Captain Psychology

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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

There are five things we are going to look at:

  • Overview
  • Naive Mnemonics
  • Technical Mnemonics
  • External Mnemonics
  • Top Three Tips

 

 

Honors

 

Practical suggestions for learning and remembering facts. Here in the Hall of Antiquities in Munich, you would have lots of statues you could use to associate different terms or concepts.

Outline

  • 1. Naïve Mnemonics
    • (pronounced “nemonics”)
    • techniques to aid memory
    • Systems for:
      • encoding
      • retrieving
      • or both.
    • we don’t like Isolated facts
      • we like interesting facts
    • Greek goddess of memory (Mnemosyne)
      • mother of the muses
      • important part of your culture if you have a goddess dedicated to it
    • Cicero
      • Principle of order.
      • Put ideas in their proper places
    • Naive (natural) Mnemonics
      • Do naturally
      • Without training
    • Rehearsal
      • Repeat words over and over
      • 6thcentury BC
      • knew that rehearsal helps memory
      • rehearsal = repetition
      • keep things in STM
      • repeat number on the way to the phone
    • Rhymes and songs
    • Chunking
      • Recode information to make it easier to remember
      • Remember familiar items better
        • break into segments,
        • then group together
        • easier to remember a meaningful group
      • Subjective chunks
        • meaningful to you
        • 2 to six items
        • cultural conventions (SS, phone)
      • George Miller
        • Magical number seven plus or minus two
        • larger grouping by auditory chunking
        • use chunking to improve Alzheimer’s disease patients to improve verbal working memory
  • 2. Technical mnemonics
    • Not spontaneously used
    • Require some training and practice
    • Can be very effective
    • Great for info you want to remember for a long time
    • Require investment
    • Most the “memory classes” present a technical mnemonic system
    • Method of Loci
      • One Oldest mnemonic system
        • used by ancient Greeks & Romans
      • Archbasilica of St. John Lateran
        • 4thcentury (324, consecrated)
      • Simonides of Ceos, famous poet
        • 477 BC, banquet, building collapsed
        • identified by visualizing where they sat
      • Combines two elements:
        • images & places
        • both are equally important
      • Places (loci) provide
        • pegs or anchors to store the images
        • remember any image when cued by a location
      • Your House
        • Front door = opening
        • first room you enter is your first topic
        • Journey method
        • current house, imaginary house
        • childhood home
      • Journey across campus
        • across the country or
        • around the world
        • card decks
          • memorize the order of a deck of cards if 52 locations
        • memorize the bones of the body while you walk around the neighborhood
      • Large house
        • “walk thru” your house
        • The Roman’s “memory theaters” or tabernacles.
        • Sherlock Holmes
          • mental palace
          • attic of the brain
      • Imaginary Town
        • Reports of
          • 10 districts
          • 10 houses each
          • 10 rooms in each
          • 100 objects in each
  • 3. Chaining
    • More behavioral than a mnemonic technique
      • Highly effective
    • Forward: common way to learn songs
      • a naïve mnemonic
    • Backward: great way to learn songs, poems or speeches
      • a technical mnemonic but easy
  • More Mnemonics
    • Rhyme
      • Ode mnemonics
        • well into the 14thcentury
        • 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
      • “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
        • random words will often sing it
      • make up own tune
      • Music doesn’t have to be good, just memorable
    • Nicknames
      • Abbreviate or rename familiar places
        • parks, bridges, buildings
      • People = 2 syllable limit?
      • 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)
    • Acronyms
      • RADAR
        • radio
        • detection
        • and
        • ranging
      • MASH
        • mobile
        • army
        • surgical
        • hospital
      • Name the Great Lakes
        • HOMES
          • Huron
          • Ontario
          • Michigan
          • Erie
          • Superior
    • Acrostics
      • Every Good Boy Does Fine
        • lines on treble clef
      • On old Olympus towering top, a Finn and German viewed some hops
        • 12 cranial nerves
      • Look like an acronym
        • starts the opposite way (short to long)
      • Poems or sentences where the first letter of each word stands for something
      • Great for remembering the order of items
        • Not great for remembering the underlying information
    • 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
  • External Mnemonics
    • Images
      • infographics, mind maps, clusters, cartoons
      • paintings and stained-glass windows
        • used to remind people
      • compass on a map
      • mental image
        • grocery store
      • images alone can be helpful.
        • work best when they are interactive
      • don’t have to be bizarre or vivid; must be interactive
        • bizarre or unusual images tend to be interactive
    • Cathedrals
      • illuminated manuscripts
      • frescoes
      • stained glass windows
      • Stations of the Cross
        • to us and are easy to use.
    • Disadvantages of mnemonics, particularly technical:
      • Takes a lot of effort to use them
        • more than most people will devote)
      • Most don’t work on complex material
        • poems or stories
      • Don’t help remember physical sequences (dance movements, etc.)
      • Limited usefulness for everyday tasks
      • People don’t use them;
        • even if trained to use them
    • Studying for test
      • Note cards
      • Flash cards
      • Mind maps
      • Clusters
      • Doodling
      • Outlines
      • Classic outline
        • indenting for each subsequent level
      • Cornell System
        • vertical line (~3 inches in)
        • main ideas & details
    • Memory researchers
      • not more likely to use them
      • Write things down
        • Lists = To Do
        • Calendars = When Do
          • paper & electronic
        • Memos & Notes
        • Post-it Notes
        • 3×5 index cards
          • One idea per card
        • Writing on your hand
      • Photographics
        • wonderful memory aids
        • don’t encode flower, flower, flower
        • go “pretty” and throw the rest away.
    • We are meaning extractors.
    • Objects
      • briefcase at front door
      • String on finger
      • Knot in a scarf or handkerchief.
      • Anything out of the ordinary

