, create a vivid image and place it at the next stop.
To recall, walk the route in your mind and look at each stop. The route supplies the order, and the unusual images make the items easier to retrieve.
Maguire and colleagues compared leading memory competitors with matched controls. The competitors did not differ in general cognitive ability or in brain structure. Most reported using spatial strategies like the method of loci, and while memorising they showed more activity in brain regions involved in spatial memory and navigation.
Dresler and colleagues trained people with no prior experience in the method for six weeks. Their recall of word lists improved substantially, the gains were still present at a four-month follow-up, and their patterns of brain connectivity became more similar to those of memory athletes.
The method works best for lists of things you can picture, and it takes practice before it feels natural. It is a technique for particular material, not a general upgrade to memory. Abstract details, such as a reference number, need to be turned into an image first.
- Yates, F. A. (1966). The Art of Memory. Routledge & Kegan Paul.
- Maguire, E. A., Valentine, E. R., Wilding, J. M., & Kapur, N. (2003). Routes to remembering: The brains behind superior memory. Nature Neuroscience, 6(1), 90–95. doi:10.1038/nn988
- Dresler, M., Shirer, W. R., Konrad, B. N., Müller, N. C. J., Wagner, I. C., Fernández, G., Czisch, M., & Greicius, M. D. (2017). Mnemonic training reshapes brain networks to support superior memory. Neuron, 93(5), 1227–1235. doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2017.02.003
These notes summarise published research for general readers. They are not medical advice.