Best mnemonic technique

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I was posting a question a while ago about the using 'peg list' and I got answer that peg list is used only by few people now. I was a bit suprised and I would like to know which mnemonic technique are the most common in use now and which are the most effective.

-- Kamil Felskowski (kamil_f@operamail.com), May 28, 2004

Answers

I don't think that "mnemonic techniques," as such, are taken very seriously by anyone in psychology. You can find some "pop" books on them, and there are, of course, a few performing mnemonists, but they aren't really a part of scientific memory research.

-- Christopher Green (christo@yorku.ca), May 28, 2004.

Here is a long list of menomic techiniques, along with fairly detailed descriptions of them: http://www.mindtools.com/memory.html

Note that it is from a site that promises to "improve and advance ...careers," and "discover the secrets to... success?", exactly the kind of thing you would expect from a "pop" psychology book.

One rarely sees this sort of stuff in serious memory research, though it might be intersting for someone to conduct an empirical study to see if any of it works, and if so, to what degree.

-- Christopher Green (christo@yorku.ca), May 29, 2004.


Hi Kamil, I enjoyed using rhyme with acronyms as in the following example for memorizing cranial nerves. On Old Olympus' Towering Top, A Finn And Germany Viewed Some Hops. Olfactory, Optic, Ocularmotor, Trochlear, Trigeminal, Acoustic, Facial, Abducens, Glossopharyngeal, Vagus, Spinal accessory, Hypoglossal. The above rhyme for some people lasts a lifetime after extensive initial practice. My feeling is that in some cases it is worth the effort (even sometimes substantial effort) to use some of the classic mnemonic devices. I hope this helps. Paul

-- Paul Kleinginna (pkleinginna@georgiasouthern.edu), May 31, 2004.

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