{"id":17138,"date":"2013-03-11T17:33:07","date_gmt":"2013-03-12T00:33:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/?page_id=17138"},"modified":"2015-08-12T15:30:00","modified_gmt":"2015-08-12T22:30:00","slug":"mnemonics","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/mnemonics\/","title":{"rendered":"Mnemonics"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-20490\" src=\"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/young-girl-counting-with-fingers.jpg\" alt=\"young-girl-counting-with-fingers\" width=\"300\" height=\"236\" data-id=\"20490\" title=\"\">A <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>mnemonic<\/strong><\/span> is any technique that makes learning or memorization easier.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>What Is a Mnemonic?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Mnemonics are learning tools that make it easier to memorize chunks of information, to break down complicated concepts, or to study. There is some evidence that mnemonics may distill complex information into a format that is more easily processed by the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/psychpedia\/mind\" target=\"_blank\">mind<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>There are hundreds of popular mnemonic devices, and virtually any tool a person uses to make memorizing information easier can be a mnemonic. Popular mnemonic devices include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Acrostics<\/strong> \u2013 mnemonics that use the first letter of each item to be memorized to form a new sentence. For example, many people learn G-clef notes&#8212;E, G, B, D and F&#8212;by remembering the sentence \u201cEvery Good Boy Does Fine.\u201d<\/li>\n<li><strong>Acronyms<\/strong> \u2013 words developed from the first letter of each item in a list to be memorized. For example, Roy G. Biv is the acronym for the colors of the rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violent.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Rhymes and songs<\/strong> designed to memorize concepts, poems, names, numbers, etc.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Visual memory triggers<\/strong> such as \u201cmemory palaces.\u201d Memory palaces are devices used in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/psychpedia\/memory\" target=\"_blank\">memory<\/a> competitions to help participants remember long strings of data. People using this technique place each item in an imaginary house by visualizing the item in a particular location, and this house serves as a trigger for remembering the item.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><strong>Mnemonics and Education<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Mnemonics are commonly used by young children to memorize strings of information, and many teachers teach their students mnemonic devices. Mnemonics work by expanding the short-term memory capacity. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/psychpedia\/short-term-memory\" target=\"_blank\">Short-term memory<\/a> can usually only hold about seven items, but with a mnemonic aid, can hold many more. Mnemonics can also be used to encode things into long-term memory.<\/p>\n<p><strong>References:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Higbee, K. L. (2001). <em>Your memory: How it works and how to improve it<\/em>. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Lifelong.<\/li>\n<li>Mnemonics. (n.d.). <em>Bucks County Community College<\/em>. Retrieved from http:\/\/faculty.bucks.edu\/specpop\/mnemonics.htm<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A mnemonic is any technique that makes learning or memorization easier. What Is a Mnemonic? Mnemonics are learning tools that make it easier to memorize chunks of information, to break down complicated concepts, or to study. There is some evidence that mnemonics may distill complex information into a format that is more easily processed by [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2474,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"psychpedia.php","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-17138","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/17138","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2474"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17138"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/17138\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}