Let's Explore our Memory: MNEMONICS.

Sorry, family, I was feeling a bit under the weather, so I couldn't make a blog-isode yesterday. I'm much better now, so let's continue from where we left off:

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The basic ideas we discussed in our previous blog-isodes about organizing memories also applies to something practical that's been around since ancient times.

What's that?

Finding ways to improve memory, known as mnemonics.

Those of old were well aware that it is way much easier to remember verbal material if it is organized. They especially liked using poetry, where words are organized in a way that keeps a steady rhythm and rhyme.

Without these tools, ancient societies that couldn't read or write much might not have been able to pass down their stories accurately from one generation to the next. Think about the Homeric bards, who could recite the whole Iliad?(Greek poem attributed to Homer).

Could they have done it if it was just written in regular sentences?

You see, Poetry helps organize information and is still used as a memory aid.
Classic example:
"Thirty days hath September, April, June, and November."

Some of the best and most effective memory tricks(mnemonics) involve the use of mental pictures and one popular method is called the "loci" method. With this method, you picture each thing you want to remember in a different spatial location (locus). Basically when you want to remember them, you just look at each spot or location in your mind and retrieve the thing you put there.

Alright let me give an example:

if you wanted to remember a grocery list, you might visualize your kitchen and place the items on the counter in the fridge or in the pantry. The basic idea is to associate Information with specific locations.

The reason it is so effective is that it takes advantage of the way our brain naturally encode memories.

This method helps you remember things in an organized way. You need to consciously connect the things you want to remember to unique features of the method and use mental pictures to do it.

Got it?

Lot's of researchers have tested how well this memory technique works in various experiments. They found that people who used the loci method remembered up to seven times more than those who just learned things by repeating them.

For example, in one experimental study, college students had to memorize a list of forty different concrete nouns.

The participants were shown each list for around ten minutes. They tried to imagine each of the forty items in different places around the college campus. Right after, they remembered an average of thirty-eight out of the forty items. When tested again a day later, they still remembered thirty-four of them.

Yep! That's how effective it is.

Why does imagery help?

Why are images such powerful aids to memory?

One reason could be that mental images help create new chunks in memory. When you make a mental picture, you link two unrelated things together, making them into a single unit. So, when you remember part of that unit, you can recall the whole thing.

Some evidence for this view comes from studies that show that mental images will only facilitate recall if they tend to unify the items to be associated into a coherent whole.

Imagine someone who has to remember pairs of nouns like "eagle" and "locomotive" using mental pictures to help. They can create images that connect the items, like an eagle carrying a locomotive to its nest.

But the subject might create an image where the items are just next to each other and don't really connect, like an eagle next to a locomotive.

Countless of experiments show that images where things are connected together help people remember better than images where they're separate.

The same thing happens when real pictures are used for testing. If people see a drawing of a doll standing on a chair with a flag, they easily remember "chair and flag" when asked what was with the doll. But if they see separate pictures of the doll, chair, and flag, their memory is much worse.

Memory techniques help organize things that don't naturally go together, like a list of foreign words or random stuff from a psychology lab. But in everyday life, we don't usually deal with such random pairings.

When a student reads a history book, they don't need to create an organization. Their task is to find the organization that's already there in the material. Once they do, the different treaties and battles will fit into a logical order in their mind, connecting to each other and to other historical events they've learned about before.

But using mental images won't help create this organization. For example, imagining General Custer and Chief Sitting Bull together won't really help the student understand the conflict between Native Americans and the settlers who were taking their land.

In simple terms, the best way to remember things is to organize and understand them when you learn them. If the material isn't naturally organized, you need to organize it yourself. In this case, mnemonic devices, like mental images, can be helpful. If the material is already organized, the best thing to do is to figure out that organization and group the different parts accordingly.

Sweet Right?

https://youtube.com/shorts/Ou6eJzgR4f0?si=SOFibDZsK_XG5VA0

The Bus Stops Here for today:

Thanks, everyone, for always joining me. I'll do my best to stay consistent with these blog-isodes. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. Let me know your thoughts on this topic or on my blogs. As always, I enjoy writing these, and I want to make sure you enjoy reading them. Until tomorrow, take care, everyone.

References and links:

https://www.all-about-psychology.com/psychology-mnemonics.html

https://www.verywellhealth.com/will-the-method-of-loci-mnemonic-improve-your-memory-98411

https://medlifemastery.com/mcat/preparation/memorization/mnemonics/psychology/

https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/psychology/mnemonics

https://www.psychologistworld.com/memory/mnemonics