"Piloting London’s distinctive black cabs (taxis to everyone else) is no easy feat. To earn the privilege, drivers have to pass an intense intellectual ordeal, known charmingly as The Knowledge. Ever since 1865, they’ve had to memorise the location of every street within six miles of Charing Cross – all 25,000 of the capital’s arteries, veins and capillaries. They also need to know the locations of 20,000 landmarks – museums, police stations, theatres, clubs, and more – and 320 routes that connect everything up." Acquiring The Knowledge changes the brains of those who acquire it.
posted by vidur on Dec 8, 2011 - 73 comments

Working memory of numerals in chimpanzees. Are you smarter than a chimpanzee?
posted by homunculus on Dec 3, 2007 - 41 comments

Mapping Memory. "Turn the human brain upside down and all around to see how memories are saved (or lost)." National Geographic has a great interactive 3D map of the brain as part of an excellent feature on memory. [more inside]
posted by homunculus on Oct 24, 2007 - 5 comments

Ginkgo supplements don’t help...Um...................um...... A new study suggests ginkgo supplements do nothing to quickly improve memory in healthy people, a finding that goes against years of well-publicized claims that helped turn the supplements into a multimillion-dollar industry.
posted by DailyBread on Aug 20, 2002 - 25 comments

How easily can false memories be created through advertisements? Could you be convinced that Bugs Bunny was at Disneyland? Full results from a larger study will be revealed soon. "Is it OK for marketers to knowingly manipulate consumers' past?"
posted by gluechunk on Sep 4, 2001 - 4 comments