Rehearsal (repetition)

For nearly 3000 years, people have known that rehearsal helps memory. To keep things in short-term memory, we repeat the words or numbers over and over.

Rehearsal is easy to see in little kids. Put your phone in another room and ask them to go dial a particular number. On their way to the phone they will repeat the number over and over. This is the same process students use to memorize lists or facts, and actors use it to remember lines.

We use rehearsal because it works. It works because we can choose to leave it in short-term memory and forget it after we are done with it. Or we can practice it longer so the hippocampus has enough time to consolidate the memory into long-term memory.

Chunking

This clustering technique takes advantage of spatial cues. Instead of seeing a single sting on numbers, we divide the material up into smaller units. A chunk is typically 3-4 items. The long number 949206714313307 is broken up into 949 206 714 313 307. These chunks will be more memorable if you are familiar with any of these area codes. Similarly, if you know the phone number for the switchboard at White House, you will recognize 202 456 1414.

When you are learning your lines for a play, break it up into segments, learn some each day. When you are learning a list of vocabulary words, chunk the list into smaller parts. Break everything down into manageable bits.

Chaining

Most people learn songs and serial information by forward chaining. You start at the front and go until you can’t remember, then gradually add on the back end of the chain. You remember the first part but are less confident as you go. This is a popular method but not as effective as its brother: backward chaining.

Backward chaining starts at the back and adds material to the front end of the chain. You are always working toward success. It is as easy as forward chaining but more effective.

When you have a series of tricks you want your dog to do, start with the last one. Then add one to the front of the chain. Then add another to the front of the chain. Once started, the items on the chain get easier and easier.

When you have a list that has to be remembered in order, start at the back and add links to the front. Backward chaining is extremely helpful. If I could teach you only one mnemonic, it would be chunking. If I could teach you two, they would be backward chaining and chunking. See, I backward chained them for you.

Images

Images can be infographics, mind maps, clusters, cartoons or paintings. Many churches have paintings and stained-glass windows which are used to remind people of Biblical stories or statements of theology.

Somewhere on a map you’ll find a compass. The image will be labeled with N, S, E and W (north, south, east and west). This is an image mnemonic. It helps you remember the relationship between directions, and the combinations of them (SSW, NNE, etc.).

I use a visualization of my grocery store to remind me of what to buy. I push the cart on the same route every four or five days, so I’m familiar with the store. I start with the cheese-yogurt-egg isle, swing by the milk shelf and ignore the bakery, unless I need peanut butter, which, for some unfavorable reason, is next to the donuts. I move to the pharmacy-aspirin-toothpaste aisle, round the corner and go past the cookies and chips… Visualizing before I go helps me remember or, at least, to make a list of what I need.

Images alone can be helpful. But images work best when they are interactive. Think of two objects and visualize them interacting. A tree and a truck can be a tree in a truck or a truck hanging from a tree.

They don’t have to be bizarre or vivid; they have to be interactive. The reason some say to pick bizarre or unusual images is that they tend to be interactive. But it is the interaction that matters.

Rhymes

Well into the 14th century, most information was recited in rhymes and poems. Rules of commerce, ethics, social behavior were taught and learned in rhyme. Modern versions of this technique include “I before E, except after C” and “30 days hath September, April, June…” The poems don’t have to rhyme; any ode will do. But when you generate your own, you’ll find that rhyming comes easily.

Music

You can use songs other people have created. You probably remember Ray Charles singing the “Fifty Nifty United States,” Schoolhouse Rock’s “I’m just a bill,” and Hannah Montana’s Bone Dance. Of course there is the very popular “ABCDEFG” song. But you can also make up your own. The child rehearing the phone number will often sing it, making up the tune as they go. The music doesn’t have to be good, just memorable.

Proverbs

These short versions of folk wisdom include “Red in the morning, sailors take warning…” and “Spring forward, fall back.” Spelling knowledge can always be delivered this way: desert vs dessert; more is better, so I’ll eat dessert in the desert.

Affirmations and slogans are also part of the modern proverb group. And you can add to by making your own. I call mine “Tangenianisms.” For example: “People have a tremendous capacity to change, and we usually don’t.”

Nicknames

We often abbreviate or rename familiar places. In Seattle, the Aurora Bridge and Boeing Hill have official names most locals don’t use. Similarly, S. California likes to nickname portions of the same freeway which visitors find confusing. You probably know people who have nicknames such as Ace, Grace, Babs and The Count. They are quick mnemonic devices that represent people you know.

In addition to these nicknames, people love to abbreviate. The University of ______ (pick a name) is often called by the city it is in, referred to as State or simply the U. The yard, the quad and the student union are used far more often than their official names. Fox News Network becomes Fox, and the local theater is the Rep.

Acronyms

This is a reduction mnemonic. Instead of saying a whole phrase, we use only the first letter of each word. It is common for companies to have their own unique acronyms. It might be RDO (regular day off), KPI (key productivity indicator) or SLO (student learning outcome). Radio detection and ranging becomes RADAR, and mobile army surgical hospital becomes MASH.

