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by jpcfl 846 days ago
I also tend to remember where a tidbit of information was physically. For some reason, details like "~50 pages back around the end of the paragraph in the top-right corner of the right page" will stick in my brain. Then I can quickly scan and parse out keywords to find what I'm looking for. This doesn't work reliably with e-books for me.
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This is exactly the theory I proposed in a previous post about handwriting aiding memory - that it's the paper and spacial memory assisting, not the handwriting itself.

I did this often during school, looking up information in textbooks - I'd remember roughly the chapter/page, recognize the exact page, and know where on the page something was, even if I couldn't directly remember the thing itself.

That’s how a “studied” physical chemistry. Before the test, I’d flip through the book and review the equations. My brain encoded it as location on the page. Then at the beginning of the test, I’d scribble down all of the relevant equations from pictures in my mind. During the test, I’d flip back to my index of equations to solve the problems.