ABSTRACT
When learning musical scales students are often given the phrase, ‘Every Good Boy Deserves Favour’ to help them remember the position of various notes on a stave. The idea is that the first letter from each word relates to a position, or note, on the musical stave, reading from the bottom up (see Figure 7.1). In a similar way, when attempting to learn which colours go to make up the visible spectrum, often seen in rainbows, students are given the name ROY-G-BIV to help them remember the colours Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo and Violet. These are just two examples of a common method used to enhance learning and memory, called mnemonics. The use of mnemonics is both widespread and popular, with advocates suggesting they can help enhance learning and memory across a wide range of tasks. This chapter explores the use of mnemonics to enhance performance.
