Mnemonics is effective

Mnemonics is effective

Let’s think about the basic principles of how memory works. The strength of memory codes, and thus the ease with which they can be found, is a function largely of repetition. (For those who haven’t read The Memory Key, let me note that I habitually refer to information encoded in memory as memory codes to emphasize that memories are not faithful and complete recordings, but highly selected and edited.) Quite simply, the more often you experience something (a word, an event, a person, anything), the stronger and more easily recalled your memory for that thing will be.

This is why the most basic memory strategy —the simplest, and the first learned —is rote repetition. Repetition is how we hold items in working memory, that is, “in mind”. When we are told a phone number and have to remember it long enough to either dial it or write it down, most of us repeat it frantically. This is because we can only hold something in working memory by keeping it active, and this is the simplest way of doing so.

Spaced repetition —repetition at intervals of time —is how we cement most of our memory codes in our long-term memory store. If you make no deliberate attempt to learn a phone number, yet use it often, you will inevitably come to know it (although how many repetitions that will take depends on several factors, including individual variability).

But most of us come to realize that repetition is not, on its own, the most effective strategy for learning, and when we deliberately wish to learn something, we generally incorporate other, more elaborative, strategies.

Why do we do that? If memory codes are strengthened by repetition, why isn’t it enough to simply repeat? Well, it is. Repetition IS enough. But it’s boring. That’s point one.

Point two is that making memory codes more easily found (which is after all the point of the exercise)is not solely achieved by making the memory codes stronger. Also important is making lots of connections. Memory codes are held in a network. We find a particular one by following a trail of linked codes. Clearly, the more trails that lead to the code you’re looking for, the more likely you are to find it.
Elaborative strategies — mnemonic strategies, organizational strategies — work on this aspect. They are designed to increase the number of links (connections) a memory code has, and therefore the number of different routes you can take to it. Thus, when we note that a lamprey is an “eel-like aquatic vertebrate with sucker mouth”, we will probably make links with eels, with fish, with the sea. If we recall that Henry I was said to have died from a surfeit of lampreys, we have made another link. Which in turn might bring in yet another link, that Ngaio Marsh once wrote a mystery entitled “A surfeit of lampreys”. And if you’ve read the book, this will be a good link, being itself rich in links. (As the earlier link would be if you happen to be knowledgeable about Henry I).

On the other hand, in the absence of any knowledge about lampreys, you could have made a mnemonic link with the word “lamp”, and imagined an eel-like fish with lamps in its eyes.

So, both types of elaborative strategy have the same goal — to increase the number of connections. But mnemonic links are weaker in the sense that they are arbitrary. Their value comes in those circumstances when either you lack the knowledge to make meaningful connections, or there is in fact no meaningful connection to be made (this is why mnemonics are so popular for vocabulary learning, and for the learning of lists and other ordered information).

Mnemonic strategies have therefore had particular success in the learning of other languages. However, if you can make a meaningful connection,that will be more effective.

For example, in Spanish the word surgir means to appear, arise. If you connect this to the word surge, from the Latin surgere, to rise, then you have a meaningful connection, and you won’t, it is clear , have much trouble when you come across the word. However, if your English vocabulary does not include the word surge, you might make instead a mnemonic connection, such as surgir sounds like sugar, so you make a mental image involving rising sugar. Now, consider each of these situations. Say you don’t come across the word again for a month. When you do, which of these connections is more likely to bring forth the correct meaning?

But of course, it is not always possible to make meaningful connections, and this is where mnemonics are so useful. Additionally, sequence is often not obviously meaningful (although it may become so when you have a deeper understanding of the subject), and mnemonics are particularly good for ordered information.

The thing to remember, however, is that you haven’t overcome the need for repetition. These strategies are adjuncts. The basic principle must always be remembered: Memory codes are made stronger by repetition. Links are made stronger by repetition. If you don’t practice the mnemonic, it won’t be remembered. The same is true for any connection, but meaningful connections are inherently stronger, so they don’t need as many repetitions.