Use Mnemonics and Memory Techniques
In this section of the site you will see over thirty techniques dedicated to
memorizing information and skills. These techniques will change the way you
learn and remember. Some give you immediate results. Others take time to
master but also deliver bigger benefits. Either way, you can be confident
the time you spend with these techniques will improve your memory and help
you learn faster.
While there are many techniques spread throughout all parts of Memletics,
this part focuses on techniques you use to memorize information and skills.
You use these techniques mainly during the reinforce step of the Memletic
Process.
These techniques reduce the overall amount of time you spend on learning
and memorizing material. By using them, you reduce your dependence on “rote
learning”—simply reading material over and over until it (hopefully) sinks
in. The techniques may take some effort to learn, however they pay dividends
later. They help by reducing your overall study time and improving how well
you remember what have learned.
Some of the techniques I describe have been around since ancient Greek
times. Many I’ve adapted from recently written references. A few are the
result of my own work and I’m publishing them here for the first time.
To make it easier to understand and remember these techniques, I’ve
grouped them into six categories. These are:
- Associate. Use basic characteristics of memory to learn new
material.
- Visualize. Use mental imagery to support goals, rehearse skills
and reinforce other techniques.
- Verbalize. Use words and writing to learn faster.
- Simulate. Simulate real-life performances using basic or
advanced tools.
- Perform. Use specific techniques to learn skills and behaviors.
- Repeat. Use repetition techniques to help you lock in what
you’ve learned.
The rest of this chapter covers each of these categories and associated
techniques in detail. Here is a summary of all the techniques I describe in
this chapter:
| Associate |
- General association
- First letter mnemonics
- Acrostic mnemonics
- Linked lists
- Peg words
|
- Peg events
- Mental journey or story
- Roman Rooms
- Chunking
|
| Visualize |
- General visualization
- Creative visualization
|
- Mental rehearsal
- Strengthening techniques
|
| Verbalize |
- General verbalization
- Assertions
|
- Mental firewall
- Scripting
|
| Simulate |
- Basic simulation
- PC simulation
|
- Advanced simulation
- Role-playing
|
| Perform |
- Three stage skill learning
- Part task training
- Performance variation
- Overlearning
|
|
| Repeat |
|
- Scheduled review
- Programmed Repetition
|
As you can see, there are many techniques in this chapter. You may find
some of them useful, others you may not. This chapter is not a
“prescription” you must follow to the letter. Feel free to choose and use
the techniques that feel comfortable. Adapt them to your current learning
activities.
Associate—link with what you already know
Before we start, here is a simple exercise. Imagine for a moment a green
cat, the size of a car, rollerblading over the Golden Gate Bridge.
Seriously. Stop reading, close your eyes, and see that image in your mind’s
eye. Do this for thirty seconds. We’ll come back to this exercise in a
moment.
Memory is a network of neurons. The brain learns by associating new
information with existing information. It adds new networks to existing
networks of neurons. We can use this knowledge to our advantage via
“association” techniques.
Association helps you quickly memorize a wide range of information,
including lists, checklists, procedures, facts, formulas, numerical data and
more. While it may sometimes take some effort to create the association, the
benefit is longer retention. Many of the heavily marketed, and expensive,
memory systems use association. If you are considering buying one of these
courses, check to see they are not just the same techniques in different
packaging.
The Memletics Accelerated Learning Manual describes:
General Association Principles
- How the brain uses association by expanding existing neural networks,
including relationships, structures, hierarchies, and categories.
- What attributes of memories help longer retention, such as the senses,
emotions, situations, categorization, exaggeration and combinations. This
could include using vision, sound smell, touch, taste, symbols, movement,
location, comedy, absurdity, offensive situations, rude situations,
amplification, reduction, ordering and numbering. Which emotions to avoid,
such as sadness and anger, and why.
- The steps you normally follow when first creating an association,
including examples. Covers choosing the key word, choosing target image,
linking them together with a primary attribute link, adding secondary
links, and testing it out.
- Basic rules, such as purity and keeping them simple.
