Here are my notes on this topic:
1. Overview
- Techniques to aid memory
- encoding
- retrieving
- like interesting facts
- reduction mnemonics
- elaboration mnemonics
- Mnemosyne
- Cicero
- three kinds of memory
- natural memory
- artificial memory
- mechanical memory
- three kinds of mnemonics
- naïve mnemonics
- without training
- rehearsal
- chunking
- abbreviations
- acronyms
- technical mnemonics
- require training
- effective
- method of loci
- EGDF
- external mnemonics
- cathedrals
- illuminated manuscripts
- frescoes
- stained glass windows
- stations of the cross
2. Naïve mnemonics
- rehearsal
- chunking
- chaining
- forward chaining
- backward chaining
- images
- visualize
- rhyme
- music
- proverbs
- nicknames
- acronyms
- acrostics
3. Technical mnemonics
- not spontaneously used
- method of loci
- journey method
- peg systems
- number-rhyme
4. External mnemonics
- lists
- right them down
- calendars
- memos
- write on your hand
- photographs
- alarms & timers
- objects
5. Three tips
- Method of loci
- Chunking
- Distributed practice
^^
Mnemonics
1. History of Mnemonics
2. Naive Mnemonics
people do naturally; no training needed
-
- rehearsal = repetition
- little kids on way to phone
Can choose
-
- leave it in short-term memory and forget it after we’re done
- practice long enough for hippocampus to consolidate into long-term memory
Chunking
-
- typically 3-4 items
- 202 456 1414
- break into segments, learn some each day = chunking
- practice same thing over time = distributed practice
Chaining
-
- forward
- start at front, add to back end
- common way to learn songs and speeches
- easy to use
- backward
- start at back, add to front end
- easy to use
- more effective
- forward
Images
-
- infographics, mind maps, clusters, cartoons
- paintings and stained-glass windows
- used to remind people
- compass on a map
- grocery store
- images alone can be helpful
- images work best when they are interactive
- tree and a truck
- don’t have to be bizarre or vivid; must be interactive
- bizarre or unusual images tend to be interactive
Rhymes
-
- also called ode mnemonics
- well into the 14th century
- everything but legal documents recited in rhymes and poems
- rules of commerce, ethics, social behavior
- “I before E, except after C”
- “30 days hath September, April, June…”
- don’t have to rhyme
Music
-
- Ray Charles singing the “Fifty Nifty United States”
- Jack Sheldon singing Schoolhouse Rock’s “I’m just a bill”
- Hannah Montana’s Bone Dance
- “ABCDEFG” song
- child rehearing number or random words will often sing it
- make up own tune
- music doesn’t have to be good, just memorable
Proverbs
-
- short versions of folk wisdom
- “Red in the morning, sailors take warning…”
- “Spring forward, fall back”
- spelling knowledge: desert vs dessert; more is better
Nicknames
-
- abbreviate or rename familiar places
- parks, bridges, buildings
- people
- abbreviate: State or U
- rep theater
Acronyms
-
- reduction mnemonic
- first letter of each word
- RDO (regular day off)
- KPI (key productivity indicator)
- SLO (student learning outcome)
- RADAR (radio detection and ranging)
- MASH (mobile army surgical hospital)
- allow lists of words to be summarized in a single word
- Great Lakes
- Humor, Ontario, Michigan, Erie and Superior
- becomes HOMES
- American Broadcasting Company becomes ABC
- Cable News Network becomes CNN
Acrostics
-
- elaboration mnemonic
- add more information to make whole easier to remember
- looks like an acronym but starts the opposite way (short to long)
- poems or sentences where the first letter of each word stands for something
- “Every good boy does fine”
- “On old Olympus towering top, a Finn and German viewed some hops”
- an acrostic for OOOTTAFAGVSA
- cranial nerves (olfactory, optic, oculomotor, trochlear, trigeminal, abducens, facial, auditory, glossopharyngeal, vagus, spinal accessory and hypoglossal)
- work great for remembering the order of items
- not for remembering the underlying information
- elaboration mnemonic
Connections
-
- already have learned some information
- learning is the process of adding to your current knowledge base
- if you know area codes, those numbers are easier to remember
- or running times, swimming times, planes (737, 747, 757, B1) or sales prices
- your body: knuckles
Summary
-
- 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.