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Get Prepared

To do well in this class it is important that you come to class prepared. Class is to help clarify the material. It is not the primary delivery system.

Before coming to class, here is what you need to do. Read the assigned posts, articles and book chapters. Watch the videos. And get an overview of the material with a mind map. It will help you understand how the components relate to each other.

Take notes on all of this material. Come up with three questions you want to ask. Submit your two questions on Canvas and get two points. Ask one in class, if I don’t cover it.

Mind Map

A mind is a diagram of information. It helps you see hierarchies, paths and interrelationships. Mind maps have a circle in the middle and spokes  that radiate out. All of the arms relate back to the central point but can intersect with each other. They can be simple or quite complex.

Here is the TOPIC mind map.

Videos

Some things are better presented in video. Films can cover the same material as a book but produce vastly different experiences. I’m disable with poor vision, so TV, films and videos work much better for me. My doctoral program would have been much easier if journal articles had been made into movies.

Here are the LINK TO videos.

Readings

Some things are better presented in words. I’m sorry I don’t have audio recordings of all the material you need to cover. But I’ve had pretty good luck getting my computer to read to me.

If you happened to be one of those sighted folk, you’ll find these sources even easier to access.

In general, read these quickly, like a novel. I’ll tell you what you need to know. These readings are to give you another voice, the same material but presented in different way.

Here they are the assigned readings in order of importance:

  • A
  • B
  • 3
  • And

Class

Go to class.

 

 

 

 

Five Things To Know

Here are 5 things you need remember from this class session. Each class covers a lot of material but I want you to focus on only a few items. Everything is valuable but some things are more important

Read all of the supplemental material you want. Explore everything that catches your fancy but here are five things you need to know:

  • Overview
  • Naive Mnemonics
  • Technical Mnemonics
  • External Mnemonics
  • Top Three Tips

Notes

Here are the class notes for TOPIC.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Key Terms

Here are the terms you need to know about TOPIC.

 

 

 

 

Quiz

It is important to check your progress. Here’s a short quiz for you: TOPIC Quiz

Discussion

Check on Canvas to see if there is a discussion due.

 

 

 

 

Progress Check

Check on Canvas to see if there is a progress check due this week.

 

 

 

Links to Explore

Links

If you want more information on this topic, here are some links to sites you that might interest you.

These are starting places for you, not destinations. Read the posts, look at the resources listed in them and then read those articles. Enjoy!

  • Wikipedia:
  • And

Summary

Infographic goes here

 

Credit: Photo by Unsplash

‘There are two great principles of psychology: people have a tremendous capacity to change, and we usually don’t.”   Ken Tangen