- Detailed example that shows how to create an association. Uses polar
bears to remind us that functions of oil are engine cooling, shock
absorption, protection, cleaning, sealing and lubricating.
- The importance of practice while learning how to associate.
Association is used by those who win the international memory
championships, so with practice you can make use of association in your
own learning endeavors.
- How everyday use of association helps improve your ability to
associate, similar to what one memory author calls the “Self-Enhancing
Matrix.”
- The importance of using your imagination. Younger children seem to do
it well – perhaps general pruning of neurons and synapses that occurs as
we go through childhood is more to do with our society imposing limits on
a child’s imagination and creativity, rather than any biological process.
- Some general side effects of association including higher creativity
and problem solving skills.
Basic Mnemonics
- Clarification of the word mnemonic.
- Details on two basic mnemonic techniques that you may have already
come across or used. These are first letter, or acronym, mnemonics, and
acrostic mnemonics.
- An example of an aviation or flight checklist – ie how pilots use
first-letter mnemonics for checklists (the FIST pre-lineup check, for
checking flaps, fuel pump, instruments, switches and transponder)
- Another example for taking photos (how a photographer could remember
to check film, composition, focus, depth, flash, light, and surroundings,
and keep the camera still).
- How acrostic mnemonics use a phrase to remember information. Examples
include “Every Good Boy Deserves Fruit” (notes on a treble clef) and “My
Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas” for represents the nine
planets of the Solar System.
- How to combine them, and use of rhyme and rhythm
- Why you need to know the content behind the mnemonic before you use
these techniques, and how you can use other techniques (such as
visualization) to assist this.
- A complete example of how to memorize a checklist
Linked Lists and Topics
- How a linked list uses association to link from one item from the
next.
- The downside of using linked lists – breaking the chain, and how peg
words overcome this.
Peg Words
- How peg words help you accurately remember numeric and list-type data
with ease.
- Standard uses of peg words, such as, lists of items, phone numbers,
numerical data, specifications, personal identification numbers (PINs),
and more.
- Covers what peg words are, how they are made up using phonetic sounds,
and the use of consonants and vowels?
- Includes peg words for one to one hundred (1 to 100)
- Examples of using peg words for lists, numbers, telephone numbers, and
more
- Tips for using peg words
- How to use destruction to remember particular items in a peg word
list.
Peg Events
- How peg events help you remember to do something at a particular point
in time.
- Some typical peg events that you can start with, such as before
leaving for work, before going to bed, arriving at the supermarket,
getting into the car, meeting someone for the first time, arriving at
school, docking a yacht, etc
- How create and use peg events.
Method of Loci
- The origins of the method of loci—from ancient Greek times. Orators,
philosophers and others had to rely on memory for retaining speeches and
knowledge in general
- How the method of loci works—associating information with specific
locations, or loci.
- Typical locations you can use. How to select them. Examples of larger
structures, such as creating mental buildings, towns, palaces and cities.
- Includes general principles, and two common techniques – the mental
journey or story technique, and the “Roman Rooms” technique.
- General principles include how to select locations and guidelines for
size, brightness, details, dynamic objects, familiarity
- Mental journey or story technique – how to associate items along a
path or journey (eg a train route). Includes basic steps to create a
mental journey, as well as an example of memorizing six key points in a
sales presentation. The example links points such as delivering savings to
their business, improving product quality, addressing key concerns of
staff, reducing wastage etc, with your normal morning routine of getting
out of bed, brushing teeth, eating breakfast and walking out the door.
- Roman rooms – similar to mental journey except locations are based on
objects in a room. General principles for using this technique, as well as
ideas for extending it. For example, create your own learning campus for
your topic.
Chunking
- How to use chunking to match characteristics of working memory. The
guideline of using “seven plus or minus two” items in a chunk.
- Includes a specific example for points on how to conduct good
presentations.
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Visualize—see your lessons in your mind’s eye
What your mind sees, it believes! There are many books dedicated solely
to visualization and mental imagery. You can use visualization for improving
memory, restoring health, reducing stress, increasing relaxation and
motivation, improving sport performances, and more. Three main uses of
visualization we discuss here include:
- Motivation. Creative visualization is a great way to see a
possible future and move yourself towards it.
