Mnemonics are used in many forms and are important fundamental ways that help people remember visualized aspects of life. This device was created within the early days of ancient Greek philosophy. Greek scholars initially developed this in order to aid them with lengthy passages and speeches however; it has now also helped individuals easily remember visualized words or letters because people are more likely to remember mental pictures rapidly and effectively than in any other way. Mnemonics are utilized in a variety of ways such as The Peg Word System, Loci Method, and Image-Name Technique. This memory method is more important than people may believe. They provide individuals with a special concrete skill that they may use and carry with them wherever they go and, it can be associated with so many different items and ideas. Remembering to use this method itself is a mnemonic.

Exploring Psychology 9th edition pg. 277

http://faculty.bucks.edu/specpop/mnemonics.htm

Mnemonic devices are most abundantly used in education atmospheres. The reason for this is because our brains are at its primmest when we are young. They remember certain things easily through vivid imagery and as our bodies grow out of specific aspects of life our brains grow out of it as well. With this being said, Mnemonic devices used for educational purposes are the most important. They are strategy’s that help students improve their ability of remembering important information. This strategy benefits students because this method is not restricted to a specific learning limit; it is modified to fit a variety of learning content. Strategies from mnemonic devices especially help students who have a difficult time with information recall. An example of a mnemonic device used for education purposes can be Letter Strategies. This method involves a use of acronyms. For instance the acronym: NEWS can be used to help students memorize the name of a direction such as:

N: North E: East W: West S: South

http://www.adlit.org/strategies/22732/

Peg-word system, we first need to learn, the peg word numbers; one is bun, two is shoe, three is tree, four is door, five is hive, six is sticks, seven is heaven, eight is gate, nine is swine and ten is hen. Once we learned the peg word numbers, we can associate the words we want to learn with the peg words making a phrase or a rhyme; this helps us learn the information needed. I am not too familiar with this mnemonic device, but I find it very interesting and I will try using this method in the future.

Acronyms are used to remember information involving keywords. The process of acronyms is a word with a combination of the letters acting as a cue to an idea you need to remember. In this chapter I read about the acronym to learn the five great lakes of North America, which is HOMES; Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, Superior. These techniques have even been adopted in the medical field. In another class I’m taking I learned an acronym hospitals use this technique to measure newborn vitality. It is APGAR,