Mnemonic devices can help you recall important information immediately. Retaining information for later use challenges many professionals.
Let’s have an example:
Jim Plumb from Sync Accounting experiences this challenge.
Jim is sitting in a small room at an oval, wooden conference table. Bright sunlight peers through the blinds of the room’s large window. Jim ponders the beautiful, spring day outside.
One by one, five of Jim’s peers provide their department updates. He barely notices when the CEO calls for his prepared comments. Jim forgets his opening line and struggles to start his presentation.
Jim looks down at his presentation notes, but can’t make sense of them. He stammers through his delivery.
Jim can see the measure of doubt rising in everyone’s eyes.
How Mnemonic Devices Work
Have you ever felt like Jim? Do you worry that your inability to recall what you’ve learned will affect how your peers view you? The power of mnemonic devices can work for you.
Let’s first define a mnemonic device.
A mnemonic device is a technique that you can use to improve your ability to remember something. You use mnemonics psychology to encode better and recall information.
Think of mnemonics as mental shortcuts. You associate the information you want to recall with a familiar image, sentence, or word. Instead of recalling the complex information first, you remember the simpler device instead.
Gerald R. Miller studied the psychology of mnemonics in 1967. He found that the ability to recall information increased when students used mnemonics. In fact, mnemonic devices increased test scores by up to 77%.
Types of Mnemonic Devices
Choosing the right mnemonic device for what you want to remember is an essential key to success. Some methods will probably work better for you than others.
Let’s now define 15 mnemonic devices you can add to your mnemonic toolbox.
1. The Method of Loci
The ancient Greeks created one of the oldest methods of memorizing that we know of today. It has become referred to as the Method of Loci (pronounced low-sigh). Use of this method was first attributed to Simonides of Ceos in 477 B.C.
The Method of Loci is one of the easier mnemonic methods to use and one of the most researched. It has demonstrated substantial success across a wide range of subjects. It involves the use of a mental picture.
First, you picture a familiar place. You can use your house. The rooms in your house will link to the pieces of information you need to memorize.You now pair the list of words or concepts that you need to memorize with each of your rooms. To recall information, you mentally walk through your house. It’s best to start at the entrance and work your way through the house in a logical fashion.
If your house is lacking enough rooms to cover your entire list of information, you can also go on a trip. This is why The Method of Loci is also referred to as the journey method. As you mentally walk or drive by landmarks, link those landmarks to bits of information.
2. The Linking Method
In The Linking Method, you develop a story that connects pieces of information. Each piece of information helps you recall the next.
Imagine that you need to bring these items to work every day: your laptop, gym bag, wallet, keys, lunch.
You then create a short story: the laptop peeked out of the gym bag and saw John’s wallet and keys stealing his lunch.
Adding exciting details or humor often makes the information easier to remember. Each day you can tell your little story to remember everything you need.
3. Music Mnemonics
You likely know many, many song lyrics. Making songs out of ideas or lists can help you recall information. The catchy notes and beats help you remember the words.Music Mnemonics work best with long lists. Some children learn their ABC’s by singing the “A-B-C” song. It has the same melody and key as “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.”You can find many songs already written to help memorize specific information. If you can’t find one, make up your own. You don’t have to be a perfect singer, and you don’t have to know how to write music for this mnemonic method to work for you.
4. Acronyms
Acronyms are words constructed from the first letters or groups of letters found in a name or phrase. Acronyms usually have their own easy-to-recall pronunciation. Here are a few examples:
- NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization)
- Radar (Radar radio detection and ranging)
- Laser (Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation)
You can create your own acronyms using terms you need to remember.
5. Acrostics
Acrostics are similar to acronyms. But instead of forming a new “word,” the letters represent words in a sentence. The sentence adds context to the related terms.
In music, students have to remember the order of notes to identify and play them while reading music.
The treble staff’s notes are EGBDF. A familiar acrostic used for these notes is Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge.
An acrostic often used in math class is as follows: Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally. This mnemonic represents the order of operations in algebra. It stands for parentheses, exponents, multiplication, division, addition, and subtraction.
6. Rhymes
Rhyme mnemonics put information in the form of a poem. Because a rhyme has similar sounds at the end of each line, it can be acoustically encoded into our brain.
Here are a few examples:
- In fourteen hundred and ninety-two, Columbus sailed the Ocean Blue.
- 30 days has September, April, June, and November. All the rest have 31, Except for February my dear son. It has 28 and that is fine, But in a leap year has 29.
- Charles’ Law: For a constant volume, pressure is directly proportional to temperature. Hey there Chuck, if the tank’s too hot, you’re blown into muck.
You can rearrange words or replace words with others with related meanings.
7. Chunking
Chunking is breaking down large pieces of information into smaller, organized chunks.
U.S. telephone numbers are an excellent example of chunking. Ten digits are divided into three chunks of data and allow you to remember a phone number easier.