- Mental practice or rehearsal. Mental practice or mental
rehearsal is complementary to real practice. Mental practice can also be
cost-effective and safer.
- Reinforcing other techniques. Visualization is a powerful way
to strengthen other techniques, such as association and scripting.
Visualization works because certain areas of the mind cannot distinguish
between what you see with your eyes and what you see in your mind. You can
manipulate your mind and body to believe what you are visualizing is real.
Want a simple example? Read the following script then close your eyes and
visualize it.
You are in a garden somewhere, with a lemon tree, a table and a
knife. Relax and breathe in the fresh country air. See through your own
eyes as you walk over to the lemon tree. You pick the biggest lemon you
can find.
Bring the lemon back to the table, and then use the knife to cut it
into quarters. Take one of the quarters, and bring it up to your nose.
Smell the tangy smell.
Now, take the biggest bite you possibly can out of the lemon. Chew it
and taste the lemon juice in your mouth. Squeeze your eyes shut tight.
Feel the edges of your mouth sting slightly from the acid. Do the same
with the rest of the lemon.
It’s likely that your mouth is salivating after you visualize this.
Check! Is your mouth watering? What this simple exercise shows is that many
parts of your brain and body cannot distinguish between what you see in your
mind versus what is real. Your body reacted as if you did bite into that
lemon. Your mind can alter the state of your body.
Similarly, visualizing outcomes you want can change the way your body and
mind react to the environment around you. You see opportunities that you
didn’t think were there before. You start to behave and think differently.
You have a better chance of achieving that outcome.
The Memletics Accelerated Learning Manual describes:
General Visualization Principles
- Outline of visualization, and other names for visualization such as
mental imagery, mental movies, eidetic thinking, mental pictures, and
“seeing with the mind's eye.”
- Whether it’s important to see images on the back of your eyelids.
- How the words “visualization” and “imagery” are in some ways
misleading. What other senses can you include in visualization?
- Steps for visualizing, including prepare, visualize, and finish.
- The Prepare step includes good state (including positive expectancy,
concentration, and relaxation), notes to prepare, what position to take,
time requirements, and how to deal with distractions.
- The Visualize step includes tips such as verbalizing steps, whether to
use an internal or external perspective, which senses to use, whether to
use interference and variability, how to visualize with compelling
inevitability, and experiments with field of vision.
- The Finish step includes some basic activities to do after your
visualization exercise.
- Further tips on visualizing include whether to keep eyes open or
closed, what to do with fleeting images, being aware of diminishing
returns, what timeframes to use (eg whether to accelerate or slow down
images).
Motivational—Creative Visualization
- How creative visualization can bring change into your life through
your imagination.
- Outlines the five basic steps to creative visualization – set your
goal, create a clear idea or picture, focus on it often, give it positive
feelings, and congratulate yourself when you have achieved your goal.
- How to use creative visualization for specific purposes, such as
confirming goals, changing attitudes, maintaining health, and rewriting
your past.
- What is creative dissonance, when does it arise, and how to work
through it.
- Uses of imagery in dealing with health issues. Others have used
visualization for issues such as psychological distress, chemotherapy
related distress, pain control, insomnia, and immune system enhancement.
Mental Practice or Rehearsal
- How to rehearse an activity in the absence of physical movement.
- Examples of its use in sports through other books such as “Inner Golf”
or “Inner Tennis.”
- How mental practice or rehearsal also can be applied to other learning
objectives, especially to high cost activities such as flying.
- How researchers are yet to work out why mental practice works. Some
common theories are psychoneuromuscular theory (that mental practice
stimulates the same muscular pathways as does actual practice), the
cognitive learning theory (mental practice helps establish counterpart
mental nodes to physical nodes in the brain), and the symbolic learning
theory (mental practice is a coding system for new skills). Are any of
these correct?
- Whether mental practice is more, less or as effective as physical
practice.
