# Surprising truths about memory with Dr. Ranganath  ## Episode metadata - Episode title: Surprising truths about memory with Dr. Ranganath - Show: Nudge - Owner / Host: Phill Agnew - Guests: [Charan Ranganath](https://share.snipd.com/person/514a2f42-2a0a-4af1-b522-3b811afafcb7) - Episode publish date: 2025-03-10 - Episode AI description: Dr. Charan Ranganath, a Professor at the Center for Neuroscience and author of 'Why We Remember,' shares fascinating insights into the science of memory. He explains why forgetting is a natural process that can actually benefit us. Listeners discover how multitasking disrupts memory and why recording concerts might undermine our experiences. Ranganath also reveals techniques used by memory athletes that can help enhance recall, urging us to adopt strategies that promote intentional learning and improve memory retention. - Mentioned books: [Why We Remember](https://share.snipd.com/book/725c24bb-a13a-4091-ab9f-1a83915424c9) by [Charan Ranganath](https://share.snipd.com/person/514a2f42-2a0a-4af1-b522-3b811afafcb7) - Duration: 31:43 - Episode URL: [Open in Snipd](https://share.snipd.com/episode/1c2a3787-f428-499c-850c-24a319678549) - Show URL: [Open in Snipd](https://share.snipd.com/show/368e312d-6ad3-475a-91a9-12d5e97283fb) - Export date: 2026-02-11T20:06:35 ## Snips ### [Forgetting Is Good](https://share.snipd.com/snip/73fc4c12-00ea-45a1-b274-36155823088c) 🎧 02:51 - 03:25 (00:33) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/99271822-1a13-4b1f-a2d6-2734903a08e2" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - We are designed to forget, and forgetting is beneficial. - Instead of striving to remember everything, focus on remembering better. - Memory is a resource to understand the present and navigate the future. #### 💬 Quote > The premise of the book is that we're all designed to forget, and that forgetting is actually good. [...] we should try to remember better. > — Charan Ranganath Charan Ranganath on the core idea of his book "Why We Remember" #### 📚 Transcript **Dr. Charan Ranganath:** I was approached in 2020 about writing a self-help book about memory. I wanted to instead write a book 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. --- ### [Forgetting Is Normal](https://share.snipd.com/snip/fa422a26-e1fc-4d13-a0af-ac6e2e688cef) 🎧 03:25 - 04:17 (00:51) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/2242a994-1532-4a93-b12a-35ebe232f9c0" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - Forgetting is a normal brain function, not a flaw. - Most people experience forgetfulness and desire to remember more. #### 💬 Quote > Feeling insecure about memory is very, very normal. [...] everyone who's been studied forgets. > — Charan Ranganath Charan Ranganath on the normalcy of forgetting #### 📚 Transcript **Phill Agnew:** start, Turan was quick to reassure me that my anxiety about forgetfulness was entirely normal. Feeling **Dr. Charan Ranganath:** insecure about memory is very, very normal. When I tell people I'm a memory expert, 70 to 90 percent 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, 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? --- ### [Rapid Forgetting](https://share.snipd.com/snip/80c40232-a7f0-4fec-9400-757d424062cd) 🎧 04:18 - 05:56 (01:38) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/b66c1d7c-4933-4cb6-95db-de9ff3e6e087" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - We forget information rapidly, as shown by Ebbinghaus's forgetting curve. - Our brains are economical, not video cameras, interpreting information through prior knowledge. #### 💬 Quote > According to Ebbinghaus's research, by the time this episode is over, there is a 50% chance you will have forgotten the name of that capital [of Tuvalu]. > — Phil Agnew Phil Agnew summarizing the forgetting curve #### 📚 Transcript **Phill Agnew:** 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 fact. The capital of Tuvalu is Funafuti. According to Ebbinghaus's 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. In **Dr. Charan Ranganath:** 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. --- ### [Intentional Memory](https://share.snipd.com/snip/7aa221e8-9d10-4549-804d-f599fa0e8dce) 🎧 05:56 - 06:40 (00:43) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/e3cf1f85-5a2d-4755-9409-3cbbfdd1fefe" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - To remember better, focus on unique details when placing items like keys. - Mindful intention helps combat our brain's natural tendency to forget. #### 💬 Quote > [...] with a little bit of mindful intention, we can combat our brain's natural inclination to tune things out and build more distinctive memories [...]