Mnemonics

mnemonics

[nə′män·iks]

(psychology)

The science of the cultivation of memory functions using systematic methods.

McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific & Technical Terms, 6E, Copyright © 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Mnemonics

 

the various techniques of facilitating memorization and improving memory by forming artificial associations. For example, there is the well-known technique of memorizing the number 3.1415926536, expressing the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter, by means of a couplet in which the number of letters in each successive word corresponds to the digit of the number being memorized.

Even in remote antiquity, people used first external aids (such as notches and knots), then internal aids (imagined concepts of objects and; actions) to facilitate memorization. The ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans sought to create a comprehensive system of mnemonic techniques. Mnemonics was little used during the Middle Ages. It was rediscovered in the 16th century, and in the 17th through 19th centuries mnemonic devices were quite popular. Interest in mnemonics has been lost in contemporary science and scholarship. Mnemonics is now only used by individuals to demonstrate the art of memorization attained through assiduous and prolonged training.

P. I. ZINCHENKO

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.