A mnemonic device ( ), memory trick or memory device is any learning technique that aids information retention or retrieval in the human memory, often by associating the information with something that is easier to remember.
It makes use of elaborative encoding, retrieval cues and imagery as specific tools to encode information in a way that allows for efficient storage and retrieval. It aids original information in becoming associated with something more accessible or meaningful—which in turn provides better retention of the information.
Commonly encountered mnemonics are often used for lists and in auditory form such as short poems, acronyms, initialisms or memorable phrases. They can also be used for other types of information and in visual or kinesthetic forms. Their use is based on the observation that the human mind more easily remembers spatial, personal, surprising, physical, sexual, humorous and otherwise "relatable" information rather than more abstract or impersonal forms of information.
Ancient Greeks and Romans distinguished between two types of memory: the "natural" memory and the "artificial" memory. The former is inborn and is the one that everyone uses instinctively. The latter in contrast has to be trained and developed through the learning and practice of a variety of mnemonic techniques.
Mnemonic systems are techniques or strategies consciously used to improve memory. They help use information already stored in long-term memory to make memorization an easier task.
Etymology Mnemonic is derived from the Ancient Greek word () which means or . It is related to Mnemosyne, the name of the goddess of memory in Greek mythology. Both of these words are derived from (), . Mnemonics in antiquity were most often considered in the context of what is today known as the art of memory.
History The general name of mnemonics, or memoria technica, was the name applied to devices for aiding the memory, to enable the mind to reproduce a relatively unfamiliar idea, and especially a series of dissociated ideas, by connecting it, or them, in some artificial whole, the parts of which are mutually suggestive. Mnemonic devices were much cultivated by Greek sophists and philosophers and are frequently referred to by Plato and Aristotle.
Philosopher Charmadas was famous for his outstanding memory and for his ability to memorize whole books and then recite them.Herwig Blum: Die antike Mnemotechnik, Hildesheim 1969, page. 119f.
In later times, the poet Simonides was credited for development of these techniques, perhaps for no reason other than that the power of his memory was famous. Cicero, who attaches considerable importance to the art, but more to the principle of order as the best help to memory, speaks of Carneades (perhaps Charmades) of Athens and Metrodorus of Scepsis as distinguished examples of people who used well-ordered images to aid the memory. The Romans valued such helps in order to support facility in public speaking.The method used is described by the author of Rhet ad Heren. iii. 16–24; see also Quintilian (Inst. Or. xi. 2), whose account is, however, obscure. In his time the art had almost ceased to be practiced.
The Greek and the Roman system of mnemonics was founded on the use of mental places and signs or pictures, known as "topical" mnemonics. The most usual method was to choose a large house, of which the apartments, walls, windows, statues, furniture, etc., were each associated with certain names, phrases, events or ideas, by means of symbolic pictures. To recall these, an individual had only to search over the apartments of the house until discovering the places where images had been placed by the imagination.
In accordance with this system, if it were desired to fix a historic date in memory, it was localised in an imaginary town divided into a certain number of districts, each with ten houses, each house with ten rooms, and each room with a hundred quadrates or memory-places, partly on the floor, partly on the four walls, partly on the ceiling. Therefore, if it were desired to fix in the memory the date of the invention of printing (1436), an imaginary book, or some other symbol of printing, would be placed in the thirty-sixth quadrate or memory-place of the fourth room of the first house of the historic district of the town. Except that the rules of mnemonics are referred to by Martianus Capella, nothing further is known regarding the practice until the 13th century.
Among the voluminous writings of Roger Bacon is a tractate De arte memorativa. Ramon Llull devoted special attention to mnemonics in connection with his ars generalis. The first important modification of the method of the Romans was that invented by the German poet Conrad Celtes, who, in his Epitoma in utramque Ciceronis rhetoricam cum arte memorativa nova (1492), used letters of the alphabet for associations, rather than places. About the end of the 15th century, Peter of Ravenna (b. 1448) provoked such astonishment in Italy by his mnemonic feats that he was believed by many to be a necromancer. His Phoenix artis memoriae (Venice, 1491, 4 vols.) went through as many as nine editions, the seventh being published at Cologne in 1608.
About the end of the 16th century, Lambert Schenkel (Gazophylacium, 1610), who taught mnemonics in France, Italy and Germany, similarly surprised people with his memory. He was denounced as a sorcerer by the University of Louvain, but in 1593 he published his tractate De memoria at Douai with the sanction of that celebrated theological faculty. The most complete account of his system is given in two works by his pupil Martin Sommer, published in Venice in 1619. In 1618 John Willis (d. 1628?) published Mnemonica; sive ars reminiscendi,English version by Leonard Sowersby, 1661; extracts in Gregor von Feinaigle's New Art of Memory, 3rd ed., 1813. containing a clear statement of the principles of topical or local mnemonics. Giordano Bruno included a memoria technica in his treatise De umbris idearum, as part of his study of the ars generalis of Llull. Other writers of this period are the Florentine Publicius (1482); Johannes Romberch (1533); Hieronimo Morafiot, Ars memoriae (1602);and B. Porta, Ars reminiscendi (1602).