3. Technical Mnemonics
- not spontaneously used by people
- require some training and practice
- can be very effective
- great for info you want to remember for a long time
- most the “memory classes” present a technical mnemonic system
Method of Loci
-
- oldest mnemonic system
- used by the ancient Greeks and Romans
- Simonides of Ceos, famous poet
- 477 BC, banquet
- building collapsed killing everyone inside
- identified everyone by visualizing where they sat
- technique combines two elements: images and places
- both are equally important
- places (loci) provide the pegs or anchors to store the images
- can remember any image when cued by a location
- picture your house from the outside
- front door is the “opening” of your speech
- first room you enter is your first topic
- method of loci is also called journey method
- current house, imaginary house, or architectural wonder
- childhood home
- journey across campus, across the country or around the world
- have specific objects at each place which can store an image
- Romans had portable rooms or tabernacles filled with info or cues
- Sherlock Holmes had his “mind palace” or “memory palace”
- does a good job of:
- learning things in order (serially)
- being able to select a specific item (cued recall)
- memorize the order of a deck of cards if 52 locations
- memorize the bones of the body while you walk around the neighborhood
- oldest mnemonic system
Peg Systems
-
- takes some time to set up
- system is quite versatile
- pegs you hung your coat on at kindergarten
- pegs are permanent but anything can be hung from the peg
- Number-rhyme system
- visual anchors that rhyme with numbers
- sun, shoe, tree, door, hieve, tricks, heavan
- associate a word from the list to each peg
- make an interactive image of the peg and the target word
- can remember the items in order or selct them at random
- advantages:
- recall items in any orde
- pegs are reusable
- Number-shape system
- egg and spear technique
- pegs they are assigned by shape
- one = candle, pencil, spear or anything with a simple vertical line
- two = swan (curved neck)
- three = love heart, bosom
- four might be a sail (4 sheets to the wind)
- if more visual than auditory, give this tehnique a try
- Alphabet-rhyme pegs
- useful for spelling words
- word-images that rhyme with letters
- a = hay
- b = bee
- c = see
- Alphabet-concrete image pegs
- a = ape
- b = boy
- c = cat
- d = dog
Translation Schemes
-
- aimed at remembering numbers
- translates numbers into words
- digits (0 to 9) are converted into consonants
- adaptation of the number-shape peg system
- 1= t or d (single vertical stroke)
- 2 = n (two lines)
- 3 = m (3 lines)
- 13, the t (1) and m (3) can become tim or tom or team
- aimed at remembering numbers
Link & Story Systems
-
- links are visual images connected together
- one image leads to the next in a chain of associations
- helpful for modeling processes and cycles
- stories are links which use sentences instead of images
- car drives to the post office and cruises by the bakery before stopping to get its tire pressure checked
- links are visual images connected together
Summary
-
- 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
- The disadvantages of using mnemonics, particularly technical mnemonics, include:
4. External Mnemonics
- memory researchers are no more likely to use mnemonics than anyone else
- rarely called on to memorize lists of unrelated words
- use external aids include lists and calendars
- lists
- memos
- notes
- Post-it Notes
- 3×5 index cards
- write on hand
- photographs
- don’t encode flower, flower, flower, grass, grass, grass
- we are meaning extractors
- alarms, timers and clocks
- models
- sequential
- pyramid
- pie chart
- physical or virtual
- brain as a fist
- physical reminders
- string on finger
- briefcase in front of door
- ask someone to remind you
- test prep
- note cards
- flash cards
- mind maps
- clusters
- doodles
- outlines
- Cornell System
5. Best of the Best
- Method of Loci
- Chunking
- Chaining
