Basics of mnemonics

The question of how to memorize faster and more worries people for a long time. Science has progressed significantly: psychologists have developed a system of techniques that help to increase the amount of knowledge stored in memory. This system is called mnemonics, and its main principle is to create a chain of associations and, thus, learn to “remember” information.

Any memorized information consists of elements. And the meaning of memorizing is to combine different elements of one piece. When you see or imagine connected images in your imagination, the brain very quickly fixes the connection between them. Just a few seconds is enough to fix the connection. When you read a book, words create combinations of connected images in your imagination. Trying to retell the plot of the book, you will recall the visual images and describe them in your own words.

Thus, you can remember anything you want: the content of books, stories, lecture notes, phone numbers, the sequence of elements in the multiplication table, in a word - absolutely any data. Moreover, the process of mnemonics remembering is completely different from ordinary remembering, when we do not know if we can recall something or not. A person who trained to learn information, looks at information in his imagination.

Let's say you need to remember a list of products. Try not only to visualize each item (a pack of milk, bread, soap, toilet paper), but also to create some image in your imagination - the more unusual it is, the better. For example, let the soap float in the milk, and the bread will be wrapped in toilet paper. Such images, even though they are simple, will not disappear from your memory. Thus, you can memorize much longer lists.

Digital information - dates, phone numbers, any numbers - are remembered with the help of a system of universal visual images, which is developed in advance, once and forever. For instance, 1 - stick, branch, piece of wood. 2 - a swan with a curved neck, and so on. If you have your own personal associations with any number, feel free to use them. Thus, memorizing a historical date will become a matter of uniting private visual elements into one visual image. Let's say you need to remember the year of a historical event - 1862, it can be represented as a wooden stick (1), which draws a sign of infinity (8), and a stooped old man (6) feeds a swan (2).

Another basic mnemonics method is Cicero's method, or spatial method. It helps well if you need to remember information items that are not related to each other - a sequence of words or numbers. Here is a spontaneous series of words that we will try to memorize using this method: cat, lemon, snow, flag, ax. The list may be much longer. To memorize it, mentally place the named objects in a familiar interior.

For example, in your own house, where everything is familiar to you. Imagine that you enter the room and examine it from left to right. Place the objects next to familiar household items: the cat lies on the chair, the lemon is on the bookshelf, then the closet is covered with snow, the flag flies, and an ax is left on the windowsill. It is important that these things in the real interior cannot exist. If in your room you really have the flag - imagine another one in its place or mentally circle it with a red pen in the picture you are imagining. Thus, gradually you will build your system of symbols, which will help you in memorizing the most diverse information.