Help to Formally Update Mnemonic Classification and Nomenclature

General Memory Chat
21

@swiftdeck, you’ve been very helpful in giving me a different perspective and it’s improved my models. There’s two basic models it seems, the sequential (multiple) mnemonic structures and the analogy (visual sentence) structure. I’ll have to read up on whether the visual sentence construction is a mnemonic method but I suspect it is because of the way I remember foreign words and some groupings of information that way. I distilled the seven dwarfs in my topic down to one sentence to prove that it didn’t need to be a sequential structure.

From our interaction, I removed a third of the categories from my systems summary because the dynamic or ad-hoc style in my mind was applicable to all systems and therefore just a trait. That leaves either a narrative or peg system. And you gave me lots of great traits or data fields for each type. In software, as in psychological research I’m sure, each trait would be tested independently. Alas, I don’t think I have enough time to pursue another degree.

Also, I agreed with you about not using the term anchor which I had chosen. Because it played a part in the traversal activity, I chose to use the term connector which could also be called the association, and is a core concept for creating either an analogy or a memory image sequence. Narratives connect by reuse of a data type. Peg systems connect by the ordered sequence of a data type used for indexing the stored information.

I’ll post a decomposition of the YouTube neurology video example next for you.

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22

@swiftdeck, here’s your breakdown of the Sturge Weber Syndrome:

Subject Action Items Terrain
Caesar jumps out of a Fiat car
(1) wearing Roman toga and laurel wreath (2) with a brain in his left toe making it enlarged made of chrome
Caesar fires a Glock pistol at a sturgeon in a spider’s web trap
with bullets of eyeballs stained with port wine from his bottle colored red and blue

The italics are for the enhancements of the each data type.

There are two memory images in the graphic according to the second narration that make it a very small protagonist story. But it’s a narrative and therefore a mnemonic structure for sure. What makes it a weak story, however, is that the first memory image or visual sentence has nothing to do with the target of Sturge Weber, no sturgeon and no web, so it would be more difficult to remember the initial cue sentence where the Fiat is an important keyword. Also, the story centers on the Caesar subject which makes the important symptom of the syndrome the seizures.

I suppose that the focal type might be how you came to recognize the structure of a visual sentence. But in the video, it is also a sequence of two focal types by connecting the two visual sentence units by narrative.

And for the other ad-hoc type of 1st letter, I believe it is a mnemonic for a rule used in ordering a sequence of words to be used as a peg system or because you want to know the peg values themselves (alphabet, numbers, etc.). Roy G. Biv represent colors that could be used as colors to paint a shopping list. (red bananas, orange milk, yellow pasta, green tomato sauce, etc.). Any enhancement like colors don’t work well for a visual image so I pair them up with objects like blood, orange juice, the sun, grass, etc.). Then you get bleeding bananas, milk frozen over orangesickles, hot baked pasta in the sun, and tomato sauce covering your lawn.

I also thought any type of system could be expressed as a mental model or as a physical model so I just make that an attribute and not a category. Plays (journeys) are first mental, then physical in performance, then made static in print. Songlines (combined journeys and palaces) were first mental, then physical in telling the story, and made static in song. (That’s my best guess without much research except @LynneKelly’s book.)

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23

Hey @thinkaboutthebible, thanks for this,

This is a nice and succinct term that quickly brings to mind that it is an intrinsic cue helping to connect new with new information

Which mnemonic/video is this? I have written a Neurology book with visual mnemonics covering Sturge Weber Syndrome, but the mnemonic is different from the one you have broken down. In post about YouTube Neurology videos I was referring to the analogies and mental models used to explain difficult neurology concepts: link here

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24

The video was in your first post:

I’ll look through your videos as well. If you would like me to decompose any of them, let me know.

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That’s ok. I don’t think my analogy videos really fit your idea of a visual sentence, as they are not visual mnemonics

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26

No, but they are very well produced educational medical videos!

27

Thanks for the kind words :slight_smile:

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28

@swiftdeck, I finished Mnememology last night and was very happily encouraged as I saw much that reinforced beliefs I held as a professor and recenly as an amateur analyst of memory systems. Also, I reviewed Bellezza’s structure of mnemonic devices and saw a general similar pattern except for my subdivisions of data types.

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I did disagree on one point in his diagram. I don’t think single use and multiple use are that useful as a category. They are of a lesser importance, more of that of a characteristic.

I could reuse his Great Lakes mnemonic (HOMES) to associate a list of five things many times over. That’s a very small peg list. I recently started a topic on adaptable pegs which explains the use of reusability for peg lists.

But I now have a good understanding of the psychological view of mnemonics and will be posting some excerpts from Worthen and Hunt’s book that are relevant to people here on the forum. One of their last recommendations was to develop effective mnemonics with a view towards organization and elaboration (distinctive processing) and I think I am moving that way in my use of the SEA-IT data types with E being the elaboration element along with the other organized visual images.

Again, thank you for your references. The only remaining question I have is why don’t we see more application of psychological principles in education and mnemonics today? Even though I’ve been properly trained as an instructor at UC Berkeley and read continuously on the subject, I learned a completely new term from Worthen and Hunt. I’m preparing a course for introductory MIS students and wrote summaries of the subject to introduce the vocabulary and organize the concepts. Now I know that the proper term is advance organizer.

I hope to see more from you on the forum.