- Why do mental practice? Is it more time and cost efficient? Can it go
places where actual practice is too dangerous or prohibitive? Uses
examples from aviation (landing practice) and driving to highlight
specific points.
- Principles to use when applying mental practice, such as vividness,
controllability, exactness of reference, timing, and concentration.
Strengthening Techniques
- How you can use visualization to strengthen the other techniques,
including associate, visualize, verbalize, simulate, perform and repeat
techniques.
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Verbalize—assert your learning with words
Your internal dialogue influences your overall performance. This is
because your internal dialogue influences your self-talk, self-esteem and
self-image. You often act in a way that matches your self-image.
You can use three techniques to adjust, improve and protect your
self-talk. These have a direct effect on your self-image, and therefore your
behavior. Assertions are simple statements of something you want to uphold
or achieve. The Mental Firewall helps you control self-talk. Scripting
involves writing down a story that reflects a learning objective.
Three key reasons for using the Verbalize techniques are:
- Changing negative patterns into positive patterns. A key step
in achieving good learning and task performance is to ensure your internal
dialogue supports your activities. Use these techniques to change your
internal dialogue from negative to positive.
- Set a positive context. You can use these techniques to set an
overall positive context to your activities. This includes setting a
positive context for general and specific goals. This also includes
setting positive expectations for mental abilities such as learning,
concentration, proactive behavior, discipline and attitudes.
- Learn and support specific behaviors. You can apply these
techniques while learning new skills and behaviors. For example, during
flight training I built up a list of eighty assertions based on previous
flight reviews. These were positive statements such as “I check map scale
when looking for features” and “I ensure I engage the park brake before
starting the engine.” These had a significant impact on my learning
performance.
Verbalize techniques also allow you to keep full control over the process
and content, which is different to techniques such as hypnotism or
subliminal messages.
The Memletics Accelerated Learning Manual describes:
Assertions
- What are assertions? How do you use them to reduce negative self-talk
and increase positive self-talk? How you can also use them to change
behaviors.
- Includes examples of assertions.
- How often you should use assertions, and how long do they take to
start working?
- Covers tips for creating assertions, such as whether to use first
person, whether you should be positive and present, how long they should
be, can rhythm help, and whether to record them.
- Covers tips for reciting assertions, such as use of relaxation, using
general assertions at the start and end, whether you should say them
aloud, where to receipt them, and whether to visualize them at the same
time.
- General tips included are using them to encourage positive dialog, how
to avoid seeing assertions as being self-delusional, and whether they can
be used to change someone else’s behavior.
Mental Firewall
- What is a mental firewall, how it provides monitoring and filtering
services, and how you can use this to clean up your own internal dialog?
Covers how it can monitor and filter both your own thoughts and the
comments of others.
- How to install a mental firewall in your mind, and how to configure
it. No, it doesn’t require surgery either.
Scripting
- The core concept of scripting is to write a story-like script of an
outcome you desire in the future.
- How to use this powerful tool to strengthen both assertions and
visualization.
- General principles of scripting, such as whether to write in first or
third person, should you read them out loud, whether to use visualization,
and whether to use other senses in your writing.
- How to use scripting for goal setting. Includes an example goal
script.
- How to use scripting to reinforce learning and performance via review
scripts. What is a review script, how to apply it to your learning
activity, and other general tips.
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Simulate—use tools and people to stimulate your learning
Visualization can involve mental practice, or strengthening task
performance by visualizing the task in our mind. Simulation instead uses
external aids to help you practice tasks and skills. These aids provide
varying versions of the full task environment. Simulation works because it
provides many of the same cues the real environment does, to which you need
to respond to correctly.
Simulation is effective. This is why airlines spend millions of dollars
on simulators to train pilots. However, you can gain many of the benefits of
simulation by using readily accessible equipment and people.
There are two forms of simulation covered in Memletics. Task simulation
is one, and another is role-playing, or “role simulation.”
The Memletics Accelerated Learning Manual describes:
Key benefits and implications of simulation
- What are the basic benefits of simulation? Is it cost effective, does
it provide a good training environment, does it support variability and
part task training?
