Captain Psychology

Memory

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External Mnemonics

External

Mnemonics

External mnemonics

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.

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Technical Mnemonics

Technical

Mnemonics

 

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.

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Working Memory

Working Memory

Working MemoryPaired associate tasks rely heavily on working memory. Although the bonds are stored in long term memory, you must hold one item in memory while simultaneously retrieving its pair. This requires working memory.

Working memory provides both temporary storage and processing. It is not a passive store, hence the name “working.” But it is more than storage. It is where we do our mental work.

Working memory is needed for categorization, reasoning, weighing options, and giving self-direction. It helps animals remember which arm of radial maze has already been visited that day. It is used by children to remember the rules of a game while playing it. It is used in video games to remember where you are and who to zap next. It is used to keep track of a novel’s plot.

Working memory is composed of four parts: one major unit and three sub-processes. The major unit is call the Executive Process or the Central Executive. This unit monitors and coordinates the activities of all the other processes. It coordinates current and long-term memories, decides which information to use and which activity is currently most important.

The idea of an executive process comes from working with people who are mentally retarded. My little brother, Jimmy, was profoundly retarded and was not trainable. He couldn’t sit up without support. But individuals who have less brain damage than Jimmy are often capable of employment in sheltered workshops.

At one point in time, all retarded people were considered untrainable. Then some dedicated people showed that they could be taught to do a specific task. The theory was that they could not learn other tasks.

Along come some more dedicated people who showed that many people with retardation can be taught to learn a different simple task. They can learn several simple tasks. But what they found was an inability to easily switch back and forth between tasks. Their executive function wasn’t working well or, in some cases, at all.

Because of folk like Jimmy, we know that the brain has a mechanism for assessing inputs and switching tasks on the fly. This is the central executive.

The central executive decides what needs attention and which subunit should be activated. You are probably familiar with how your executive process switches back and forth between driving the car and talking to your passenger.

But the executive doesn’t always get things right. I was standing beside the trash can, unwrapping a snack, intending to drop the wrapped in the trash and put the food in my mouth. My executive process failed me. I didn’t eat the wrapper but I watched helplessly as the food dropped in the can.

Your central executive doesn’t do the work. It assigns it to one of subunits. Work can be assigned to the phonological loop, the visuo-spatial sketch pad, or the episodic buffer.

Phonological Loop

One of the subunits of working memory specializes in processing sounds. It intakes spoken and written inputs, and holds them for 2-4 seconds so they can be processed. The memory store, sometimes called echoic memory, is only a few seconds long but it is unclear how many seconds it is. Some say 1-2 seconds, others settle on 4 seconds, and others suggest it can be as long as 20 seconds.

It is difficult to establish the capacity because as we begin to fall off our mental conveyor belt (forget them), we move them to the front of the line again (loop). The loop portion of the phonological loop is an articulatory control process. It loops the sounds over and over so the echoic memory gets extended for as long we need it.

The amount of processing needed varies with the content. Spoken word is processed quickly and easily. Written words, however, must be converted into speech, which takes longer.

Music is thought to be processed by the phonological loop. But it might also have its own loop. Musicians are better at forward digit span than non-musicians. This is true for sounds, digits and nonsense syllables. It appears that musical training and experience cause the brain to develop a dedicated storage system for tones. The tonal loop does not seem to be present in non-musicians.

Visuo-Spatial Sketchpad

This subroutine of working memory involves several parts of the brain, including the prefrontal cortex, the parietal lobe and temporal lobe. It tracks where you are in relation to your environment. As you shift your focus to look at something else, the parietal lobe remaps its representation of where you are and where everything else is. It sends this information to the visuo-spatial sketchpad. You use the sketch pad to picture your house and remember where all the doors and windows are.

On evidence that there are at least two subsystems is that we can process visual and verbal information at the same time. In fact, we love doing so (TV, videos and movies). But it is much harder to do two visual tasks at the same time. Doing two things with one system slows things down.

