Master of Memory: Accelerated learning, education, memorization - MMem 0348: Mnemonic examples, or custom mnemonics?

Episode Date: July 8, 2015

Kevin asks if it’s better to give students pre-made mnemonic examples or to have the students create their own custom mnemonics. I present the pros and cons of giving students ready-made mnemonic examples that they can use. What do you want to learn? Leave your question at http://MasterOfMemory.com/. Music credit: Maurice Ravel’s String Quartet, 2nd movement, performed by […]

Master of Memory 348. Welcome to Master of Memory. I'm Timothy and I'm here to answer your accelerated learning questions every day and to inspire and empower you to learn anything you want to learn faster than ever. Kevin submitted a written question at masterofmemory.com slash question. Kevin says, I'm doing an experiment for my master's thesis where I'm testing mnemonic methods in learning vocabulary of a foreign language. In my experiment, I'm using the link method and linking the sound of the word with a word or phrase that's acoustically similar to something recognizable in English.

Typically, the image that I create is outlandish and fun. I'm also providing photoshopped images that will show the mnemonic image paired and interacting together with the target word. However, what I'm curious about is whether it's better either to A, have the participants create their own mnemonic so that it's more salient to them, or B, if I give them the mnemonic image, then to at least have them imagine it for themselves. So what I guess I'm asking about when it comes to mnemonic image, then to at least have them imagine it for themselves. So what I guess I'm asking about when it comes to mnemonics are the pros and cons of already provided mnemonic images versus the person themselves thinking of it or imagining it for themselves. Thanks for the question, Kevin. And this goes to the classic question of the pros and cons of mnemonic imagery and whether we should provide examples to people or make them do it themselves.

And for me, it's all about the results that you're getting. So there's a lot of controversy around this in the field of mnemonics and I think there's way too much controversy around it because as practical as I am, I think that we should do what works and base conclusions on what works and what doesn't. So Kevin, I think it's really cool that you're doing an experiment. You're showing what works and what doesn't based on actual experience and testing, you know, option A and option B, rather than simply eliminating option B because it's against some arbitrary idea that mnemonic examples don't work. The simple fact of the matter is that mnemonic examples do work,

and to the very small extent that they use them in schools, such as, you know, there are mnemonics for math formulae that are fairly well known and things like that, and then mnemonics for music, like F-A-C-E, for reading the treble clef. Those are the notes in the spaces. Those are mnemonics. They're things that the students didn't come up with themselves. The teachers came up with it, and they work. They just simply help students learn faster. And since they work, they're good things to use, and they should continue to be used, rather than making students come up with their

own things. At the same time, there's obviously great value in helping students come up with their own ideas, At the same time, there's obviously great value in helping students come up with their own ideas, but this goes to the question of whether we should teach or teach to learn, and I think that we have to do both. The best skill that you can have in life is learning how to learn itself, how to be able to memorize things and create your own methods of memorizing and learning new things. But for that very reason, we should show people how it works. We should give people examples of mnemonics that they can use that are effective for them

and then modify them based on what does or doesn't work very sharply for them, what they do or don't remember particularly well. So some of the cons of using mnemonic examples are just the fact that, you know, what is very vivid for you might not be particularly vivid for another person. Like if I told you that Cookie Monster was sitting at a writing desk and he had spilled his orange juice all over a piece of tea-stained paper, that'll be very vivid for somebody who has sat at a writing desk and has associations with that, but not for somebody else. But still, it's going to be vivid for everyone, although not all the details will stick out as vividly. For example, some people

might not be familiar with Cookie Monster and might imagine something different from what we're imagining, the big blue puppet thing, but hey, it's still vivid and it will still work to some extent. And in particular, Kevin, with what you're talking about, where you're actually giving them images that they can see, images are memorable. Some images will be more memorable to certain people than others are to the same people. And so a particular image may stick in one person's mind

more than somebody else's. Like a picture of a beagle will be very strong for someone who had a pet beagle growing up, but not to someone else who doesn't know what a beagle is. But at the same time, it is going to be remembered as a hairy animal. And if you look at all the other pros of giving mnemonic examples, like the fact that your students don't have to come up with the ideas of all the images themselves. They're just already created for them. They far outweigh the drawbacks if you're teaching a lot of information quickly, like we do in our Spanish course or in our James course. If we forced

our students to create their own mnemonics for every single verse in the book of James or for every single Spanish word, boy, we would not have any students finishing those courses. But the students in the Spanish course have all said that the stories are memorable, and the results have been amazing. Sometimes they have to sharpen them a little bit by customizing them, perhaps by adding details or by changing something slightly if something isn't sticking for them, but it at least gives them a starting point and a method for creating their mnemonics. And basically, these students are leveraging the years of work that

went into creating the course and into thinking exactly how to do these mnemonics, and they don't have to do that themselves. They just have to make the mnemonics more vivid for them personally. So all of that is my opinion on mnemonic examples and the advantages of mnemonic examples, but some of the cons as well, some of the drawbacks to it. The fact is, I think that it's most important to teach people how to do this stuff themselves, but there's really no better way to teach them than by providing examples, showing exactly what you've done and how it works, how effective mnemonics are, and then let them go and create their own

mnemonics as well because of the inspiration of what you've already done. Now, listeners have asked about how they can support Master of Memory and keep this show free for the world, particularly if you don't have a lot of time or any money to spend. So right now, I'm going to tell you that, believe it or not, right now, at this moment, the number one way that you can support the show doesn't require any money of you, is very easy, and will only take a few seconds, and it requires nothing but your smartphone in your hand right now.

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