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All of us desire to possess an excellent dependable memory system. There are a number of strategies for improving memory called “mnemonics” (pronounced ni – mo-nicks) to help you improve your memory.
Some of these mnemonics involve use of images whereas others emphasise self- induced organization of learned information.
Mnemonics using Images: Mnemonics using images require that you create vivid and interacting images of and around the material you wish to remember. The two prominent mnemonic devices, which make use of images are following:
1. The Keyword Method: In this method, an English word that sounds similar to the word of a foreign language is identified. This English word will function as a keyword, e.g. If you want to remember the Spanish word for duck which is “pato” you may choose “pot” as the keyword and then evoke images of keyword and the target word (Spanish word) and imagine them as interacting. You might imagine a duck in a pot full of water.
This method of learning words of a foreign language is much superior compared to any kind of rote memorization.
2. The Method of Loci:
• This method is particularly helpful in remembering items in serial order.
• It requires that you first visualize objects/places that you know well in a specific sequence, imagine the objects you want to remember and associate them one by one to the physical locations.
• Suppose you want to remember bread, eggs, tomatoes and soap on your way to the market, you may visualize a loaf of bread and eggs placed in your kitchen, tomatoes kept on a table and soap in the bathroom. When you enter the market all you need to do is to take a mental walk along the route from your kitchen to the bathroom recalling all the items of your shopping list in a sequence.
3. Mnemonics using organization: Organization refers to imposing certain order on the material you want to remember. Mnemonics of this kind are helpful because the framework you create while organization makes the retrieval task fairly easy.
(a)Chunking: In chunking, several smaller units are combined to form large chunks. For creating chunks, it is important to discover some organization principles, which can link smaller units. This method is very much used to improve short term memory.
(b)First letter technique: For this method you need to pick up the first letter of each word you want to remember and arrange them to form another word or a sentence, e.g. colours of a rainbow are remembered in this way (VIBGYOR— that stands for Violet, Indigo, Blue, Green, Yellow, Orange and Red).
Drawbacks of mnemonics:
(a)Mnemonics strategies for memory enhancement are too simplistic.
(b)It underestimates complexities of memory tasks and difficulties people experience while memorizing.
More comprehensive approaches to memory improvement:
(a)Engage in Deep Level processing:
• “CRAIK and LOCKHART” have demonstrated that processing information in terms of meaning that they convey leads to better memory as compared to attending to their surface features.
• Deep processing would involve asking as many questions, related to the information as possible, considering its meaning and examining its relationships to the facts you already know.
• In this way, the information will become a part of your existing knowledge framework and the chances that it will be remembered are increased.
(b)Minimise interference: Maximum interference is caused when vary similar materials are learned in a sequence.
• To avoid this, Arrange your study in such a way that you do not learn similar subjects one after the other.
• Instead pick, up some other subject unrelated to the previous one. Give yourself rest periods while studying to minimize interference.
(c)Give yourself enough Retrieval cues: Cues will be easier to remember compared to the entire content and make link to the parts of the study material to these cues. Then this content will facilitate the retrieval process.
“THOMAS and ROBINSON” have developed another strategy to help students in remembering, more which they called the method of “PQRST”. It stands for Preview, Question, Read, Self-recitation and the test.
• “Preview” refers to giving a cursory look at the chapter and familiarizing oneself with its contents.
• “Question” means raising questions and seeking answers from the lesion.
• “Read”—Now start Reading and look for answers of questions you have raised.
• “Self-recitation”—After reading try to rewrite what you have read.
• Test-At the end test how much you have been able to understand.