Mnemonic Strategies And Techniques

Mnemonic ("nee-moh-nick") techniques, also referred to as mnemonic strategies, mnemonic devices, or simply mnemonics, are systematic procedures designed to improve one's memory. The word mnemonic derives from the Greek goddess of memory, Mnemosyne, and means "memory enhancing." The most comprehensive treatise on the historical development of mnemonic techniques may be found in Robert Alan Hrees's 1986 doctoral dissertation, in which it is noted that in preliterate cultures "history is preserved orally and the poets, like Homer, tell that history in their rich poetry, 'recited by heart.' [The ancient] Greeks prefaced such performances with a call to Mnemosyne, requesting her aid for a flowing and accurate recitation" (p. 1).

Since the mid-1970s, mnemonic techniques have been the subject of extensive research attention by psychological scientists. This attention has been directed at both analyzing the presumed components of mnemonic techniques and evaluating their effectiveness in numerous applied and academic contexts. As will be seen, mnemonic techniques come in different varieties and combinations. Moreover, the "accurate recitation" goal of the ancient Greeks notwithstanding, mnemonic techniques have been shown to serve a wide range of memory-related functions.

Components of Mnemonic Techniques
Mnemonic techniques work because they provide meaningful connections between informational items that are typically novel or unfamiliar and, therefore, are difficult to remember. Suppose, for example, that an eleventh-grade student has just encountered the word philatelist for the first time and wants to remember the textbook definition that accompanies it ("a person who collects stamps"). Applying Joel Levin's (1983) "three R's" of associative mnemonic techniques–recoding, relating, and retrieving–the student would first engage in recoding the unfamiliar word philatelist into a familiar proxy, or "keyword"–a salient part of the unfamiliar word's sound or spelling that, ideally, is picturable. Thus, for philatelist, a reasonable keyword might be Philistine (represented by, say, the Biblical giant, Goliath), Philadelphia, pilot, plate, or flat. For present purposes, Philistine will be used.

The second "R" component of the mnemonic process involves relating the keyword to the to-be-remembered definition in the context of some integrated scene or episode. Here, for example, the student might imagine Goliath, the Philistine, being smitten by an object from little David's sling. In this constructed scene, however, the object is not a stone, but rather a colorful postage stamp that has been left ("collected"?) on Goliath's forehead.
Thus, with the unfamiliar word effectively recoded and related, the third "R" represents the systematic path that has been constructed for retrieving the definition from memory when the unfamiliar word is re-encountered. Here, when the student attempts to remember the meaning of the word philatelist, the keyword Philistine should come to mind, which in turn should re-evoke the picture of Goliath with the colorful postage stamp collected on his forehead, which in turn should elicit the "person who collects stamps" definition.

Comments on the mnemonic process. Four related comments are in order. First, authors of many popular books in which mnemonic techniques are promoted assert that the focal information in the integrated scene (i.e., the keyword related to the associated information) needs to be greatly exaggerated or be in some way "bizarre."

Yet, scientific research on mnemonic techniques has indicated that such an assertion is without empirical foundation. Rather than exaggeration or bizarreness, what seem to be critical for mnemonic techniques to work are:(1) the effort and attention devoted by the learner to the task at hand, namely the selection/use of an effective keyword; and (2) the formation of a vivid (clear) image of the integrated keyword-information scene. Thus, for the philatelist example, a bizarre or exaggerated postage stamp is not a necessity, but selecting an effective keyword cue (one that resembles a salient part of philatelist, such as Philistine) and creating a vivid image of Goliath with a postage stamp on his forehead are likely to be.

Second, and also based on considerable scientific research, mnemonic techniques work whether their two principal ingredients (recoded keywords and relating scenes) are produced either by or for a learner. For individuals with adequate cognitive skills (e.g., older students and adults) and with to-be-learned information that is relatively straightforward to identify, recode, and relate, creating one's own keywords and integrated scenes can be expected to yield memory benefits. On the other hand, for less cognitively capable individuals (e.g., young children or handicapped learners) and with less straightforward to-be-learned information, providing already-constructed keywords and integrated scenes is typically more effective.

Third, such keywords and scenes can be represented either pictorially (in the form of actual illustrations or visual images) or verbally (in the form of sentences or phrases, such as "Somehow, the forehead of Goliath the Philistine had collected a colorful postage stamp on it."). Fourth and finally, through the introduction of conventional concrete symbols, mnemonic techniques are easily adapted to associating "abstract" (not easily pictured) items. For example, "justice" can be pictorially represented by the scales of justice, "democracy" by a voting booth, "technology" by an electronic computer, "wealth" by a stack of dollar bills, and so on.

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