A mnemonic device (pronounced /nəˈmɒnɪk/) is a memory aid. In Psychology, memory is an organism's ability to store retain and subsequently retrieve information Mnemonics are often verbal, something such as a very short poem or a special word used to help a person remember something, particularly lists. Mnemonics rely not only on repetition to remember facts, but also on associations between easy-to-remember constructs and lists of data, based on the principle that the human mind much more easily remembers insignificant data attached to spatial, personal, or otherwise meaningful information than that occurring in meaningless sequences. The sequences must make sense though; if a random mnemonic is made up, it is not necessarily a memory aid.
The word mnemonic is derived from the Ancient Greek word μνημονικός mnemonikos ("of memory") and is related to Mnemosyne ("remembrance"), the name of the goddess of memory in Greek mythology. The Ancient Greek language is the historical stage in the development of the Hellenic language family spanning the Archaic (c Mnemosyne (Greek, nɪˈmɒzɪni or /nɪˈmɒsəni/ (sometimes confused with Mneme or compared with Memoria In Psychology, memory is an organism's ability to store retain and subsequently retrieve information Greek mythology is the body of stories belonging to the ancient Greeks concerning their gods and Heroes the nature of the world and the origins and significance Both of these words refer back to μνημα mnema ("remembrance"). [1] The second known reference to mnemonics is the method of loci described in Cicero's De Oratore. The Method of Loci is a technique for memorizing many things and has been practiced since Classical antiquity. Marcus Tullius Cicero ( Classical Latin ˈkikeroː usually ˈsɪsərəʊ in English January 3, 106 BC &ndash December 7, 43 BC was a Roman De Oratore ("On the Orator" is a discourse on Rhetoric written by Cicero in 55 BC.
The major assumption is that there are two sorts of memory: the "natural" memory and the "artificial" memory. The former is inborn, and is the one that everyone uses every day. The artificial memory is one that is trained through learning and practicing a variety of mnemonic techniques. The latter can be used to perform feats of memory that are quite extraordinary, impossible to carry out using the natural memory alone.
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First letter mnemonics
One common mnemonic for remembering lists consists of an easily remembered word, phrase, or rhyme whose first letters are associated with the list items. Though easy to derive, they are often not as powerful as the classical systems because they do not make use of visualization techniques. The idea lends itself well to memorizing hard-to-break passwords as well. In computing a password is a Word or string of characters that is entered often along with a user name, in modern times usually into a computer system
Other mnemonic systems
Arbitrariness of mnemonics
A curious characteristic of many memory systems is that mnemonics work despite being (or possibly because of being) illogical, arbitrary, and artistically flawed. The Method of Loci is a technique for memorizing many things and has been practiced since Classical antiquity. A Mnemonic link system is a method of remembering lists based on creating an association between the elements of that list Japanese double entendres have a rich history in Japanese entertainment because of the way that Japanese words can be read to have several different meanings and pronunciations (homographs The Major System (also called the phonetic number system or phonetic mnemonic system) is a Mnemonic technique used to aid in memorizing numbers The mnemonic dominic system is a mnemonic system similar to the Mnemonic major system, but much shorter "Roy" is a legitimate first name, but there is no actual surname "Biv" and of course the middle initial "G" is arbitrary. Why is "Roy G. Biv" easy to remember in order to memorise the order that the seven colours of the rainbow appear? ROYGBIV can also be expressed as the almost meaningless phrase "Roy Great Britain the Fourth" again referencing "Roy" but using the GB national code for Great Britain and the Roman numerals for 4, viz: IV. Roy G Biv is a Mnemonic for the sequence of hues in the Visible spectrum, in rainbows, and in order from longest to shortest wavelength The sentence "Richard of York gave battle in vain" is commonly used in the UK. Any two of the three months ending in -ember would fit just as euphoniously as September and November in "Thirty days hath...", yet most people can remember the rhyme correctly for a lifetime after having heard it once, and are never troubled by doubts as to which two of the -ember months have thirty days. Thirty days hath September is a traditional English Mnemonic rhyme of which many variants are commonly used in English-speaking countries to remember the lengths A bizarre arbitrary association may stick in the mind better than a logical one.
One reason for the effectiveness of seemingly arbitrary mnemonics is the grouping of information provided by the mnemonic. Just as US phone numbers group 10 digits into three groups, the name "Roy G. Biv" groups seven colors into two short names and an initial. Various studies (most notably The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two) have shown that the human brain is capable of remembering only a limited number of arbitrary items in working memory; grouping these items into chunks permits the brain to hold more of them in memory. "The Magical Number Seven Plus or Minus Two Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information" is a 1956 paper by the cognitive psychologist George A
Assembly mnemonics
In assembly language a mnemonic is a code, usually from 1 to 5 letters, that represents an opcode, a number. See the terminology section below for information regarding inconsistent use of the terms assembly and assembler In computer technology an opcode ( op eration code) is the portion of a Machine language instruction that specifies the operation to be performed
Programming in machine code, by supplying the computer with the numbers of the operations it must perform, can be quite a burden, because for every operation the corresponding number must be looked up or remembered. Looking up all numbers takes a lot of time, and mis-remembering a number may introduce computer bugs. A software bug (or just “bug” is an error flaw mistake Failure, fault or “undocumented feature” in a Computer program that prevents it
Therefore a set of mnemonics was devised. Each number was represented by an alphabetic code. So instead of entering the number corresponding to addition to add two numbers one can enter "add".
Although mnemonics differ between different CPU designs some are common, for instance: "sub" (subtract), "div" (divide), "add" (add) and "mul" (multiply). CPU design is the Design engineering task of creating a Central processing unit (CPU a component of Computer hardware.
This type of mnemonic is different from the ones listed above in that instead of a way to make remembering numbers easier, it is a way to make remembering numbers unnecessary (by relying on some external way to tie each mnemonic to a number).
History of mnemonics
See the method of loci. The Method of Loci is a technique for memorizing many things and has been practiced since Classical antiquity.
References
- ^ Liddell, H. G. ; R. Scott (1889). Intermediate Greek-English Lexicon. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-910206-6.
External links
The Open Directory Project ( ODP) also known as dmoz (from directoryDictionary
mnemonic
-adjective
- Of or related to mnemonics: the study of techniques for remembering anything more easily.
-noun
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