Mnemonic Devices

[Ready for Fall 2026]

Modified: 2026-08-03 7:10 PM CDST

• Encoding is the name given to the process of inputting items into memory.
  • Encoding is important because ease of retrieval depends closely on encoding.
  • So-called memory experts and memory courses teach encoding strategies. They cannot increase your biological memory; they just teach you how to be more efficient at using it.
  • When you study, you are using personal encoding strategies. Here are some encoding strategies you may use.
    • Take notes of your notes.
    • Use one notebook for each course.
    • Print these computer notes ahead of time. Have you developed any personal strategies?
• Mnemonic devices are encoding strategies and they are aids to memory.
  • Acrostics use chunking strategies.
    • A typical acrostic is, "Every good boy deserves favor."
      • That acrostic helps musicians remember the notes that fall on the lines of the treble clef.
      • The first letter of each word stands for a note, so the notes are, in order, EGBDF.
    • There are many famous acrostics of this kind. (On old Olympus' towering tops a Finn and German viewed some hops, is another.)
      • That acrostic is used to remember the order of the 12 pairs of cranial nerves.
    • Another kind of acrostic is a poem. For example:

Thirty days hath September,
April, June, and November.
All the rest have thirty one,
Save February,
But in leap year twenty nine.
--Anonymous

• Have you ever heard that poem before?
  • Interestingly, I have found that few students have.
• Most students now rely on the knuckle method for keeping track of the months.
  • The knuckle method is an iconic strategy.
  • Each knuckle and each depression in between stands for a month.
  • Touch the first knuckle, it is January and it has 31 days; touch the second, it is February and is a depression.
  • The months on each knuckle have 31 days, the months in the depressions have 30, except for February.
  • (You have to touch the last knuckle twice for July and August.)
• Acronyms are a mnemonic strategy where words are made up, and those words encode more information.
  • For example, the word "FACE" is used by musicians to encode the notes in between the lines on the treble clef. "HOMES" is another.
  • Do you know what "HOMES" is for? Here are some hints:
    • There are five of them.
    • They are geographical features.
    • They lie between the USA and Canada.
• More complex kinds of encoding systems exist.
  • For example, the loci system works by having subjects encode items to remember with familiar places.
    • Then associations between the items and the places are made.
      • The method works because the familiar places are already firmly encoded.
      • The rooms of your house are an example of such a familiar place.
      • So, if I wanted to go grocery shopping I might mentally place each item I needed into a different room of my house.
      • Then I would associate the item with the room with some kind of imagery.
      • For example, if eggs were on the list I might put them in the kitchen by imagining a kitchen floor made of eggs.
      • I might further imagine that I would have to be very careful while walking in the kitchen.
      • Then when I got to the store I would remember "kitchen" and the egg floor would come to mind.
      • The rest of the list would be composed of similar associations of items to rooms.
      • The number of rooms I can remember will limit the size of my grocery list.
      • However, other well- remembered items can serve as points for list associations.
        • For example, if you know the stations of the cross, the representations of the last day of Christ's life found in Catholic churches, they will provide 14 familiar memory points.
  • Another complex strategy is the link system.
    • The link system also depends on imagery.
      • The difference is that you construct one image composed of all of the items you need to remember.
      • So, if we were grocery shopping again, I would group all of the items together mentally into a larger image.
      • For example I might construct a "grocery dog."
      • The dog's ears are two eggs,
      • its body is a sack of flour,
      • its tail is a stalk of celery,
      • its head is a T-bone steak, and its legs are milk cartons.
      • So, my list is: eggs, flour, celery, steak, and milk.
      • I remember the list by remembering the dog, and then remembering how I made the dog.
• The Peg Word system is more complicated and involves learning a long list of rhyming words.
  • Associations are made between on of those pairs of words, the other word is the number of the item on the list.
  • So, for "one-bun" (the first pair) the association is made to "bun" and because it rhymes with "one" that's its position on the list.
• Finally, keeping a list is also an encoding strategy.
  • I keep a paper list as well as a computerized list.
  • That way I do not need to encode items; I just write them down.
  • Keeping a list is a very efficient way of remembering items, but, you have to learn how to keep up with your list.
  • If you lose your list, for instance, you could be in a lot of memory trouble.