Brain Health Blog

By contributing author Paul Li, a neuroscience graduate student at Columbia.

Although acronyms are usually used to shorten a lengthy phrase, coming up with your own acronyms can be a helpful aid in remembering long grocery lists or building up your vocabulary for an upcoming exam. For those who don’t know, acronyms are formed using the first letter of each word in the phrase to be abbreviated. The encoding process becomes even stronger when the acronym can be associated with a previous experience or memory. It may also help if you are able to come up with a little chime or creative story. This is most effective if it relates to what you are attempting to put into memory.For example, the acronym PEMDAS can be used to remember the order of operations in mathematics; starting with parenthesis, followed by exponents, multiplication, division, addition, and subtraction. To make memorizing this acronym easier it can also stand for ‘Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally’ or ‘Panda Express Makes Delicious Avocado Soup’. The importance of association, again, refers back to our previous memory tip on improving effective encoding of peoples’ names.