A story is easy for you to create and remember

Using stories to remember is also a simple and effective memory strategy. This simple mnemonic is a use of stories constructed from a list of words that one wants to remember. In this method, the story highlights the words of importance. When the person recalls the story, they also recall the words of importance.

For example, suppose a student is required to bring scissors, a three ring binder, a calculator, and a red marker pencil to school. In order to remember these items the student could construct the following story to help her or he remember these items. “A king put his calculator in a three ringer binder and draws a red bullseye on the binder with his red marker. Afterwards the king throws his scissors into the bullseye.

Should you use acronyms to improve your memory?

Among all mnemonics, the one that people most often report using is the first letter method. It is similar to the story mnemonic except it involves using the first letters of the pertinent words to construct acronyms. For illustration suppose a high school student is trying to remember that borax is made of boron, oxygen, and sodium. The student would take the first letter of each component and construct the word BOS. Then when he or she attempts to recall borax she or he will simply remember the word BOS and generate the ingredients from each letter in the word.

The basis for this post comes from Byrnes, J. P. (2009). Cognitive development and learning in instructional contexts. Boston, MA: Pearson Education.

Mindmaps helps us remember

There are numerous strategies used to improve long-term memory. By itself, imagery has considerable value in helping make information memorable because, researchers indicate our minds encode images with both visual and audio tags for later retrieval. To experience the power of imagery use a mind-map, for example, the next time you need to remember the definition of a word or concept. People often use imagery in combination with other strategies for remembering complex concepts such as the uses of the chemical benzene or the spelling of words. In conjunction with a group of strategies for enhancing memory called mnemonics it is a powerful tool for improving memory performance.

Connect your old and new memories with mnemonics

Body enhanced recall

Mnemonics involve pairing to-be-learned information with well-known information.  Mnemonics help us learn new information by making it easier to elaborate, segment, or retrieve information from memory. Some mnemonics involve the use of rhymes for example saying 30 days has September, April, June, and November. Others use gestures for instance the right-hand rule in physics is a mnemonics for determining the flow of a magnetic field around electronic current. Another example of a body-based mnemonic is tying a string around your finger to remember to perform a task.

In the peg method, people memorize a series of pegs on which they hang to-be-learned information or items. The pegs can be any well-known set of items but a very popular strategy involves the use of a simple rhyme. One is a bun. Two is a few. Three is a tree. Four is a door. Five is a hive. Six is ticks. Seven is heaven. Eight is a gate. Nine is a pine. Ten is a hen.

People who have mastered this rhyme can use it to learn lists of items, such as the names of authors, politicians, or terms in a social studies course. You can use this strategy for instance in the learning of the following grocery lists: pickles, bread, milk, oranges, and lightbulbs. To remember pickles one could imagine pickles stuck in a bun and so on.  The technique is simple and effective.

To use the method of Loci to learn new information requires a very familiar location, such as one’s home. First, you practice each location in your home so you can imagine various drops in your house. These drops could be the sofa, coffee table, window, television, and armchair in a living room. Learners must memorize the drops so that they can recall them in exactly the same order each time. Once a person has committed the locations to memory, the method of Loci strategy is ready for use as a mnemonic. Let us suppose a person must recall five famous actors: Samuel L. Jackson, Tom Hanks, Ben Stiller, Meryl Streep, and Julia Roberts. They could imagine Jackson sitting on the sofa, Hanks with his boots propped up on the coffee table, Stiller looking out the window, Streep tuning the TV and Roberts standing in the armchair. If our list were longer, we could continue to place people in locations until we completed the list.

This post was synthesized from Cognitive Psychology and Instruction (Bruning et al., 2004).

MindMap from Graphicstock.

Mnemonics from Photopin.

Connected neurons create our memories.

Many strategies can make simpler kinds of information more memorable. First, maintenance rehearsal is the direct recycling of information in order to keep it active in working memory. We perform maintenance rehearsal to keep a telephone number active in our mind until we dial the number. Likewise, we use maintenance rehearsal to keep a street address active in working memory until we can drive to our location. While maintenance rehearsal is effective, the benefits seldom last long.The capacity of our working memory is limited to about seven pieces or chunks of information. Researchers have shown that ordinary people can learn chunking strategies to improve the capacity of their working memory. In other words, people can improve their working memory by breaking information into larger and larger units of meaning. This is one of the reasons that people normally recite their phone number and social security number in three segments thereby improving their memory processing.

Classify your way to a greater working memory

Researchers have also shown that people can increase their working memory function by using classification strategies to increase the size of their memory chunks. People who use such strategies automatically have demonstrated improved working memory performance. Automatic processes require fewer mental processes than non-automated ones. Automatic processes allow us to use more of our memory. Automatic processes also allow people to carry out complex tasks and different tasks simultaneously. Examples of automatic processes are placing of fingers by expert typists and piano players. The good news is that you can automate thinking skills with deliberate practice. This means that if you want to improve your working memory and other skills mentioned in this blog, you must practice the strategies until they become second nature.

This post was synthesized from Cognitive Cognitive Psychology and Instruction (Bruning et al., 2004). File cabinet from Freeimages. Neurons from Pixabay.