Mnemonics: strategies to improve memory

Memory is a cognitive function that we use constantly and that contributes to shape our personal identity. Many activities depend on it such as reading, reasoning, calculations and in general all our learning capacity. Memory is the function of the brain that allows us to process external stimuli, retain them and then store them for a long time or forever. It is also the ability that allows us to recover that information as a memory when we need it. Over time, like many body functions, memory also undergoes a decline in the level of performance. In particular, short-term memory loses its ability to retain information that comes through external stimuli, so less information can be retained and stored in long-term memory.

There are different ways in which the information we need to remember can be processed, but the simple intention of remembering is unlikely to help us, since the passive, mechanical and repetitive use of memory, without exploiting its strategic potential, doesn’t help that much with the effective processing of the material to remember.

That’s why we often do something intentional and conscious to help us remember, or in other words, we implement memory strategies. Mnemonics are memorization techniques that facilitate the storage and retrieval of information, known and used by humans more than 2000 years ago and handed down over the centuries by the Greeks and then by the Romans. Aristotle and Plato laid the foundations of this art when they formalized the concept of “thinking in images”. The techniques we know today exploit the brain’s ability to better remember images rather than spoken words.

The use of mnemonics  in the field of aging arises from the hypothesis that memory deficits are caused, not only by normal biological aging, but also by metacognitive and strategic deficits that can be overcome, in part, with appropriate training.

Mnemonics are real mental strategies that favor the memorization of names, numbers, actions to be performed and individual information. They exploit the natural ability of the human being to better remember information when it is transformed into images or stories, or associated with paradoxical events or emotions, thus increasing the natural capacity of human memory.

The exercises proposed in this module intend to work on visual-spatial and auditory memory and exercise the ability to remember more information for a certain period of time.

Based on the type and amount of information to be stored, it is possible to categorize the different methods into three groups:

1. methods that improve the memory of single items: the loci method, the creation of mental images, the link method, the peg-system, categorization;
2. methods that improve the memory of names: the face-name technique;
3. methods that improve the memory of numbers: the number-consonant system.

In particular, in this module we will focus mainly on techniques to strengthen the ability to remember a series of information and to link them together.

LOCI METHOD

It is one of the best known and oldest techniques. It is used to memorize single items in sequence such as the shopping list or the actions to be performed during the day. We proceed with the creation of a sequence of places (loci), better if well known (such as all the places I meet on the way from home to work). This sequence is fundamental and, for the strategy to be useful, it must be learned perfectly. In the phase of memorizing, the first item to remember must be associated with the first place on the list, the second item with the second place and so on. When I have to recall the material, I will have to mentally retrace the sequence of places starting from the first, which constitutes the cue (the hook) and which will favor the memory of the first item, and proceeding in the same way up to the last place to remember the last item .

METHOD OF CATEGORIZATION (CHUNKING)

This method is based on grouping more information into related categories to facilitate its memorization. It is a technique that we often already use in daily life, for example when we group the digits of a phone number to remember it more easily or when making the shopping list, we group products by categories (fruit, vegetables, cereals, etc.)

It consists in breaking down large pieces of content into smaller chunks that are easier to process and remember. Chunking is essentially the categorization of similar or connected items into groups that can be scanned or understood faster and retained in memory for longer. The concept behind chunking, as established by the Harvard Psychologist George A. Miller, is that the human mind can only retain an average of seven pieces of information at a time. Chunking is a way to get around that natural limitation of memory.

CREATION OF MENTAL IMAGES

It is a basic coding skill that requires fewer cognitive resources than the loci technique. It consists in the formation of very vivid mental scenarios to allow the information to be remembered.

LINK METHOD

Like the previous technique, this also requires less cognitive expenditure and consists in associating each item in the list with the previous one. This strategy, along with that of images, can also be used to form interactive images of multiple items instead of imagining one at a time.