Page 113 - Mind Games The Aging Brain and How to Keep it Healthy

Develop a Brawny Brain • 97

If you have strong auditory tendencies, you might have read
these sentences aloud to help you form visual images.

Coding

Coding is the creation of a mnemonic or catch phrase that as-
sociates material with something that is already familiar.
The more complex the material, the more likely coding or
imagery should be used as a memory technique.
Some people find success associating a list of items with a
mnemonic device. In grade school, for example, we learned
that the first letters of the Great Lakes could be rearranged to
spell the word HOMES (Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, and
Superior). To remember the names, we just needed to re-
member HOMES. When we need to remember the names of
the lakes, we also remember the mnemonic. We then can use
it to reconstruct the original list. A link to a song or poem also
is helpful. You may have learned the alphabet to the strains of
Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star and the number of days in each
month with the poem 30 Days Hath September. Rosemary
Austin, an intellectually active senior, remembers her license
plate, 642 BBW, with the device that the numbers are reverse
counting by twos and the letters represent Better Be Wary.
Connections that you make will be stored in your mem-
ory along with the ideas you are trying to remember. The
more connections we have to a fact, the easier it is to retrieve
it later. The curious thing about making associations with
mnemonics is that the time and mental energy we put into
developing them generally is enough prestorage processing
that we tend to remember the original ideas. This extra con-
centration alerts the brain that this information is important,
and with that added meaning, the memory is more likely to
be stored permanently.
Demonic Mnemonics

In this exercise, you will practice decoding mnemonics. This
should give you some ideas of how to create mnemonics of
your own. Check your answers at the end of this chapter in
“Solutions to Exercises and Games.”