Naked Science Memory Course - Copyright Michael Curtis 2007
Memory is helped by recalling prompts. Have you ever lost something and someone advises, "Well, where was the last place that you had it?"!! It is true that, by thinking about the context of a lost item, a hidden memory can be triggered sometimes. So, if you lost your car keys then maybe thinking about the layout of your car's interior, or places where you drove today, will trigger a memory of what you did with your car keys
The 'thinking about the context of the lost item' is an example of a 'prompt': one concept triggers the recall of the desired memory. In theatres, actors often have a hidden person who whispers the forgotten lines of a play to the actor who needs it. Hopefully, with just a word or two, the actor will then recall the rest of the script for that scene of the play (read a memory technique for this).
A curious feature of a prompt is that it does not need to be an exact representation of the item which you wish to recall.
Imagine that I need to memorise what the Capital city of France is (Paris). If I already know that the Eiffel Tower is in Paris then I can use an image of the Eiffel Tower to prompt me of the concept of 'Paris'. So, in addition to spending time memorising 'France:Paris', I could also spare a few seconds to memorise 'France:Eiffel Tower'. Thus, in an exam, if I can not recall the Capital city of France, there is a chance that I will recall the Eiffel Tower and use my existing knowledge to conclude that the answer is 'Paris'.
You can even use the fact that 2 words sound similar to represent one concept with its similar-sounding counterpart. eg. 'parsley' sounds a bit like 'Paris' and so the Capital of France could be usefully memorised as being 'parsley' - to some extent anyway!
We know that some information is hard to memorise - for instance, certain course notes around the time of an exam. As well as memorising the material itself, it is good to memorise a list of prompts as well. If a single word can remind you of an entire paragraph of essay material then it is good to memorise a list of paragraph prompts in the sequence in which they are likely to be needed in an exam.
One way of memorising prompts in sequence is to use the prompts in a composed sentence. eg. "A cell contains a nucleus which contains mitochondria." Thus, the structure or hierarchy of various ideas is summarised in a sentence.
Those 3 concepts (cell, nucleus, mitochondria) may be expressed in a sentence which uses similar-sounding words: "sell a nuke to mighty Kong" where 'sell=cell, nuke=nucleus, mighty Kong=mitochondria.This is changing the subject so much that its usefulness is debatable.
Those 3 concepts (cell, nucleus, mitochondria) may be expressed in a phrase which uses words with the same initial letter: "Can Not Mix" where 'C of Can=Cell, N of Not=Nuke, and M of Mix=mitochondria. This is changing the subject so much that its usefulness is debatable.
It is nice for the phrase or sentence to sound a lot like the concepts and for the sentence to relate to the topic. eg. "silver nectar mistletoe" where the sentence conjures up a plant and the topic is about plant cells; silver=cell, nectar=nucleus, mistletoe=mitochondria.
In all but the first of these prompt techniques, the meaning of the original lesson is abstracted or encrypted so that there needs to be a memory of how the prompt links to the real information.
For this reason, it is '100 times better' to learn information rote without any clever tricks. in that way, you can focus on the concepts and not have your mindscape distracted by abstract unrelated images. However, in combination, the two approaches complement each other well: if you fail to recall the pure information then you can revert to a memorised prompt.
Be careful using 'initial letter' prompts because, although they are recommended by a lot of academics and can be found online for free sometimes, their quality is often debatable. Besides that, if you have a hundred initial letter sentences to prompt you then each word of each sentence becomes less unique and thus harder to memorise.
All of these phrase-building and sentence-building methods, I refer to as 'acrostics' - although other academics might define 'acrostics' differently.
I like to use acrostics for stubborn information which I can not remember easily in a rote off-by-heart way. The abstraction of a concept might make information more memorable but it requires a time delay while the representation is converted into the real information that you wanted to recall. One of my passions is the study of a foreign language. In conversational situations, there is no time to play with prompts and convert them to real meaning. So, despite my fondness for using prompts, they are not the ideal solution to every memory challenge.
Looking again at the requirement to memorise 'cell', 'nucleus' and 'mitochondria', a diagram would do the task even better. A simple diagram of a cell, its nucleus and a 'zoomed-in' diagram of the mitochondria inside the nucleus would be easy to draw and easy to recall.
In fact, many examiners like to see a simple diagram or a simple table which demonstrates clearly the points which you want to make.