Like the phonological loop, the visuo-spatial sketchpad has both a store and a processor. Visual images are stored for a much shorter time than audio is, probably about ½ second. The actual length of storage varies greatly between people. Some can maintain a visual mental image for longer than others. Artists, architects and fashion designers are able to visualize finished projects early in the creative process.

It is unclear if the ½ second images are looped like phonological inputs are. Given the refresh rate it seems unlikely. If you’ve done a video chat with someone on a bad connection, frame rates of 10 per second look like still shots. It looks like the person is jumping from shot to shot.

The more samples per second, the smoother the action looks. It only takes 20-30 frames per second to fool us into thinking that the sequence of still images is live action. Films have a sample rate of 22 frames per second. TV has a sample rate of 30 frames per second.

The processing portion of the visuo-spatial sketchpad is an after-seeing process. The retina sends signals to the occipital lobe for breaking down a visual scene into components. The information is then sent in two directions. One stream of information goes to the parietal lobe. The parietal lobe makes a 3-D representation of your environment. It tells the rest of the brain where you are.

In contrast to the “where” pathway, the other stream of visual information from the occipital lobe heads to the temporal lobe. This “what” pathway identifies faces and objects.

Both streams end up in the visuo-spatial sketchpad. The spatial short-term memory indicates where you are and how far you are from a tall object. The object memory tells you that it is a tree, what kind of tree and that you fell out of it last week. All of this is coordinated by the visuo-sketchpad

Episodic Buffer

The third subunit of working memory acts as backup for the other parts. The episodic buffer communicates with both long-term memory and other portions of working memory. This buffer integrates the other functions and adds a sense of time. It helps turn individual items into a cohesive sequence. It’s the timing chain of working memory.

Episodic buffer is not the same as episodic memory, which is a long-term memory system The buffer only stores things long enough to perform a specific task. When attention shifts to another task, all the buffers are reset.

All of the components of working memory function together as a single entity. Although brain trauma can disable one or more subparts, working memory performs seamlessly in a normally functioning brain. Working memory has a limited capacity that is directed to whatever task is receiving our current attention.

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Forgetting

One view of forgetting is that memories disappear over time. They are vivid when originally store but become fainter as time goes on. Although this is a good observation about how we feel about memory, it would be about the same as saying that rust occurs because of time.

Rust occurs because of oxidization, which gets worse over time. It is not time itself that causes rust. Memories get worse over time but what is the memory’s equivalent of oxidization?

Here are 5 things we’ll cover:

  • Forgetting Principles
  • Interference
  • Three Mechanisms
  • Amnesia
  • Memory Fialures

 

Terms

  • accessible memories
  • amygdala
  • anterograde amnesia
  • Atkinson & Shiffrin
  • automatic processing
  • available memories
  • Baddeley
  • basal ganglia
  • cerebellum
  • chunking
  • deep processing
  • déjà vu
  • distributed practice
  • Ebbinghaus
  • echoic sensory store
  • effortful processing
  • emotional coding
  • encoding
  • encoding failure
  • encoding specificity principle
  • episodic memory
  • explicit memories
  • external mnemonics
  • false memory
  • flashbulb memories
  • forgetting
  • forgetting curve
  • herpes encephalitis
  • hierarchies
  • hippocampus
  • iconic sensory store
  • implicit memories
  • improving memory
  • interference
  • levels of processing
  • long-term memory
  • long-term potentiation
  • match context and mood cues with when coded them
  • meaningful
  • memory
  • memory retrieval
  • misinformation effect
  • mnemonics
  • mood congruent
  • motivated forgetting
  • personally meaningful
  • priming
  • proactive interference
  • recall
  • recognition
  • reconsolidation
  • recovered memories
  • recovered with hypnosis
  • rehearse repeatedly
  • relearning
  • repression
  • retrieval
  • retrieval cues
  • retrieval failure
  • retroactive interference
  • retrograde amnesia
  • savings
  • semantic memory
  • sensory memories
  • serial position effect
  • shallow processing
  • short-term memory
  • sleep more
  • source amnesia
  • spaced practice
  • split brain
  • storage
  • storage decay
  • synaptic changes
  • technical mnemonics
  • test your knowledge
  • testing effect
  • tip of the tongue
  • unreliable memories
  • Wearing, Clive
  • working memory

