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What is mnemonics? Mnemonic refers to something designed to assist the memory; it is something like a rhyme or special word that will help you remember a certain piece of information. Such a memory-aiding trick is often called a mnemonic device. The word mnemonic is derived from the Ancient Greek word mnemonikos (“of memory”) and is related to Mnemosyne (“remembrance”), (Wiki: Mnemonic, 2008).

Visual mnemonics are very popular in medicine as well as other fields. Mnemonics rely not only on repetition to remember facts, but also on associations between easy-to-remember information and to be remembered lists of data, based on the principle that the human mind much more easily remembers data “when the items that must be recalled are interacting with each other” (Matlin, 2005,pg 162)

There are many steps you can take to enhance your retrieval capacity. First, however, it’s helpful to understand how we remember by learning a little bit about memory. Memory is the mental activity of recalling information that you learned or experienced. Memory can be short-term or long-term.

Short-term memory

In short-tem memory, your mind stores information for a few seconds or a few minutes such memory is fragile.

Example:

The time it takes you to dial a phone number.

Comparing the prices of several items in a store. (Gill, Rose, Kemp, 2007)



This is why George Miller proposed a theory of 7+/- 2, where you can remember a phone number, but have to take out your credit card every time you want to order something online, because you can only in theory remember up to 9 numbers at a given time (Matlin, 2005,pg 80).

Long-term memory

Long-term memory involves the information you make an effort to retain, it is personally meaningful to you because it contains information that you have gained...