What they are
Mnemonics are memory aids that help us remember lists or collections efficiently. They are typically grouped into four categories: imagery, acronyms and acrostics, rhymes and phrases, and chunking.
How to use them
Imagery
Human brains are optimized for visual processing. We can take advantage of that optimization by tying items to memorize with visual representations of those items. For example, the Spanish word for tiger is tigre, so you could imagine a tiger drinking tea that has turned gray.
Another form of this technique is the use of a mind palace, or spatial memory. Place items into a familiar space in your mind, such as in rooms of your house or at intersections on your way to work. By moving through this space in your mind, it makes recalling the items imagined there easier.
Acronyms and Acrostics
These are typically created by taking the first letter of each item in the list, and forming a new list. For example, the colors of the rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. These can be arranged into Roy G. Biv, which sounds like someone’s name.
These letters can also be used as the first letter of alternative words, such that they make a sentence. For example, the planets of the solar system: mercury, venus, earth, mars, jupiter, saturn, uranus, neptune, pluto. Pluto is a planet. Fight me. This can be changed to “my very educated mother just served us nine pies.” A memorable sentence, and the first letter of each word reminds us of the order that the planets go in. It’s easy to remember the difference between afferent and efferent nerves because they’re the SAME, “sensory is afferent, muscles are efferent.”
Rhymes and Phrases
Acoustic encoding with rhythm and meter can be beneficial to memory recall. Take for example the year of Columbus’s fateful voyage: “In 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue.” Lefty loosy, righty tighty.
Chunking
Humans can typically hold about 4 pieces of information in our working memory at a time. Consider a 10-digit phone number: (212) 555-0168. By breaking it into area code, prefix, and suffix, it becomes easier to parse and remember. 21255550168 is harder to remember, because it’s 10 consecutive individual digits, which exceeds working memory size. By grouping things together, we expand what can comfortably be kept in mind and reasoned about at one time. This same organizational advantage carries over from working memory to long term memory.
When to apply them
Any time you need to remember factoids, definitions, or lists. Not great for retaining the meaning of overall concepts. These don’t work well for understanding, but they work great for memorization tasks.
Bibliography
Learning strategies has good info about mnemonics and other ways to get knowledge to stick in your head.
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