In 1648 Stanislaus Mink von Wennsshein revealed what he called the "most fertile secret" in mnemonics—using consonants for figures, thus expressing numbers by words (vowels being added as required), in order to create associations more readily remembered. The philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz adopted an alphabet very similar to that of Wennsshein for his scheme of a form of writing common to all languages.
Wennsshein's method was adopted with slight changes afterward by the majority of subsequent "original" systems. It was modified and supplemented by Richard Grey (1694–1771), a priest who published a Memoria technica in 1730. The principal part of Grey's method is briefly this: Wennsshein's method is comparable to a Hebrew system by which letters also stand for numerals, and therefore words for dates.
To assist in retaining the mnemonical words in the memory, they were formed into memorial lines. Such strange words in difficult hexameter scansion, are by no means easy to memorise. The vowel or consonant, which Grey connected with a particular figure, was chosen arbitrarily.
A later modification was made in 1806 Gregor von Feinaigle, a German monk from Salem near Constance. While living and working in Paris, he expounded a system of mnemonics in which (as in Wennsshein) the numerical figures are represented by letters chosen due to some similarity to the figure or an accidental connection with it. This alphabet was supplemented by a complicated system of localities and signs. Feinaigle, who apparently did not publish any written documentation of this method, travelled to England in 1811. The following year one of his pupils published The New Art of Memory (1812), giving Feinaigle's system. In addition, it contains valuable historical material about previous systems.
Other mnemonists later published simplified forms, as the more complicated mnemonics were generally abandoned. Methods founded chiefly on the so-called laws of association (cf. Mental association) were taught with some success in Germany.A simplified form of Feinaigle's method was published by Aimé Paris (Principes et applications diverses de la mnémonique, 7th ed., Paris, 1834). The use of symbolic pictures was revived in connection with the latter by Antoni Jaźwińsky of Poland. His system was published by the Polish general J. Bem, under the title Exposé général de la méthode mnémonique polonaise, perfectionnée à Paris (Paris, 1839). Various other modifications of the systems were advocated by subsequent mnemonists right through the 19th century. More complicated systems were proposed in the 20th century, such as the Keesing Memory System, the System of Memory and Mental Training, and the Pelman memory system.
Types
1. Music mnemonics Songs and jingles can be used as a mnemonic. A common example is how children remember the alphabet by singing the ABCs. Book tunes are another example of mnemonic to help summarise the contents of a book.
2. Name mnemonics (acronym) The first letter of each word is combined into a new word. For example: VIBGYOR (or ROY G BIV) for the colours of the rainbow or H O M E S (Lake Huron, Lake Ontario, Lake Michigan, Lake Erie, Lake Superior) for the Great Lakes.
3. Acrostic mnemonics The first letter of each word is combined to form a phrase or sentence – e.g. "Richard of York gave battle in vain" for the colours of the rainbow, or "Shake my hand, Evil Octopus!" for the Great Lakes.
4. Model mnemonics A model is used to help recall information. Applications of this method involve the use of diagrams, cycles, graphs, and flowcharts to help understand or memorize an idea. e.g. Freytag's Pyramid to show the different parts of a five-act dramatic structure.
5. Ode mnemonics The information is placed into a poem or doggerel, – e.g. "Note socer, gener, liberi, and Liber god of revelry, like puer these retain the 'e (most Latin nouns of the second declension ending in -er drop the -e in all of the oblique cases except the vocative, these are the exceptions).
6. Note organization mnemonics The method of note organization can be used as a memorization technique. Applications of this method involve the use of flash cards and lists. Flash cards are used by putting a question or word on one side of a paper and the answer or definition on the other side of the paper. Lists involve the organization of data from broad to detailed. e.g. Earth → Continent → Country.
7. Image mnemonics The information is constructed into a picture, such as the magic triangle examples illustrated here. This technique aids the memory by enabling the mind to connect the physical phenomina represented by components of mathematical equations.
8. Connection mnemonics New knowledge is connected to knowledge already known.
9. Visualization mnemonics Techniques such as the method of loci allow the user to create unique associations in an imagined space.
Applications and examples
A wide range of mnemonics are used for several purposes. The most commonly used mnemonics are those for lists, numerical sequences, foreign-language acquisition, and medical treatment for patients with memory deficits.
For lists
A common mnemonic technique for remembering a list is to create an easily remembered acronym. Another is to create a memorable phrase with words which share the same first letter(s) (i.e.: the same initialism) as the list members. Mnemonic techniques can be applied to most memorization of novel materials.
Some common examples for first-letter mnemonics: Mnemonics for spelling mnemonic include "memory needs every method of nurturing its capacity".