- The importance of getting the right instruction, and how to avoid
negative transfer.
The role of fidelity
- What is fidelity, and does higher fidelity lead to better training?
What about the importance of cues, cuing or prompting in the training
environment?
Using Simulators
- Covers three general types of simulators that you can potentially use
in skill-based training. These are, basic simulators that involve simple
objects and your imagination, simulators running on personal computers,
and full scale simulators.
- Can you also use the actual equipment (eg an aircraft or vehicle) for
simulation purposes?
- How to create and use basic simulators, including a specific example
on creating an aircraft cockpit using standard household objects. For the
aircraft example, see how to create the yoke, throttle, mixture control,
switches, flap and trim control, radios and transponders using a desk,
glasses, books, bulldog clips, saucepans, clock radios etc.
- Using PC-based simulators, not only for flight training, but also for
sailing, surgery, photography, marketing, management, military & war,
cars, trucks, trains, building & construction, ships, weather forecasting,
and more.
- Also includes specific tips on using simulators, including the
importance of upfront instruction, not becoming reliant on simulation, and
using it as a supplement to actual training.
Using Role Simulation (Role Playing)
- Use other people for role playing.
- Examples where you can use role playing, such as for sailing, flight
training, and negotiation, sales and communication training.
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Perform—for skills and behaviors
The set of techniques described in this section specifically help you
learn skills and behaviors.
Three-stage skill learning is the normal way of learning most skills. To
learn complex skills, it’s usually helpful to break the skill down into
parts. This is “part task training.”
You can improve your skill learning by deliberately introducing task
variation and task interference into your training, as long as it’s “in
context.” You can also improve retention of skills via a technique called
Overlearning.
Sometimes you need to change an already learned behavior. This is not as
easy as it might seem. You need to follow some specific steps to “shunt”
from one response to another. Lastly, you can heighten your overall
performance by modeling and anchoring.
Note that if you take on a pre-designed training program for complex
skills, it’s likely the course designers incorporated many of these
techniques into your lessons. There is usually still room for you to apply
these techniques yourself. If your training program lacks these techniques,
you can benefit from adding these techniques yourself.
The Memletics Accelerated Learning Manual describes:
Three Stage Skill Acquisition
- An outline of the process of learning of a new skill, including the
cognitive stage (a declarative or verbal representation of rules), the
associative stage (turning those procedures and rules into implicit
behaviors), to the autonomous stage (automatic performance of the skill).
- Tips on how to apply this theory with practical examples. When to rely
on memory techniques, and when to reduce that reliance.
Part Task Training: Divide and Conquer
- How to learn more complex skills using part task training. Provides
the basic concepts behind this technique.
- The three general steps to follow when using part task training.
Details on how to decompose the task into manageable subtasks, practice
each of those subtasks, and then recombine the subtasks to perform the
overall task.
- How to decompose tasks based on complexity or difficulty of the task,
as well as the level of integration with other tasks.
- How you can use timing or location to help decompose sequence based
tasks. You may also be able to split it by cognitive processes such as
concept learning, perceptual detection, motor coordination, rule
following, and problem solving.
- When decomposing tasks is not effective, eg due to timing or overlap.
- Describes three approaches for practicing the various components –
simplifying, fractionating, and segmenting. Simplifying describes how to
modify or eliminate certain task demands, fractionating describes separate
practice on task components, and segmenting describes splitting tasks into
temporal or spatial components.
- Describes four approaches for recombining subtasks into performance of
the overall task. These are pure part, progressive part, repetitive part,
and backward chaining.
Performance Variation: Use Contextual Variety and Interference
- Describes how you can increase your performance and aid longer term
retention of material using task variation and task interference
techniques.
- Explains how to use context to ensure optimum use of these techniques.
- Includes some comments on the effect of these techniques on
performance during training as well as the longer term.
Overlearning: Go beyond standard performance
- How to improve your retention by what is called overlearning—learning
material past the point of general understanding or standard performance.
- Can you apply this technique to theoretical knowledge as well as
practical skills?
- General tips for applying overlearning.
