Mnemonics

Mnemonics Make use of semantic elaboration

and visual imagery Associate study material with

special structural descriptions (chunking) Each mnemonic is useful for a specific

kind of study material.

Mnemonics Make use of semantic elaboration and

visual imagery Associate study material with special

structural descriptions (chunking) Each mnemonic is useful for a specific kind of

study material. Binary numbers Miller (1956). For example:

011011101101101010110001111011. Recode each set of 4 digits as an octal (base 8) digit. Remember the string as a set of octal numbers. Number of 0’s and 1’s remembered with “chunking”

technique increased dramatically.

Common Mnemonics and Study Strategies Method of Loci Peg word Rhyme Natural Language Mediation

Common Mnemonics and Study Strategies Method of Loci

Used in Ancient Greece. Imagine the to-be-remembered

objects in a series of places in a very familiar location.

Peg word Rhyme Natural Language Mediation

Common Mnemonics and Study Strategies Method of Loci Peg word Rhyme

Memorize a peg word rhyme, for example: One is a bun, two is a shoe, three is a tree, etc.

Use the rhyme for learning ordered lists of items:

Create a sequence of images in which each image links the “peg word” and the item to be remembered.

Natural Language Mediation

Common Mnemonics and Study Strategies Method of Loci Peg word Rhyme Natural Language Mediation

Associate a meaningless term with something that is meaningful.

For example, in learning nonsense trigrams, associate “ptg” with “paper tiger”.

Combined with imagery, natural language mediation helps with learning foreign vocabulary.

Famous Mnemonists Mnemonists either have very rich visual

memories or have encoded very detailed verbal patterns.

Famous mnemonists Professor A.C. Aitken:

Huge store of knowledge about numbers. Large number of strategies for doing calculations. Reduce the problem to a manageable load on

working memory by recoding it. S:

Amazing memory was the result of synesthesia.