Quiz

Interference theory was:

  • a. based on associationism
  • b. relatively atheoretical
  • c. introduced by McGeoch
  • d. all of the above

 

2. Ebbinghaus showed that verbal learning is:

  • a. protracted
  • b. stratified
  • c. linear
  • d. all of the above

3. Bahrick calls long-lasting memories:

  • a. sustained saturation
  • b. permastores
  • c. artifacts
  • d. hodos

4. Given a picture and asked to decide it if is a former classmate is:

  • a. picture recognition
  • b. picture registration
  • c. linear recognition
  • d. name recognition

5. Which is part of semantic memory

  • a. general information
  • b. nonsense syllables
  • c. foreign languages
  • d. all of the above

Answers

Interference theory was:

  • a. based on associationism
  • b. relatively atheoretical
  • c. introduced by McGeoch
  • d. all of the above

2. Ebbinghaus showed that verbal learning is:

  • a. protracted
  • b. stratified
  • c. linear
  • d. all of the above

3. Bahrick calls long-lasting memories:

  • a. sustained saturation
  • b. permastores
  • c. artifacts
  • d. hodos

4. Given a picture and asked to decide it if is a former classmate is:

  • a. picture recognition
  • b. picture registration
  • c. linear recognition
  • d. name recognition

5. Which is part of semantic memory

  • a. general information
  • b. nonsense syllables
  • c. foreign languages
  • d. all of the above

 

1. Forgetting Principles

  • Some things are easier to forget than others
  • How much you forget depends on the knowledge domain
  • store things in various memory systems
  • retrieve them with various levels of success
  • Ebbinghaus
    • Not good at remembering nonsense syllables or isolated words
      • verbal learning is linear
      • forgetting verbal learning is nonlinear
    • Learning is a function of time spent
      • longer you study the more you learn
    • Forget the majority of facts very quickly
      • within the first few hours
      • after the first day, decline is more gradual

2. Forgetting Theories

  • Predominant approach in N. America for 30 yrs
  • Based on associationism
    • learning = formation of associations between previously unrelated events
  • Developed in Chicago in the 1930s (Carr, Robinson and McGeoch)
    • relatively atheoretical
    • good research, not much theory
  • McGeoch (1932)
    • First to propose interference theory
    • Time-based decay theories not valid explanations
    • Iron rusts over time
      • time does not cause rust
      • oxidation causes rust
    • Memories are forgotten over time
      • time does not cause forgetting; caused by something else
    • 2 kinds of interference
    • Proactive interference
      • previous info impacts new
    • Retroactive interference
      • new info impacts old
      • retrieval errors occur because wrong memories found
    • Cue Dependent Theory (Retrieval Failure)
      • Forgetting is lack of retrieval cues, not overwriting existing info (Tulvig & Postka, 1971)
      • Ss given list of 24 words (4 items in six categories)
      • try to recall as many as possible
      • Learn 0, 1, 2, 3 or 5 further lists (3 trials), immediate free recall
      • Recall as many words from any lists
      • Clear evidence of RI
        • more lists in the middle, worse did
        • Ss tend to forget whole categories
        • 10 minute break
        • give categories, asked to recall
      • Performance as good as original free recall
        • no effect of interpolated lists
      • Can’t recall because $ is missing
        • present at time of encoding
        • not erased; not available
        • proper cue can retrieve it
        • like searching for a book in the library
        • no reference number
        • no subject
        • no author

      Good retrieval cue

      • consistent with encoding situation
      • If a word is emphasize during encoding
      • Should be emphasized at test time

      State Dependent Cues

      • retrieval depends on state of mind
      • at encoding & at testing
      • Memory triggered or facilitated by:
      • inebriated
      • anxious
      • happy

      Context Dependent Cues

      • retrieval depends on environment
      • at encoding & at testing
      • Memory triggered or facilitated by:
        • under water
        • weather
        • location
        • smell

