What Are Mnemonics? Types, Examples and When to Use Them

The main mnemonic families in one table

Most mnemonics you will meet belong to one of the families below. Acronyms and acrostics share a row because they use the same trick: the first letters of the items you need. An acronym turns those letters into a word. An acrostic turns them into a sentence. The Good fit column is our practical judgment, not a research result.

A rhyme is the simplest of the group: a rule you can chant, with the wording locked in by the beat. It has no separate guide because it needs none.

What the research we checked says

We read the abstracts of most sources below and much of Atkinson's article. The experiments mostly used laboratory word lists and vocabulary lists, so they speak to those jobs more than to a whole course.

For foreign vocabulary, the keyword method was described in a 1975 article that reported, from the author's own experiments, that the keyword group recalled more Russian words than the control group on a comprehensive test and on a delayed test six weeks later (Atkinson, 1975). For the memory palace, a short study had beginners apply the method to lists of unrelated words, and a briefly studied virtual environment worked about as well as the traditional method with a highly familiar place (Legge et al., 2012).

Many mnemonics ask you to build a picture. In laboratory tests of recognition and free recall, pictures were remembered better than words (Standing, 1973). That is a finding about pictures versus words, not a test of mnemonic methods, so read it as background.

The limits matter just as much. A major review of ten study techniques rated practice testing and spaced practice as high utility, and rated the keyword mnemonic and imagery for text learning as low utility. The authors judged that the keyword mnemonic appeared to help for a limited number of materials and short retention intervals (Dunlosky et al., 2013).

How to choose a family for your material

Start from the shape of what you have to learn, not from the technique you like best. Three questions of our own, not a tested method, sort most cases.

• Does order matter? If yes, think memory palace, pegs or a story chain. If no, an acronym or a short story may be enough.
• Is it concrete? Objects and actions turn into pictures easily. Abstract ideas do not, so a first-letter sentence may fit better, or no mnemonic at all.
• How long is the list? A five-item list fits in one sentence. A much longer one may need a palace with several rooms.

A five-minute first try

1. Pick five items you actually need to learn.
2. Choose one family from the table, using the three questions above.
3. Build the mnemonic from your own words or pictures. Keep it shorter than the material itself.
4. Close this page and write the items from memory.
5. Check your answer, fix the misses, and test yourself again tomorrow.

A mnemonic is only a cue, and it still needs reviewing. Put the items on cards in Practice, our free flashcard trainer, which brings a card back after 1, 2, 4, 8 or 16 days depending on its box. That schedule is a simple model inspired by the Leitner system, and we do not claim it is the best one. For the limits of the whole approach, read when mnemonics fall short.

Common mistakes

• Using a mnemonic to learn something you need to understand. Explain the idea in your own words first. Keep mnemonics for the arbitrary parts, such as an order, a name or a term.
• Building the mnemonic and never testing it. Close the page and recall the items the next day. A mnemonic you have not tried to use from memory is only a guess.
• Using one family for every kind of material. Match the family to the job: acronyms for short lists, a palace for long ordered ones, the keyword method for foreign words.
• Making the mnemonic harder to remember than the list. If the cue takes longer to recall than the items, simplify it.

Frequently asked questions

Are mnemonics only for lists?

In our practical view, lists, names and vocabulary are where they fit best, because those items have no built-in meaning to hold onto. The studies we checked used word lists and vocabulary lists, so we cannot say much about other uses.

Do mnemonics really work?

In Atkinson's laboratory experiments, the keyword group recalled more vocabulary than the control group (Atkinson, 1975). Those were narrow tasks, and one major review judged that the keyword mnemonic appeared to help for a limited number of materials and short retention intervals (Dunlosky et al., 2013). Results vary between people.

Which mnemonic should a beginner try first?

An acronym or acrostic for a short list takes the least setup. If the list is long or has to stay in order, move on to the memory palace guide.

Do I still need to review if I use a mnemonic?

Yes. A cue you never revisit may stop working. The same review that rated the keyword mnemonic as limited rated practice testing and spaced practice as high utility (Dunlosky et al., 2013), so we suggest pairing any mnemonic with spaced self-testing.

Sources

We opened each source below before citing it. See Methodology and Sources for how we check them.

1. Atkinson, R. C. (1975). Mnemotechnics in second-language learning. American Psychologist, 30(8), 821-828. Open the source
2. Legge, E. L. G., Madan, C. R., Ng, E. T., & Caplan, J. B. (2012). Building a memory palace in minutes: Equivalent memory performance using virtual versus conventional environments with the Method of Loci. Acta Psychologica, 141(3), 380-390. Open the source
3. Standing, L. (1973). Learning 10000 pictures. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 25(2), 207-222. Open the source
4. Dunlosky, J., Rawson, K. A., Marsh, E. J., Nathan, M. J., & Willingham, D. T. (2013). Improving Students' Learning With Effective Learning Techniques: Promising Directions From Cognitive and Educational Psychology. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 14(1), 4-58. Open the source