Put in the simplest terms, mnemonic is a memory tool that can help one remember anything from a grocery list to the phone number of your next door neighbor’s grandmother. A mnemonic could be anything- a visual, key-words, acronyms, or even sounds. Derived from the Greek word ‘mnemonikos’ which means “of memory”, the logic behind using a mnemonic is that we can remember information that is in some way associated with previously known information, or is any manner more meaningful, more easily than meaningless data sequences.

The human brain follows a four step process of attention/selection, encoding, storage and retrieval, for memory. The manner of encoding determines the way the brain stores the information, and affects what and how much of the information is available for recall. This is where mnemonics enter the picture.

The same information can be encoded in various different ways-based on the sound, visual, or meaning. It is the easiest to recall information when it has been encoded using techniques and associations with the data already available and familiar to us.

There are various techniques that can aid in memory which are discussed below:

1. Acronyms: The simplest of all mnemonic techniques, acronyms are formed using the first letter of each word in a list or a group. The most common example would be the acronym used to remember all the colours of the rainbow: VIBGYOR- Violet, Indigo, Blue, Green, Yellow, Orange, Red.

2. Acrostics: Acrostics takes acronyms a step further. You use the first letter of each word in the list to make a sentence. Acrostics are simple to remember and are of a great help to remember a list in a specific order, the planets in the solar system for example. Here’s a fairly simple way to remember the planets in their order of distance from the sun:

My Very Educated Mother Just Showed Us Nine Planets for Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.

3. Rhyme: Rhymes or rhythms use the auditory memory and are often highly useful and fun way to remember words, list, and even extremely boring formulas. How many of us have forgotten the childhood rhyme to remember the number of days in each month?

“Thirty days has September, April, June and November…”

While mnemonics are believed to be first used by Greeks in as early as 477 BC, people have found many new contemporary uses to this ancient art of memory. It is not only a means to amuse and tickle your brain, but an important study tool, particularly for the contemporary competitive exams, the Graduate Record Examinations (GRE), for example. Obtaining a good score in the GRE requires high levels of proficiency in English and an excellent vocabulary. Remembering the meanings of at least a quarter of the words in an average Oxford English Dictionary, is task daunting enough for any scholar to break into sweat.

Many students, particularly those who are non-native speakers of English, face a serious disadvantage because of poor vocabulary in English says Amit Aggarwal, the owner and administrator of the website Mnemonic Dictionary. Aggarwal, whose interest in mnemonics started when he was preparing for his GRE, now maintains the website to help people improve their vocabulary using mnemonic associations. “Mnemonics involves linking words and meanings with some information that is already available in our long term memory. This techniques works in amazing ways, particularly when you’re trying to cram a lot into your memory.”

Be it the top brains of the world grappling with complex problems or an average student trying to better his grade, mnemonics is a useful tool in everyone’s mental toolkit.