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Playing the game of Pelmanism—where players are asked to remember the positions of particular cards in a pack spread out facedown—you can be surprised by how quickly you are able to remember where a given card is.

An advert for Pelmanism, a brain-training technique that became popular in the early twentieth century.

“New Minds for Old in 12 Weeks!” proclaimed adverts for Pelmanism, a brain-training technique that swept the United Kingdom in the early part of the twentieth century.

Pelmanism was still being promoted as late as the 1960s, but has since sunk into obscurity, becoming merely a curious chapter in the history of psychology.

And, as with Pelmanism, a lucrative industry has grown up around the idea that cognitive performance can be enhanced by training.