Some mnemonists also memorize texts such as long poems, speeches, or even entire books of fiction or non-fiction.
Generally, short-term memory has a capacity of seven items;[2] however, in order to memorize long strings of unrelated information, this constraint must be overcome.
Skilled memory theory involves three steps: meaningful encoding, retrieval structure, and speed-up.
This may initially involve breaking down long lists into more manageable chunks that fall within the capacity of short term memory.
Luria reported that Solomon Shereshevsky used synesthesia to associate numbers and words as visual images or colors to encode the information presented to him, but Luria did not clearly distinguish between synesthesia and mnemonic techniques like the method of loci and number shapes.
[8] The method of loci is "the use of an orderly arrangement of locations into which one could place the images of things or people that are to be remembered.
Finally, this set of images can be distributed in a "locus", or place within the architectural area in a pre-determined order.
An fMRI recorded brain activity in memory experts and a control group as they were memorizing selected data.
Previous studies have shown that teaching a control group the method of loci leads to changes in brain activation during memorization.
These differences were observable even when the memory experts were trying to memorize stimuli, such as snowflakes, where they showed no superior ability to the control group.
The innateness of expert performance in the memory field has been studied thoroughly by many scientists; it is a matter which has still not been definitively resolved.
One subject, SF, a college student of average intelligence, was able to attain world-class memory performance after hundreds of hours of practice over two years.
[3] Similarly, adults of average intelligence taught encoding strategies also show large gains in memory performance.
Unfortunately, many savants who have performed memory feats, such as Kim Peek, have not been rigorously studied; they do claim not to need to use encoding strategies.