Sherlock Holmes and his "mind palace"

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In a recent adaptation of Arthur Conan Doyle's series Sherlock Holmes, BBC has created the show "Sherlock."  In one episode, the Hounds of Baskerville, Sherlock is recruited to help a man who is haunted by the memory of his father's death 20 years before (he remembers seeing his father "torn to pieces by a monstrous creature") (“The hounds,” 2012, storyline section, para. 1).  This man has been to therapy, but is now seeing footprints and visions of a giant creature, which he fears will come for him (Gatiss, Moffat, & McGuigan, 2012). 

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At the scene of Henry's (the man Sherlock is helping) father's death, Sherlock finds a torn, burnt piece of paper with only a few letters written on it.  Sherlock has a vast memory, filled with a random assortment of facts, which all come in handy at one time or another.  He says that he only keeps in his head what is useful for solving crimes and pertinent to his life; everything else is superfluous.  Sherlock tells everyone to leave so he can enter his "mind palace," which is the place where all information in his head is stored and categorized (Gatiss et al., 2012).  He goes through all of the categories and rooms in his “mind palace” to find the information which he needs to solve the mystery of the burnt paper.  This leads him to the next clue: finding out who was responsible for Henry's father's death.  In the end, Sherlock puts it all together and is able to figure out who was responsible for the death of Henry's father.  It turns out, that a rogue scientist from a nearby testing and research facility was testing a gas that would cause one to be very suggestible, thus be able to be controlled.  However, the side effects were aggression and hallucinations.  Henry was exposed to the gas so that he would not be believed, saying that a giant hound (which did not actually exist) was after him.  Sherlock saw that Henry's stubborn use of the word "Hound" was actually the name of the group which was testing the gas in the first place (“HOUND”) (Gatiss et al., 2012).  Henry's father was killed by one with the group's patch upon his shirt, thus Henry incorporated that into his memory: a giant hound being the one that killed his father (Gatiss et al., 2012).  Sherlock would not have been able to put this together without the use of all the information he had stored and categorized in his "mind palace."  In his mind palace, everything that Sherlock knows is sorted and categorized to become more easily accessible.  

            The cognitive psychology concept used here is categorization, which is a memory technique which helps in consolidation and retrieval from long term memory (Goldstein, 2011).  Goldstein (2011) describes categorization as “the process by which objects are placed in categories” (p. 240).  This technique involves sorting through information, placing similar bits of information into the same categories.  This way, there are connections drawn between similar concepts, making them easier to remember (Goldstein, 2011).  It is far easier to “find” information stored in the brain when it is categorized and sorted into logical pathways and places.  As with textbooks: textbooks are divided into chapters based upon broad concepts, and then the chapters are further divided into sections based upon the concepts in each chapter.  With memory, it is easier to remember chunks of related information, than many separate pieces of information (Goldstein, 2011).

            This example shows the effectiveness of categorization.  Sherlock is able to remember a very large amount of information, and find it quickly because he has it all sorted in his mind, readily available.  I believe it is an accurate example of categorization.  When Sherlock is looking for a specific piece of information, he enters his “mind palace,” which is filled with rooms each dedicated to different categories of information (Gatiss et al., 2012).  This way he does not have to sort through irrelevant information before finding what he needs.  He only has to actively remember what is relevant, because it is all separated and categorized.  Sherlock’s mind palace is a very impressive example of categorization. 

References

Gatiss, M. (Writer), Moffat, S. (Writer), & McGuigan, P. (Director). (2012). The hounds of baskerville [Television series episode]. In S. Vertue (Producer), Sherlock. Cardiff, UK: British Broadcasting Corporation.

Goldstein, E. B. (2011).  Cognitive psychology: Connecting mind, research, and everyday experience (3^rd ed.). Canada: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.

 “The hounds of baskerville (2012).  Retrieved from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1942613/