Short-term memory is limited to about seven pieces of information. Placing larger quantities of data into smaller containers helps us to remember more. We remember the group of information as a single “piece.”
8. Visual Imagery
An image mnemonic forms a picture that promotes the remembering of information. Visual imagery is a great way for very visual persons to memorize information. By recalling specific imagery, you can recall the information associated with those images.
The crazier the image mnemonic is, the easier it is to recall the information. You can store these images in your head or sketch them into notes. As long as you know what the sketch means, the images will help you learn and remember.
Imagery usually works best with smaller pieces of information. For example, this method works well when trying to remember someone’s name who you’ve recently met. Imagine meeting the person from our opening story, Jim Plumb from Sync Accounting. You could visualize him as a plumber wearing a name tag that says “Jim” and repairing the kitchen sink. He’s holding the wrench and all.
9. Name Mnemonics
In a Name Mnemonic, the first letter of each word in a list of items is used to create the name of a person or thing. You can often rearrange the items to form the easier-to-recall name mnemonic.
Professors and teachers have been using these for years.
One common learned name mnemonic is that of Roy G. Biv. The letters in the name correspond to the colors of the visible light spectrum. For Example, when you break down Roy G Biv, you get red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet.
10. Organizational (Notecards and Outlines) Mnemonic devices
Notecards are an excellent way to organize main ideas and details to be recalled. Main ideas are arranged into test questions. Notecards give you practice seeing questions and remembering answers.
Outlines separate the main ideas from the details. This helps organize the information stored in the brain and make it easier to remember.
11. Cornell Method
In the Cornell System, a vertical line is drawn three inches from the left margin on a sheet of paper.
Main ideas or questions are written to the left of the line and details or answers set to the right. This method helps to group the ideas for storage within the brain.
12. Type Of Mnemonic device: Keyword
Are you studying a foreign language? Many studies have found that using keyword mnemonics improves learning and recall. Keywords provide cues to access information that doesn’t seem related to each other.
Here’s how the keyword method works.
- First, choose a keyword that cues you to think of the foreign word.
- Then imagine that keyword connected with the meaning of the word you’re trying to learn.
If you’re trying to learn the word for cat in Spanish, “gato,” think of a gate, and then imagine the cat sitting on the gate. The words and spelling do not have to be exact. The visual association should trigger the recall of the right word.
13. Rhyming Peg-word System
The Rhyming peg-word system links between two concrete objects in a one-to-one fashion. This usually starts by linking nouns to numbers. It’s common practice to choose a noun that rhymes with the associated number.
These nouns will be the pegs of the system. Terms that result in absurd pairings can be the most effective. The Rhyming peg-word system is straightforward and could look like this:
1-gun2-shoe3-tree4-door5-hive6-bricks7-heaven8-weight9-wine10-hen
For example, to remember this grocery list of ten items, you could set it up like this:
1-Peanuts: Picture a peanut shot from a gun2-Gum: Picture stepping in gum3-Chicken: Picture a tree with drumsticks for branches4-Cheese: Picture a door made from a block of cheese5-Pineapple: Picture bees flying from a pineapple like a hive6-Sugar: Picture a brick house with built from sugar cubes7-Dog food: Picture a can of dog food with angel wings and a halo8-Flour: Picture a mound of flour on a scale9-Milk: Picture a wine glass filled with milk10-Chocolate: Picture a hen laying chocolate eggs
Putting a picture with the system will make the information come to mind faster.
14. Spelling Mnemonics
Spelling mnemonics help provide information based on the actual spelling of the words involved. Here are some examples of spelling mnemonics:
- Gray = “A” indicates proper spelling in America
- Grey = “E” indicates proper spelling in England
- Stalagmites = “G” indicates that they’re on the ground
- Stalactites = “C” indicates that they’re on the ceiling
- Your school principal is your “pal,” and a principle you follow is a rule.
- i before e, except after c, or when sounding like a, in neighbor and weigh
The mnemonics are often paired with others, such as rhymes and acrostics.
15. Connection Mnemonics
One way to store new information is to connect it with information you already know. This gives the new information meaning and makes it easier to remember.
Making connections can be applied to almost any subject or type of information.
The lines on a globe that run North and South are long, coinciding with LONGitude. There is an N in both LONGitude and North. Latitude lines must run east to west because there is no N in latitude.
Making use of these mnemonic devices could have helped Jim Plumb. Instead, he delivered an ineffective presentation. His colleagues, including his boss, doubted his knowledge and abilities.
Start Using Mnemonics
Why risk the doubt of your peers like Jim? Why struggle to remember information by sticking to your current memory methods? You can start applying these types of mnemonic devices immediately.Effective Learning LAB can help! You’re moments away from accelerated learning, hyperfocus, and strong learning habits. Sign up today!