29

Exactly! Mnemenology has a good bit in its history of mnemonics chapter where due to the so-called gimmicky nature of mnemonics, its usage was attenuated in general schooling, with more focus on rote methods. It is a shame, but hoping this will change in the next few years/decades.

Glad you liked the book, and thanks for the conversations :slight_smile:

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30

Regarding your 3rd question: have you considered terms from network topology like star or spoke-hub for these particular chain-like links? See also: Star network - Wikipedia

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I like this phrasing, will see how it works alongside ‘focal’ to indicate linking. Thank you :slight_smile:

32

Following

33

Hi, many items stemming off one item does sound like a ‘star network’ but if stem 1 is always a year, stem 2 is always part of a law case name, stem 3 is the other part of a law case name, it is more bespoke than a standard star network.

Also, the AA-ZZ system where HI can represent a word beginning HI (Hippocratean) is missing from the table. And do you have literal mnemonics such as an image which means ‘want’ when memorising a passage rote?
Mike
(memory bloke)

34

Hi Mike, I haven’t come across the AA-ZZ system. Reading around, correct if wrong, but this is to learn strings of letters? If this is the case, it could be letter conversion subset under word conversion mnemonic, as all that’s being done is to create a person, action or object from a 2-letter combo.

After this, the process of linking uses the novel information itself rather than a preformed peg-type system, which would fit with a chain-like sequential system.

I haven’t heard of the term literal mnemonics, but from your description sounds like a keyword mnemonic, where a concrete/abstract word is phonetically/semantically encoded, then created into a image. So if to learn ‘want’, could think of wonton dumpling image (wonton being phonetically similar to want). This image can then be used as needed in an organising mnemonic. Is this what you meant?

35

Hi, When I wanted to learn part of a page of text, I thought an Aa-Zz list of images would help.
(reduces to)
Hi wh I wa to le pa of a pa of te,…
Pegs could then store the 2 letter prompts.
Later, I developed one image for each frequently occurring grammar word or frequently occurring verb like: want, say, use.

By the way, ‘keyword’ in your diagram suggests a prompt for an essay paragraph. ‘Keyword’ is not quite the same as memorising text.
Mike
(Memory Bloke)

36

Ah I see about the letter system, interesting way of learning text verbatim.

Re: keyword, they act as mnemonic prompts, commonly used for language learning etc. Can be used for text memorisation but seems you have comprehensive system for this already

37

I wonder if your diagram would include the use of the pegs.
Someone could store up instructions in the pegs for sketching an annotated diagram, or for reproducing tabulated facts.

On a tangent,
I like the idea of a science student having one image per reagent in a chemical reaction.
Having a bespoke image frees up a lot of peg use.

Mike
(Memory Bloke (I have online articles but I don’t know if search engines show them highly ranked) )

38

Yup, pegs are very important; come under ‘scaffold’ umbrella, as pegs are extrinsic to the information to be learnt, but help to attach new information to it.

Had a quick look at your website, you’ve done a lot of work - nice job :slight_smile:

39

@swiftdeck, after working a bit on my teaching outline, I extracted a section into a curriculum for mnemonic visualization on my web site where I post my updates. It has benefited from our discussions. Here’s the first rough version, and the updates will be posted on my repo (web site).

  • Visualizing words
    • Metrics
      • Stickiness
        • Relevance
        • Familiarity
      • Low mental load
        • Simplicity
        • Conciseness
    • Data types (SEA-IT)
      • Subjects
      • Elaborations
      • Actions
      • Items
      • Terrains
    • Techniques
      • Related meaning (semantic)
        • Same data type
        • Different data type
      • Related sound (phonological)
        • Same data type
        • Different data type
      • Related shape (orthographic)
  • Visualizing letter sequences
    • Shape of letters
    • Embellishment with rote memorization
    • Grouping letters to form words
  • Visualizing word sequences
    • Acronym
      • Simple
        • Non-semantic
        • Semantic
      • Embellished
    • Substitution
      • First letter
      • Syllable
    • Visual sentence
  • Converting digits
    • One-step processes
      • To decimal
      • To word of same length
      • Related sound
      • Related data type
      • Related shape
    • Digit-to-sound
      • Major system
      • Major system variations
      • Ben system
      • Dominic system
      • Other systems
    • Digit-to-letter
  • Visualizing sentence associations
    • Metrics for distinctive processing
      • Organization
      • Elaboration
    • Traversal types in sentences
      • No traversal
      • Narrative
        • by subject (story)
        • by item (MacGuffin)
        • by terrain (journey)
      • Rule
        • by subject (person pegs)
        • by item (object pegs)
        • by terrain (palace)
    • Traversal maturity
      • dynamic
      • static
    • Traversal creation
      • real or top-down
      • imaginary or bottom-up
    • Narrative styles
      • Semantic
      • Proairetic
      • Hermeneutic
      • Symbolic
      • Cultural
    • Rule styles
      • sequence
        • numeric
        • alphabetic
      • imposed (pegs)
      • scale
      • position
      • time
    • Combinations
      • Paired pegs
      • Index pegs
      • Synced pegs
        • PA
        • PAO
        • PAIL
      • Pegs with narratives
      • Extensions
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Hierarchy of Mind Skills
40

I also wanted to mention ‘pointers’ : where a mnemonic is a pointer to the peg where the information sits (rather than the information itself). It makes me think of a network of points linking together.

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