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A mnemonic (RpE: , AmE: the first "m" is silent), mnemonic device, or memory device is any learning technique that aids information retention in the human memory. Mnemonics aim to translate information into a form that the brain can retain better than its original form. Even the process of merely learning this conversion might already aid in the transfer of information to long-term memory. Commonly encountered mnemonics are often used for lists and in auditory form, such as short poems, acronyms, or memorable phrases, but mnemonics can also be used for other types of information and in visual or kinesthetic forms. Their use is based on the observation that the human mind more easily remembers spatial, personal, surprising, physical, sexual, humorous, or otherwise "relatable" information, rather than more abstract or impersonal forms of information. The word "mnemonic" is derived from the Ancient Greek word μνημονικός (''mnēmonikos''), meaning "of memory, or relating to memory"〔(μνημονικός ), Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, ''A Greek-English Lexicon'', on Perseus〕 and is related to Mnemosyne ("remembrance"), the name of the goddess of memory in Greek mythology. Both of these words are derived from μνήμη (''mnēmē''), "remembrance, memory".〔(μνήμη ), Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, ''A Greek-English Lexicon'', on Perseus〕 Mnemonics in antiquity were most often considered in the context of what is today known as the art of memory. Ancient Greeks and Romans distinguished between two types of memory: the "natural" memory and the "artificial" memory. The former is inborn, and is the one that everyone uses instinctively. The artificial memory in contrast has to be trained and developed through the learning and practicing of a variety of mnemonic techniques. Mnemonic systems are special techniques or strategies consciously used to improve memory. They help employ information already stored in long-term memory to make memorisation an easier task.〔Carlson, Neil and et al. "Psychology the Science of Behavior", p. 245. Pearson Canada, United States of America. ISBN 978-0-205-64524-4.〕 "Memory Needs Every Method Of Nurturing Its Capacity" is a mnemonic for how to spell mnemonic. ==History== The general name of mnemonics, or ''memoria technica'', was the name applied to devices for aiding the memory, enabling the mind to reproduce a relatively unfamiliar idea, and especially a series of dissociated ideas, by connecting it, or them, in some artificial whole, the parts of which are mutually suggestive.〔 - and respective bibliography for this specific section.〕 Mnemonic devices were much cultivated by Greek sophists and philosophers and are repeatedly referred to by Plato and Aristotle. In later times the invention was ascribed to the poet Simonides, perhaps for no other reason than that the strength of his memory was famous. Cicero, who attaches considerable importance to the art, but more to the principle of order as the best help to memory, speaks of Carneades (or perhaps Charmades) of Athens and Metrodorus of Scepsis as distinguished examples of the use of well-ordered images to aid the memory. The Romans valued such helps as giving facility in public speaking.〔The method used is described by the author of ''Rhet ad Heren.'' iii. 16-24; see also Quintilian (''Inst. Or.'' xi. 2), whose account is, however, obscure. In his time the art had almost ceased to be practiced.〕 The Greek and the Roman system of mnemonics was founded on the use of mental places and signs or pictures, known as "topical" mnemonics. The most usual method was to choose a large house, of which the apartments, walls, windows, statues, furniture, etc., were severally associated with certain names, phrases, events or ideas, by means of symbolic pictures; and to recall these it was only necessary to search over the apartments of the house till the particular place was discovered where they had been deposited by the imagination. In accordance with said system, if it were desired to fix an historic date in memory, it was localised in an imaginary town divided into a certain number of districts, each of with ten houses, each house with ten rooms, and each room with a hundred quadrates or memory-places, partly on the floor, partly on the four walls, partly on the roof. Therefore, if it were desired to fix in the memory the date of the invention of printing (1436), an imaginary book, or some other symbol of printing, would be placed in the thirty-sixth quadrate or memory-place of the fourth room of the first house of the historic district of the town. Except that the rules of mnemonics are referred to by Martianus Capella, nothing further is known regarding the practice until the 13th century.