Acronyms allow lists of words to be summarized in a single word. The Great Lakes are condensed from Humor, Ontario, Michigan, Erie and Superior become HOMES. American Broadcasting Company becomes ABC, and Cable News Network becomes CNN.

There is an advantage of combining images and acronyms. You not only get the acronym to remind you of the words but you also get to see the interactions. In the case of HOMES, the boxes with the names in them indicated the location and relative size of the lakes. Superior is the farthest north, Michigan is the greatest of the Great Lakes, and Erie is eerily small.

Acrostics

This is an elaboration mnemonic. You add more information but it makes the whole easier to remember. Acrostics are poems or sentences where the first letter of each word stands for something. “Every good boy does fine” is an acrostic for the names of the treble clef lines (EGBDF). “On old Olympus towering top, a Finn and German viewed some hops” is an acrostic for OOOTTAFAGVSA. Each letter stands for a cranial nerve (olfactory, optic, oculomotor, trochlear, trigeminal, abducens, facial, auditory, glossopharyngeal, vagus, spinal accessory and hypoglossal).

When I was in college, I created some acrostics for a class I was taking and remembered the acrostics perfectly for the test. I couldn’t remember a single thing they stood for but I remembered the acrostics. It was a disaster.

Acrostics work great for remembering the order of items but they don’t work as well at remembering the underlying information. It is easy to remember the acrostic (on old Olympus…) and forget olfactory, optic and oculomotor. Chunking and visualizing work best for the underlying items.

Connections

No matter how little you know, you already have learned some information. Learning is the process of adding to your current knowledge base. As with the area codes, use the knowledge you already have to learn new things. We fit the new stuff in-between existing structures to make a cohesive whole.

When in doubt, make connections with yourself or your interests. A list of numbers is easier to remember if you are familiar with running times, swimming times, planes (737, 747, 757, B1) or sales prices. You can use what you already know to identify patterns that no one else would notice.

If nothing else, use your body. You can remember which months have 31 months by counting on your knuckles. Ignoring thumbs, count from one side to the other: knuckle (January), between space (Feb), knuckle (March), etc. It won’t help you remember the names of the months but it is handy (sorry).

All ten of these mnemonic techniques are common. You probably use many of them without thinking about it. Now you can use them more thoughtfully and purposefully. Rehearsal, chunking and images are the big three. If you use them to their fullest, you might not need the other seven techniques.

But people are different. Try a few and see which ones work best for you.

Technical mnemonics are not spontaneously used by people. They require some training and practice. But they can be very effective. They are great for information you want to remember for a long time. Most the “memory classes” you take and books you buy will present one version or another of a technical mnemonic system.

Method of Loci

This is the oldest mnemonic system, used by the ancient Greeks and Romans. Some trace it back to Simonides of Ceos. In 477 BC, as the story goes, Simonides, a famous poet, was an honored guest at a banquet. At one point in the festivities, he stepped out to talk to someone, which saved his life. The whole building collapsed killing everyone inside. Simonides could identify everyone by visualizing where they sat.

This technique combines two elements: images and places. Both are equally important. The places (loci) provide the pegs or anchors to store the images imagined. Together you can remember any image when cued by a location.

A modern version would be for you to picture your house from the outside. The front door is the “opening” of your speech. Place an image of your opening comment or joke on the doorknob. Opening the door, opens the rest of the speech.

The first room you enter is your first topic. Place an image on each object in the room, one for each a point on that topic. For the next topic, move to the next room. The images tied to objects will be your memory aids. As you move from room to room, you can deliver your whole speech based on these images.

The method of loci is also called the journey method because you journey through your house. It can be your current house, an imaginary house, or an architectural wonder. Many memory game players use their childhood home.

You can also journey across campus, across the country or around the world. All that is important is that you have specific objects at each place which can store an image.

The Romans loved this system, making portable rooms or tabernacles filled with information or cues. Some were actual structures set up for the express purpose of learning associations. In literature, Sherlock Holmes had his “mind palace” or “memory palace.” You can do the same thing.

The system does a good job of learning things in order (serially) and being able to select a specific item (cued recall). You can memorize the order of a deck of cards if you had 52 locations on your journey. Or you can memorize the bones of the body while you walk around the neighborhood, recalling an item at each loci along the way. The key is to assign images to specific visualized locations which never change.

Peg Systems

Like the method of loci, a peg mnemonic system takes some time to set up. Once it is established, the system is quite versatile. Pegs are like the pegs you hung your coat on at kindergarten. The pegs are permanent but anything can be hung from the peg.

In a number-rhyme system, pegs are visual anchors that rhyme with numbers. To create the pegs, say the first word or picture that comes to your mind when I say “one.” Whatever you said is the one to use. It is best to adapt the system to the connections you already have.

If one is sun or gun or bun, then what is two? Many people say “shoe.”

• Three is tree?
• Is four door or floor?
• Five is hive or dive.
• Six is sticks or tricks (magic).

