Mnemonics are mental strategies that help us better memorize certain information. Studies have shown that mnemonics can
improve memory up to 200 percent. In one study, subjects are given a list of 30 items with a task to remember them.
Those who do not know any mnemonics remember an average of ten items.People who have learned some mnemonics, remember around 2 items, and those who have adopted more then one mnemonic remembered all 30 items from the list. Some mnemonics are:
Shortening - a kind of verbal mnemonics which shortens the amount of information to remember. It is used to reduce various terms we come across every day. It is based on creating an acronym for a longer word forms that are harder to remember.
Elaborate encryption - by adding information that is more familiar to us we process them in an interesting word, phrase or sentence that makes it easier to remember. In a similar way we can remember different formulas so that the first letters of us make a meaningful sentence.
Mnemonic Sentence - creates a sentence or a logical story of the concepts that should be remembered. One example of this is mnemonic of mixing water and acid in chemistry: we know that it can be dangerous if you do not know the order of mixing.Since it may never be performed as water into acid, we can associate the "War In Acapulco" as a dangerous sentence.
Method of Spatial Planning- this kind of mnemonics is to arrange the notes on paper to get the spatial arrangement that is suitable for memory. Remembering the location where the information is spatially helps us recollect this information.
Cognitive maps - the most popular and most widely used types of visual mnemonics today. Helps in faster learning: it can be used to remember a larger quantity of information in a shorter timeframe. It is based on the graphic presentation of related information as links.
Method of key words - a kind of mixed of mnemonics which refers to the use of rhyme or rythm in combination with more vivid and bizarre imagery. Especially used for language learning and new, foreign words. And example would be the word chatter which is similar to the word chat, and also onomatopoeic.