〔 Among the voluminous writings of Roger Bacon is a tractate ''De arte memorativa''. Ramon Llull devoted special attention to mnemonics in connection with his ''ars generalis''. The first important modification of the method of the Romans was that invented by the German poet Konrad Celtes, who, in his ''Epitoma in utramque Ciceronis rhetoricam cum arte memorativa nova'' (1492), instead of places made use of the letters of the alphabet. About the end of the 15th century Petrus de Ravenna (b. 1448) created such an astonishment in Italy by his mnemonic feats that he was believed by many to be a necromancer. His ''Phoenix artis memoriae'' (Venice, 1491, 4 vols.) went through as many as nine editions, the seventh appearing at Cologne in 1608. An impression equally great was produced about the end of the 16th century by Lambert Schenkel (''Gazophylacium'', 1610), who taught mnemonics in France, Italy and Germany, and, although he was denounced as a sorcerer by the University of Louvain, published in 1593 his tractate ''De memoria'' at Douai with the sanction of that celebrated theological faculty. The most complete account of his system is given in two works by his pupil Martin Sommer, published in Venice in 1619. In 1618 John Willis (d. 1628?) published ''Mnemonica; sive ars reminiscendi'',〔English version by Leonard Sowersby, 1661; extracts in Gregor von Feinaigle's ''New Art of Memory'', 3rd ed., 1813.〕 containing a clear statement of the principles of topical or local mnemonics. Giordano Bruno, in connection with his exposition of the ''ars generalis'' of Llull, included a ''memoria technica'' in his treatise ''De umbris idearum''. Other writers of this period are the Florentine Publicius (1482); Johannes Romberch (1533); Hieronimo Morafiot, ''Ars memoriae'' (1602); B. Porta, ''Ars reminiscendi'' (1602).〔 In 1648 Stanislaus Mink von Wennsshein made known what he called the "most fertile secret" in mnemonics — namely the use of consonants for figures, so as to express numbers by words (vowels being added as required); and the philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz adopted an alphabet very similar to that of Wennsshein in connection with his scheme for a form of writing common to all languages. Wennsshein's method, which in fact is adopted with slight changes by the majority of subsequent "original" systems, was modified and supplemented in regard to many details by Richard Grey (1694-1771), who published a ''Memoria technica'' in 1730. The principal part of Grey's method (which may be compared with the Hebrew system by which letters also stand for numerals, and therefore words for dates) is briefly this: To assist in retaining the mnemonical words in the memory, they were formed into memorial lines, which, however, being composed of strange words in difficult hexameter scansion, are by no means easy to memorise. The vowel or consonant, which Grey connected with a particular figure, was chosen arbitrarily; but in 1806 Gregor von Feinaigle, a German monk from Salem near Constance, began in Paris to expound a system of mnemonics, one feature (based on Wennsshein's system) of which was to represent the numerical figures by letters chosen on account of some similarity to the figure to be represented or some accidental connection with it. This alphabet was supplemented by a complicated system of localities and signs. Feinaigle, who apparently published nothing himself, came to England in 1811, and in the following year one of his pupils published ''The New Art of Memory'', which, beside giving Feinaigle's system, contains valuable historical material about previous systems. Simplified forms were published later by other mnemonists, as the more complicated ones fell almost into complete disuse; but methods founded chiefly on the so-called laws of association (cf. Mental association) were taught with some success in Germany.〔A simplified form of Feinaigle's method was published by Aimé Paris (''Principes et applications diverses de la mnémonique'', 7th ed., Paris, 1834), and the use of symbolic pictures was revived in connection with the latter by a Pole, Antoni Jaźwińsky, of whose system an account was published by the Polish general J. Bem, under the title ''Exposé général de la méthode mnémonique polonaise, perfectionnée à Paris'' (Paris, 1839). Various other modifications of the systems were advocated by subsequent mnemonists right through the 19th century. More complicated systems were proposed in the 20th century, such as the ''Keesing Memory System'', the ''System of Memory and Mental Training'', and the Pelman memory system.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「mnemonic」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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