Let’s try it with this list of words:

• piano
• elephant
• truck
• bottle
• basketball
• chair

Associate a word from the list to each peg. Make an interactive image of the peg and the target word.  If we take them in order, one is the sun playing a piano. Then we have an elephant in shoes. A truck is hanging from a tree. A door is in the shape of a bottle and a hive of bees are playing basketball. The final item is a chair being pulled out of a magician’s hat.

Once the pairs have been matched, you can remember the items in order or select them at random. The fifth item was a hive of bees playing basketball. What was number four (the door)?

The advantages are that you can recall items in any order, and the pegs are reusable. The pegs remain the same (sun, shoe, tree) but the associated items can be replaced by other images.

Another peg system is the number-shape system, also call the egg and spear technique. Instead of rhyming pegs they are assigned by shape. One is represented by a candle, pencil, spear or anything with a simple vertical line. Two is a swan (curved neck) or whatever a 2 looks like to you. Three can be an M&M (just one), the top of a love heart, a bosom or any related shape. Four might be a sail (4 sheets to the wind). If you are more visual than auditory, give this technique a try.

Alphabet-rhyme pegs are useful for spelling words. The pegs are word-images that rhyme with letters. A is hay, b is bee, c is see, etc.. Some are going to be much easier to rhyme with than others.

As an alternative, try the alphabet-concrete image pegs. A is ape, b is boy, c is cat, d is dog, etc. Whatever images you come up with will work fine.

Translation Schemes

Another technical mnemonic is aimed directly at remembering numbers. This number-letter mnemonic translates numbers into words. Digits (0 to 9) are converted into consonants.

This is an adaptation of the number-shape peg system. 1 is represented by a t or d (single vertical stroke). 2 is an n (two lines) and 3 is an m (3 lines). Since vowels don’t count, letters can be combined into words with any vowel that seems to fit. To encode the number 13, the t (1) and m (3) can become tim or tom or team.

Link & Story Systems

A fourth technical mnemonic is called link and story. Links are visual images connected together. One image leads to the next in a chain of associations. Links are helpful for modeling processes and cycles.

Stories are links which use sentences instead of images. If you have several errands to run, you could summarize them in a sentence: The car drives to the post office and cruises by the bakery before stopping to get its tire pressure checked.

Mnemonics can dramatically increase the ability to recall lists of words or a series of objects. Naïve mnemonics come quite naturally to us and are easy to use. Technical mnemonics take more up-front investment but can be used to memorize a wide range of information, including faces and names, lists and the order of a shuffled deck of cards.

The disadvantages of using mnemonics, particularly technical mnemonics, include:

• it takes a lot of effort to use them (more than most people will devote)
• they can’t be readily applied to learning complex material (poems or stories)
• they don’t help people remember physical sequences (dance movements, etc.)
• they have limited usefulness for everyday tasks
• people don’t use them; even if trained to use them

As it turns out, memory researchers are no more likely to use mnemonics than anyone else. Even though they research how the brain works and understand the underlying processes of mnemonics, researchers, like most people, use external aids. Since you are rarely called on to memorize lists of unrelated words in their correct order, do what the experts do: write things down.

External aids include lists and calendars. They are easy ways to keep track of your To Do and When To Meet items. Paper and electronic versions are both widely used.

Memos or notes to self can be written on anything but Post-it Notes are popular. So are 3×5 index cards. One idea per card is usually the best choice. A more low-tech version is writing on your palm or the back of your hand. Some people use this technique as their primary system.

Photographs are wonderful memory aids. Our brains don’t store every little bit of information. We save the recipe, not a hologram of the actual event. When you walk across a park, you don’t encode flower, flower, flower, grass, grass, grass. You go “pretty” and throw the rest away. We are meaning extractors.

Alarms, timers and clocks help us get up, brew our tea and get to work on time. Sometimes we use objects as reminders. You might put your briefcase at the front door so you won’t miss it. By making it impossible to ignore, it is easy to remember.

Models can be sequential, shaped like a pyramid or be displayed as a pie chart. Sketches and physical models help describe interrelationships more clearly. Models can also be improvised. Making fists with your hands and crossing your arms is a quick model of the brain. Each cerebral hemisphere looks like a fist; the thumb is the temporal lobe, the back is the occipital lobe, the knuckles are the parietal lobes and the rest is the frontal lobes. Crossing your arms reminds you that the left hemisphere runs the right side, and the right hemisphere controls the left side of the body.

The classic string on the finger is another external memory device. It doesn’t have to be a string. It can be a knot in a scarf or handkerchief. Anything out of the ordinary can be used as a memory cue.

A common way to remember is to ask someone to remind you. Nothing is quite the same as crowd-sourcing your memory.

When studying for a test, note and flash cards both summarize the material and let you test your competence. Other study aids include mind maps, clusters and doodling.

Outlines are external aids that also help organize the information. You can use the classic outline, indenting for each subsequent level, or the Cornell System. With the Cornell note taking system, you draw a vertical about 3 inches from the left margin, dividing the page into two parts. The left side is for main ideas or questions. The right side is for details and answers.