Shunt: Changing Habits and Behaviors
- Describes a powerful technique for changing established habits or
behaviors.
- Describes the five steps of the shunt technique – inspection,
comparison, correction, pre-correction, and reinforcement.
- Includes a worked example for a common bad habit – chipping or biting
fingernails.
Enhancing skills and behaviors using state
- How tasks and procedures you do are influenced by your mental state at
the time, and how to change your state to provide optimum performance.
- Describes two common techniques for managing the state you are in
during task performance—anchoring and modeling.
- Anchoring description includes examples of what you can model
(confidence, peak performance, strength, happiness etc), as well as
comments on when modeling doesn’t work that well. Includes specific steps
for creating an anchor, as well as examples of usage (such as public
speaking, dealing with the opposite sex, overcoming past issues, and
before and after exams. Also includes comments on anchoring during
performance, as well as the use of pre-performance patterns or rituals.
- Modeling description includes when and how to use modeling and
specific steps (such as finding an expert, eliciting their strategy,
modeling it yourself, testing it etc). Includes examples of what to elicit
and model, including breathing (including rate, volume and pauses), heart
rate, posture, muscular tension, eye movements, voice, body language,
general movement, level and focus of attention, relaxation, awareness,
reaction time, mental steps and processes, etc
- Includes a specific example contrasting the state of a student pilot
versus an instructor.
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Repeat—techniques to lock in content
In the reinforce
step of the Memletic Process, I discuss how important repetition is to the
overall learning process. While we aim to rely less on repetition as a
learning technique, it’s still an important ingredient in any learning
program.
Repetition techniques include rote learning, flashcards, scheduled review
and programmed repetition. These four techniques rely mainly on repetition.
The first three are standard techniques in use today. Programmed repetition
is a relatively new technique that I believe provides great benefits for
many learning objectives.
The Memletics Accelerated Learning Manual describes:
Rote Learning
- Yes, sometimes there is information that you can only learn by
repeated review.
- You should be able to keep rote learning to a minimum by creative use
of other techniques outlined in this book.
Flash Cards
What are flash cards, or Paired Associate Learning (PAL)?
- How to set them up and use them.
- General tips for using flash cards, such as when and how often you
should use them, how to organize large groups of cards, whether you should
use them in a particular order, how to handle more difficult cards, and
using other techniques to help you remember them.
Scheduled Review
- How to use a review calendar or spreadsheet to keep track of all the
review you should be doing.
Programmed Repetition Tools
- Learn about a more powerful way to manage the repetition process—using
software specifically for this purpose.
- Discusses one example of this software called SuperMemo, and its
potential impact on the way you can learn and remember information.
- Provides a number of tips, in addition to the many tips already on the
SuperMemo website.
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A rollerblading cat? Potential issues with techniques
When we discussed the Associate techniques, I asked you to visualize a
cat rollerblading over the Golden Gate Bridge. This example highlights the
simple nature of association, however many of the techniques I’ve described
in this book need practice and experience to make them work effectively for
you.
Sometimes you may find that a technique doesn’t work as well as what you
expected. Or, your associations are not so easy to recall when you need
them. While these techniques help remember content far longer than usual
practices, they still need review. Lastly, it’s important not to go
overboard.
The Memletics Accelerated Learning Manual describes:
- Specific ideas for what to do when a technique doesn’t work as you
expect.
- Not following the basic rules, eg during association not linking items
from first to second, not being creative enough in the links, or not
visualizing the association after creating it.
- Contains a specific example to demonstrate these points, linking a
camera to a bus (the peg word for 90).
- Not following the general repetition and review rules.
- Getting carried away with the techniques, and trying to memorize
everything (“the WOW factor”)
- Where to get more help on the techniques.
Alternative Spellings
A number of key words in this chapter are spelt differently in the
various flavors of English. These include:
- memorise, memorising, memorised
- visualise, visualising, visualisation, visualised
- verbalise, verbalising, verbalisation, verbalised
- categorise, categorising, categorisation, categorised.
- behaviours, behaviour
- modelling
- organise, organising, organisation
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