Method of loci
The designation is not used with strict consistency. In some cases it refers broadly to what is otherwise known as the art of memory, the origins of which are related, according to tradition, in the story of Simonides of Ceos and the collapsing banquet hall. For example, after relating the story of how Simonides relied on remembered seating arrangements to call to mind the faces of recently deceased guests, Stephen M. Kosslyn remarks "[t]his insight led to the development of a technique the Greeks called the method of loci, which is a systematic way of improving one's memory by using imagery." Skoyles and Sagan indicate that "an ancient technique of memorization called Method of Loci, by which memories are referenced directly onto spatial maps" originated with the story of Simonides. Referring to mnemonic methods, Verlee Williams mentions, "One such strategy is the 'loci' method, which was developed by Simonides, a Greek poet of the fifth and sixth centuries BC." Loftus cites the foundation story of Simonides (more or less taken from Frances Yates) and describes some of the most basic aspects of the use of space in the art of memory. She states, "This particular mnemonic technique has come to be called the "method of loci". While place or position certainly figured prominently in ancient mnemonic techniques, no designation equivalent to "method of loci" was used exclusively to refer to mnemonic schemes relying upon space for organization.
Recall (memory)
A key technique in improving and helping recall memory is to take advantage of Mnemonic devices and other cognitive strategies. Mnemonic devices are a type of cognitive strategy that enables individuals to memorize and recall new information in an easier fashion, rather than just having to remember a list of information that is not related to one another. An example of mnemonic devices are PEMDAS or Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally; this is a device for arithmetic when solving equations that have parenthesis, exponents, multiplication, division, addition, or subtraction and what order to do each calculation. Words or an acronym can stand for a process that individuals need to recall. The benefits of using these types of strategies to perform tasks are that encoding becomes more organized and it is easier to remember and process information. Also this device reduces the need of intentional resources at the point of retrieval, which means that recall does not need outside sources helping an individual remember what happened yesterday. Cognitive strategies can leverage semantic connections that will allow the brain to process and work more efficiently than just having to process the information as whole parts. By using the strategies the information becomes related to each other and the information sticks. 
Another type of device people use to help their recall memory become efficient is chunking. Chunking is the process of breaking down numbers into smaller units to remember the information or data, this helps recall numbers and math facts. An example of this chunking process is a telephone number; this is chunked with three digits, three digits, then four digits. People read them off as such when reciting a phone number to another person. There has been research done about these techniques and an institution tested two groups of people to see if these types of devices work well for real people, the results came back determining a significant performance difference between the group who did not use cognitive strategies and the group who did. The group using the techniques immediately performed better than the other group and when taking a pre-test and post-test the results indicated that the group using the techniques improved while the other group did not.