. > — Phil Agnew Phil Agnew on how to improve memory #### 📚 Transcript **Phill Agnew:** a solid memory won't happen naturally. Naturally, our brains will try to forget. To make a memory stand out, Turan 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. Turan 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. --- ### [Types of Memory](https://share.snipd.com/snip/09272e1e-943e-428d-99bd-29b8c7a1694b) 🎧 09:11 - 11:44 (02:32) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/299dac17-fd0f-401a-883f-f338c4095827" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - The brain has different memory types: semantic (general knowledge) and episodic (personal experiences). - Episodic memory is organized by context (time and place), enabling mental time travel. #### 💬 Quote > One of the big things that we learned is there's different kinds of memory in the brain. > — Charan Ranganath Charan Ranganath on memory systems in the brain #### 📚 Transcript **Dr. Charan Ranganath:** 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 Evinghouse 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, 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. So those are the kinds of memories for events that happen only once. They're uniquely associated with a particular time in our life. **Phill 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 Turan'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. Semantic **Dr. Charan Ranganath:** memory is organised 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've found in our neuroscience research, and many people have 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. --- ### [Context and Memory](https://share.snipd.com/snip/4124d460-db3e-4d4d-b1ae-7cebd04b7936) 🎧 11:48 - 12:40 (00:51) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/fab7150b-9c5a-4e02-ae92-ccd2abb5a0cd" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - Sensory cues can trigger episodic memories, transporting us back to specific moments. - Revisiting physical locations strengthens memories due to context reinstatement. #### 💬 Quote > Episodic memory explains why a perfumed smell can make us remember our first crush. > — Phil Agnew Phil Agnew explaining episodic memory #### 📚 Transcript **Phill 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. You **Dr. Charan Ranganath:** 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 --- ### [Lockdowns and Memory](https://share.snipd.com/snip/face430c-c71e-4c10-ba89-f13373b262e9) 🎧 12:40 - 14:47 (02:07) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/7b433167-d1a9-42b9-b947-6e693b2a743c" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - Coronavirus lockdowns negatively impacted memory formation due to limited context changes. - Monotonous routines blur memories, making time feel slow in the moment but fast in retrospect. #### 💬 Quote > The days were boring, they lacked novelty, so the time passed slowly. > — Phil Agnew Phil Agnew describing the impact of lockdowns #### 📚 Transcript **Phill Agnew:** time travel. 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. When **Dr. Charan Ranganath:** 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 a 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, felt like time was passing by too quickly. --- ### [Stop Multitasking](https://share.snipd.com/snip/23836658-d444-4e1e-a12b-112560e5d771) 🎧 16:30 - 18:40 (02:09) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/a741e31f-3c48-470f-a4df-524271c83b48" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - Avoid multitasking to improve memory, as it leads to impoverished memories. - Multitasking forces the brain to switch between tasks, hindering proper encoding. #### 💬 Quote > My friend Earl Miller said it best, which is, there's no such thing as multitasking. > — Charan Ranganath Charan Ranganath advising against multitasking #### 📚 Transcript **Phill Agnew:** I asked Turan for advice, and he started by telling me to stop multitasking. My **Dr. Charan Ranganath:** 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 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, OK, 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. Cognitive **Phill Agnew:** neuroscientist Melina Unkafer 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 our memory. Sitting in a lecture while checking WhatsApp is a surefire 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. In **Dr. Charan Ranganath:** 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. And --- ### [Mindful Filming](https://share.snipd.com/snip/23cfe289-2c98-4403-aada-0aa51ff5f5d4) 🎧 18:40 - 19:56 (01:16) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/28810f46-2f90-4611-8805-0ad589c28630" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - Avoid mindlessly filming events; it detracts from the experience and weakens memory. - Instead, film intentionally to focus on specific moments and enhance recall. #### 💬 Quote > When we mindlessly film things, we pull ourselves out of that experience. > — Charan Ranganath Charan Ranganath on mindful filming #### 📚 Transcript **Phill Agnew:** 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. **Dr. 