      Trace Decay Theory

      • Learning causes neuro connection
        • trace degrades over time, recall is worse
        • except notice that if brain is injured, old memories more resistant than new ones (Brower, 1967)
        • crumbling into parts; loss of components
        • both interference and decay
      • Problem:
        • time has both decay & interference  (aren’t doing nothing over time)

      Consolidation

      • Learning is not complete when practice ends (Muller and Pilzecker (1900)
        • perseveration occurs for awhile afterward
        • perseveration = continued processing of an item after practice or rehearsal ends.
      • If anything interrupts perseveration
        • memory trace may not consolidated
        • recall not possible
        • storage problem
      • Longer perseveration continues, stronger the memory
        • if process is interrupted, no storage
      • Assumptions
        • mental inactivity helps consolidation (Ebbinghaus, 1885)
        • rate of forgetting is slowed when sleep between study & test (Jenkins & Dallenbach, 1924)
        • Ss can recall more after a period of sleep
      • Interference model would say the same thing
        • if interrupted, nothing stored
        • Ss with retrograde amnesia:
        • can’t remember events right before trauma
        • perseveration interrupted by the trauma
        • consolidation not completed
      • Rats with induced retrograde amnesia show better memory performance if allowed perseveration time
        • If prevented, no storage
      • No good studies with humans on the issue
        • Not easy to prevent unless remove hippocampus
3. Three Mechanisms
  1. Response competition
    • when 2+ potential responses to a memory query
    • Melton & Irwin (1940) showed errors could not be attributed solely to intrusion items
  2. Altered $ conditions (altered context)
    • performance declines because of changes in environment from study to test
    • functional $ is cue + environment
    • forget if entire functional $ not present
  3. Mental set
    • use an inappropriate mental set
    • search through wrong list

Part-set cuing

  • Ss recall list worse if some items (part of the set) are provided for them (Slamecka, 1968)
  • Ss hear a word twice
  • control Ss wrote as many words as could
  • experimental Ss were given a paper with some of the words on it
  • Ss who receive some words did worse
  • maybe the cues interrupt retrieval strategy
  • Predictor but not cause of forgetting
  • McGoeoch & McDonald (1931)
    • systematically vary similarity of interfering activity & recall material
    • learn list of adjectives
    • 10 min rest or learn new material
    • as similarity increases, recall drops
    • but even resting Ss forgot some too
  • (Slamecka, 1960): sentences
    • 2, 4, 8 trials
    • followed by rest or 4 or eight trials learning another literary genre
    • amount learned is a function of # of initial learning trials
    • amount of forgotten is function of number of interfering trials

4. Amnesia

  • forgetfulness; without memory
  • Caused by
    • brain damage
    • disease
    • drugs (sedatives & hypnotic)
  • can be either wholly or partially lost
  • Two main types (not mutually exclusive)
    • Retrograde amnesia
      • inability to retrieve info acquired before a particular date
      • loss can extend back decades
      • lose can last for months+
    • Anterograde amnesia
      • inability to transfer new info to long-term memory
      • can’t remember things for long periods of time
    • Post-traumatic amnesia
      • Major trauma
        • usually head injury (fall, football, boxing)
        • often transient but may be permanent
      • Mild trauma
        • car crash
        • no memory of moments before accident
      • Childhood amnesia (infantile amnesia)
        • can’t remember before age 2-3
        • brain not developed enough to hold cognitive structures
      • Transient global amnesia
        • unknown cause
        • memory loss for less than a day
        • reduced blood flow, seizure or migraine?
      • Source amnesia
        • can’t remember where learned information
        • poor source monitoring
        • source not encoded
      • Hyped but Non-Existent
        • Dissociative amnesia
          • can’t remember because of psychological trauma
        • Types:
        • Repressed memory (psychogenic amnesia)
          • inability to recall info about stressful or traumatic events
          • rare or doesn’t exit
        • Dissociate fugue (psychogenic fugue)
          • cannot recall some or all of past
          • extremely rare or doesn’t exist
        • Posthypnotic amnesia
          • failure to remember suggestions made under hypnosis
          • extremely rare or doesn’t exist

