Why the memory palace is mightier than the memory pharmacy

To navigate an increasingly complex information society, cognitive demands are growing at an ever faster pace. Accordingly, interest in cognitive enhancement strategies is growing as well. However, in contrast to Hollywood movies, smart pills that enhance cognitive capacity considerably, effortlessly, and across cognitive domains do not appear to exist. In this comment, we will make a case for why and how specific practices of active cognitive training and restructuring – namely mnemonic strategies – considerably outperform passive pharmacological strategies that typically take the center stage in the public debate on cognitive enhancement.