I see USA Today have an article on the latest findings on the "Mozart effect". The so-called "Mozart effect" refers to two quite different phenomena. The more common concerns short-term increases in spatial abilities that are said to occur from listening to music composed by Mozart. This particular effect, while it has received a lot of popular press, has been recognised for some time as being small, unreliable, and chiefly reflecting arousal.
The other phenomenon refers to the possibility that formal training in music yields nonmusical benefits. Notwithstanding the remarks of the article (and indeed, I would be loath to endorse a connection between music training and IQ), there does seem to be growing evidence for other benefits of musical training. My news items for July include the latest report on that effect, and you can also find links to earlier, related news items.

A discussion list to which I belong has recently been discussing the phenomenon? myth?? that great scientific discoveries (in particular areas) tend to be made by young scientists. The famous physicist Murray Gell-Mann, commenting on this, apparently remarked that, in his own field of theoretical particle physics, this was true because the field was so new; in the life sciences, so much was known, that " It took years of study and rote memorization for an aspiring scientist to master what was already known. By the time a researcher was ready to make an original contribution, he was probably well advanced in his career."

This illustrates an important principle in memory and aging that tends to be overlooked. Yes, younger brains are faster, probably more flexible, with perhaps more working memory capacity - but older brains can make up for that, with the fruits of experience. WM capacity is one example of that. Say, at 25, you have a capacity of 8 "units"; say at 75 that has dropped to 6 (this is a simplistic way of representing a complex situation, but I'm trying to make a point here). A "unit" can be a single datum, such as "4" or a complex chunk, such as "The quality of mercy is not strained, it droppeth as the gentle rain of heaven upon the place beneath". The flexibility of the "unit" says everything about the value of strategies - memory strategies can turn complex and lengthy conglomerations of information into single "chunks" / "units". An experienced 75 year old, with expertise in a particular field, can have developed very complex chunks and thus, despite the drop in capacity, easily out-think a 25 year old.

(By the way, if you want to read the classic paper on WM capacity, by George Miller on the "Magical Number Seven", you can read it here.)

I'm not one for complicated mnemonic strategies, but I am a great fan of simple ones. My son and I were learning some basic Maori from a CD-Rom the other day, and I did a small comparison. For the first unit, I spent a few moments thinking up some simple mnemonics for the following adjectives: nui - big; iti - small; makiriri - cold; wera - hot; poto - short; taroa - tall; tere - fast; poturi - small. These were my (very simple) mnemonics: big & new; small & itchy; the Waimakiriri is cold (that will flummox most people, I know; the Waimakiriri is a major river where I grew up); very hot; short potato; tall tar road (I must say, I didn't really expect that one to work); Terry is fast; the poor tree is small.

The second unit was on colors, and remembering my son's success in learning the countries of Africa by coloring them in (a few countries a day), I wrote out the Maori words for the colors in big open letters, then colored each one in the appropriate color.

And the verdict? Well, coloring the colors was certainly helpful - but only because it forced me to pay attention to the words for a while. The mnemonics, I have to say, all worked beautifully - even my tar road.