The Anger of Compassion

Shakira's Heavenly Mammaries Excite Ovations

Quick: name the Great Lakes. In five seconds.

How'd you do?

Would it be easier if, for example, you knew how many there were? Or if you knew how many there were, and had a key as to the first letter of the name of each lake? And if those keys were, in turn, easy to remember? Sure it would.

The Great Lakes are Erie, Huron, Michigan, Superior, and Ontario. What do we do with that knowledge, in order to learn it, lock it in memory? We play with it a bit.

Can you remember the word "homes?" Of course you can. But try it as an acronym, done this way: HOMES.

H Huron

O Ontario

M Michigan

E Erie

S Superior

That little acronym serves as a mnemonic, giving you two cues: how many items are in the list you're trying to remember, and the initial letter of each word (name) in the list. It's a pretty easy mnemonic to remember, too -- but what if you wanted to make it even more certain that you could remember it? That's no problem, either.

Try this: Picture your own home in your mind. Now, imagine it screaming out of the sky and crashing into a huge (er, Great) lake, causing a tremendous splash.

One more time: name the Great Lakes. How many are there? What are their names? Was it easier this time?

Now, what if you wanted, for whatever reason, to order and recall the lakes in terms of their position, from west to east?

Small Minds Hate Encountering Objectivism!

You might think that translating such a statement into a picture might be difficult, but it doesn't have to be: depending on who you are, you might imagine a Republican politician (or William F. Buckley, Jr., or Jerry Falwell, or your parents, or one of your professors) recoiling in horror from Ayn Rand.

More? How about ordering the lakes in terms of size, from largest to smallest?

Shakira's Heavenly Mammaries Excite Ovations!

I trust you'll have little problem creating an appropriate image.

Again, as with the house crashing into a lake, creating a picture is part of the process. It's true that you may have more fun picturing Shakira and her heavenly mammaries than picturing a house, but it wasn't difficult, I'll wager, to create that mental picture. Aren't you glad you discovered the subject of mnemonics?

What if you were studying for a history exam? Could you, say, memorize the names of the ruling houses of England, in chronological order?

Well of course you could. Readers of The Anger of Compassion already know, of course, that the English royal houses were Norman, Plantagenet, Lancaster, York, Tudor, Stuart, Hanover, and Windsor, but what about communications majors and other unfortunates who don't already have this knowledge? Could another mnemonic help? Does such a thing exist?

Well, let's just do it, shall we? I mean, no point letting your trousers slip half way.

No Point Letting Your Trousers Slip Half Way

There you are, an easy way to recall that the ruling houses of England were Norman, Plantagenet, Lancaster, York, Tudor, Stuart, Hanover, and Windsor (even if various members of that house now style themselves Wessex, or Wales). Again, though, how would you recall what the statement stood for?

Easy: link that goofy sentence to a picture in your mind, perhaps of the Prince of Wales, or Henry VIII. Or yourself. Picture a huge crown on his (or your) head, a seriously unhappy look on his face as he struggles frantically and unsuccessfully and his trousers do, indeed, slip past the half-way point.

Try again: name the Great Lakes and name the ruling houses of England. Even if you didn't know them before, it's a pretty easy task now, isn't it?

It's true that at some point, your natural memory must come into play, but most of us have heard the names of the Great Lakes, and basically know the list even if we can't summon it at will. Ditto for the ruling houses of England. We do know this information, however sketchily, or we knew it years ago, and the problem lies in being able to recall it at will. The problem seems to be knowing where we put it in memory, and how to get it out of there. Mnemonics help us solve that encoding problem. So we're counting on our natural memory and on some sort of system, and together they'll help us get the results we want.

A more serious objection could be raised, though: "These are simple lists. They're short lists, too. The information in them could be memorized even without use of any mnemonics at all, and lots of people do it all the time. What about longer lists, or more complicated information?"

Good question. My answer? "Yes, I agree, and yes, we can use mnemonics to handle longer lists, such as the kings of England or the presidents of the United States or Arabic vocabulary. In fact, I have taught others how to memorize such things. This, in fact, is where use of memory systems shines over attempts at rote memorization: they help save time and remove drudgery, and so make memorization more effective. So, tomorrow, loyal readers, we memorize the kings of England. We'll get into some other topics, too, including my claim about Arabic vocabulary.

I think you'll remember the Great Lakes until then, too. Shakira will help, too: go ahead and, um, use her.

Posted by Craig Ceely at June 16, 2007 07:29 PM