5. Memory Failures

  • Time-Gap
    • no conscious recollection of trip
    • driven home late at night
    • driving well-traveled route
    • highway hypnosis; driving long stretches
  • Cryptomnesia
    • unintended plagiarism
    • believe have made a novel creation but it’s based on earlier works
    • failure to recognize it as familiar
    • usually of others
    • Nietzsche, Freud, Helen Keller
    • George Harrison
      • My Sweet Lord by the Beatles
      • He’s So Fine by the Chiffons
    • How guard against it
    • can’t but can try to minimize by searching literature & peer review

 

 

 

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Mnemonics

Mnemonics

Story

Terms

  • 30 days hath September, April, June…”
  •  “ABCDEFG” song
  • “Every good boy does fine”
  •  “I before E, except after C”
  • abbreviations
  • acronyms
  • acrostics
  • alarms
  • alphabet-rhyme pegs
  • bizarre images
  • chaining
  • chunking
  • clusters
  • Cornell note taking system
  • doodling
  • egg and spear technique
  • elaboration mnemonic
  • external aids
  • external mnemonics
  • flash cards
  • hippocampus
  • images
  • infographics
  • interactive images
  • journey method
  • link & story systems
  • meaning extractors
  • memory palace
  • method of loci
  • mind maps
  • mnemonics
  • models
  • naive mnemonics
  • nicknames
  • note cards
  • notes
  • number-rhyme system
  • number-shape peg system
  • ode mnemonics
  • outlines
  • peg systems
  • photographs
  • pie chart
  • poems
  • proverbs
  • pyramid
  • reduction mnemonic
  • rehearsal
  • repetition
  • rhymes
  • serial recall
  • singing
  • stained-glass windows
  • stories
  • technical mnemonics
  • translation schemes
  • visualization

Quiz

1. Using repetition to keep something in working memory is:

  • a. an elaboration mnemonic
  • b. a reduction mnemonic
  • c. an external mnemonic
  • d. rehearsalQ

 

2. Breaking long lists into short lists is called:

  • a. randomization
  • b. consolidation
  • c. rehearsal
  • d. chunking

3. The oldest technical mnemonic system is:

  • a. method of loci
  • b. chunking
  • c. rehearsal
  • d. rhymes

4. Sun-shoe-tree-door is part of a:

  • a. prospective memory system
  • b. neural network system
  • c. number-rhyme system
  • d. method of loci system

5. Most psychologists who study memory:

  • a. can read upside down
  • b. have bad memories
  • c. write things down
  • d. walk to work

 

 

Answers

1. Using repetition to keep something in working memory is:

  • a. an elaboration mnemonic
  • b. a reduction mnemonic
  • c. an external mnemonic
  • d. rehearsal

2. Breaking long lists into short lists is called:

  • a. randomization
  • b. consolidation
  • c. rehearsal
  • d. chunking

3. The oldest technical mnemonic system is:

  • a. method of loci
  • b. chunking
  • c. rehearsal
  • d. rhymes

4. Sun-shoe-tree-door is part of a:

  • a. prospective memory system
  • b. neural network system
  • c. number-rhyme system
  • d. method of loci system

5. Most psychologists who study memory:

  • a. can read upside down
  • b. have bad memories
  • c. write things down
  • d. walk to work

 

 

 

In elementary school, I played in the orchestra (although I don’t remember there being violins, so maybe it was a band). I was in the percussion section. Mostly I remember we weren’t very good.

Like many, I learned the lines of the treble clef were Every Good Boy Does Fine and the spaces were FACE. I think it was harder to remember the mnemonics than it was to remember the actual information. Sometimes we’re just too clever for our own good.

Here are 5 things we’ll cover:

  • History of Mnemonics
  • Naive Mnemonics
  • Technical Mnemonics
  • External Mnemonics
  • Best of the Best

[Read more…] about Mnemonics