Self-Paced Courses
PSY 101- General Psychology I
Project #2

  Chapter 7 - Memory

Introduction
As a student, memory quickly becomes an important cognitive component.  Your text references the
role of meaning, imagery, and organization in successful encoding.  One specific, useful imagery
technique is mnemonic devices.

Background
The Greek poet Simonides, in about 500 B.C devised the first mnemonic based on imagery which
he called, the method of loci or location method.  Simonides was called away from a large banquet to
receive a message. In his absence, the roof of the hall collapsed killing all who were in the hall.  The
dead were unrecogonizable but, Simonides identified their bodies by where they had been sitting. 
From this incident he theorized that locations can serve as effective memory cues and developed the
technique called the method of loci.

Task
In this project you will be examining the concepts of mnemonics and other memory techniques.

Resource
Begin the project by visiting the following web site to gather information to answer the questions
listed below:
http://www.mindtools.com/memory.html

Also, if you are interested in determining your learning style try
http://rrcc-online.com/~psych/LSInventory.html

or:
http://www.chaminade.org/inspire/learnstl.htm

Procedure
As you read through the web site answer the following questions:

1. Describe the three fundamental principles underlying the use of mnemonics (association,
   imagination, and location).

2. What is the memory fallacy?  What is one of the acknowledged problems with memory? How are
   mnemonics related to learning styles?

3. How can you use mnemonics more effectively?

4. Describe three specific mnemonic techniques from the web site that are not described in the text.

5. Explain how one mnemonic can be applied to study for an exam.

Evaluation
If you use any sources other than those included in the assignment, please site them.The completed
assignment should be a minimum of three (3) pages (double-spaced or 1.5 spaced and typed). Papers
need to be grammatically correct and coherent. The assignment is worth a maximum of fifteen points.
If turned in after the target date it will be marked off a letter grade.

Back to Main Page  -  Back to Self-Paced Page  -  Back to Project #2 Page