Conversations with God...I mean a classmate

I too, like Alex, originally thought the "mental image" to remember clutters the space in our seemingly packed college student brain.  Why isn't the constant repetition of objects the superior method of memory building.  Every other time I had to memorize anything I would simply repeat the task over and over until it stuck.  Sometimes this method took a bit longer than desired but it seemed effective.  However, Francis Yates set me straight in Chapter 2 of The Art of Memory. she writes "Aristotle's statement that it is impossible to think without a mental picture is consistently brought in to support the use of images in mnemonics."  The answer seems almost too easy.  One cannot even conceptualize an "apple" without a mental picture of what an "apple" is.  This idea applies with every word in the English language.  In order to conceptualize a word, one must conjure up a mental picture that relates to the meaning of the word.  This can be as simple as a direct mental photograph as in my "apple" example or it can be a complex image with motion like for instance the phrase "running a marathon."  It would be pretty hard to understand what the phrase "running a marathon" meant without visualizing "running" and "marathon."  It stands to reason then that taking this process one step further allows the brain to connect created images that relate to a memory.  Further more this step is natural and rather than cluttering the brain with too many associations, it meshes seamlessly with natural brain function.  I suspect this also accounts for the reason obscure images from obscure places become the easiest to remember.  Using an image of an "apple" to remember a person named Adam because of the same initial letter proves a bit more difficult because there is already a clear and frequently used mental picture of an "apple" to represent an actual "apple."  Where as using a mental image of the up and down motion of an "Adam's apple" while swallowing will probably be an easier association for remembering Adam's name because of the more obscure image and reference.