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 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 numbers 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. --- ### [Attention and Intention](https://share.snipd.com/snip/4e3c0548-8830-44d7-b43b-9090b6d26f08) 🎧 20:06 - 21:46 (01:40) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/1a5456d3-a1e1-4786-92c2-c020f10773d3" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - Focus your attention and have the intention to remember important information. - Don't rely on passive absorption; actively engage with the experience. #### 💬 Quote > The biggest thing is, is that people just don't focus on what they want to remember in the first place. > — Charan Ranganath Charan Ranganath on intention in remembering #### 📚 Transcript **Phill Agnew:** 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. Often **Dr. Charan Ranganath:** 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 perforate. 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. --- ### [Chunking Information](https://share.snipd.com/snip/4a68e49e-d955-4a00-82bd-cafce62ddd03) 🎧 21:46 - 27:59 (06:12) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/48c20af0-06c8-4b71-acc2-c956ec537b47" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - Use chunking, like memory athletes, to overcome memory limits. - Structure information into meaningful units to make it easier to retain and recall. #### 💬 Quote > 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. > — Charan Ranganath Charan Ranganath on memory athletes #### 📚 Transcript **Phill Agnew:** Which probably leads you to wonder, what strategies can we use to remember more? Well, Turan says we can follow the strategies used by the so-called memory athletes. There's **Dr. Charan Ranganath:** a whole group of people called memory athletes. 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 Wintersol did a beautiful example where she created a video showing that she had memorized the entire IKEA catalogue. The **Phill Agnew:** IKEA catalogue that she memorised is 328 pages long. With her eyes shut, she was asked to recall what was on page 16, and she described the picture perfectly. The dad is wearing glasses. The son, I don't think so. On the Hemnes bookcase on the top, there's like a trumpet, then a little sculpture in bluish, darkish, and that's also wearing glasses. **Dr. 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. In **Phill Agnew:** 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. 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. And **Dr. Charan Ranganath:** 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. Chiran **Phill Agnew:** is bang on. Here's a recording of memory champion Ron White explaining how he memorizes a deck of cards in just two minutes. But you have **Dr. Charan Ranganath:** 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 pitchers for 52 cards. Then next, you need to implement a technique called the mind palette. 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 childhood 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 that you've memorized 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. There **Phill Agnew:** is a very important lesson here. A memory expert like Ron White won't just remember more because he is gifted with an incredible brain. No, he structures what he sees into easy-to 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, where the positions of the pieces violated the rules, the Grandmasters' memory, their ability to recall that board, significantly dropped. It 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. --- ### [LeBron's Memory](https://share.snipd.com/snip/97cfab91-d5d6-4bd1-9da2-d804e8363612) 🎧 27:59 - 29:45 (01:45) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/e9100ce1-789d-4be3-80cd-801abf6f5e11" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - LeBron James's exceptional memory for games stems from his structured knowledge, not innate ability. - He intelligently reduces information into essential forms during real-time play. #### 💬 Quote > LeBron James has got the NBA record for scoring all time in his career. [...] But he also has an incredible memory for basketball games. > — Charan Ranganath Charan Ranganath on LeBron James' memory #### 📚 Transcript **Phill Agnew:** And it's not just chess players and card counters, basketball players can do the same. So **Dr. Charan Ranganath:** 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, what happened during this game. The start of the fourth, think they cut at the 14. Do you have any idea of what happened there? 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 it. They got a dunk. We came back down. We ran a set for Jordan Crawford. mean, Jordan Clarkson, and he came off and missed it. They rebounded it, 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 a three. We come back down, missed another shot. Tatum came down and went 94 feet, did a little step, and made a right-hand layup timeout. There you go. And he could describe it so well that if you put him talking about 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. --- Created with [Snipd](https://www.snipd.com) | Highlight & Take Notes from Podcasts