This study compared the cognitive-motivational and demographic characteristics of students enrolled in 3 Web-based sections of Psychological Statistics with their counterparts in 3 conventional (face-to-face) sections of this course. No demographic differences were found; however, cyberstudents exhibited a greater external locus of control than conventional students. The authors also investigated whether there were any predictors of student performance in Web courses. Measures of on-line course activity (e.g., homepage hit rate), a high need for cognition, and an internal locus of control were predictive of cyberstudent success. The authors discuss the implications of these results for instructors who are considering the design and implementation of Web-based classes.

In Experiment 1, pictures were presented to subjects two, five, or eight times, and subjects were asked to imagine each picture two, five, or eight times. Subsequently, subjects estimated the number of times each picture had been presented. Their estimates of the frequency of these external events were influenced by imagination trials; this effect was greater for good imagers than for poor imagers. Experiment 2 involved a similar design in which subjects were asked either to imagine the same referent for a word or to imagine a different referent for a word on successive imagination trials. Consistency (same referent) did not increase the influence of imaginations on immediate judgments of external frequency. Thus, the results of Experiment 1 were attributed to the greater accuracy (as opposed to greater consistency) of good imagers' internal generations of the stimuli. Furthermore, variation (imagining different referents), like greater accuracy, increased the effects of imagination trials on immediate but not on delayed judgments of frequency. Possible mechanisms underlying these effects are discussed. In general, the two studies show that qualitative characteristics of completely covert generations influence their impact on estimates of the frequency of external events.Early philosophers were explicitly con-however. For example, how do we distincerned about the relationship between guish fact from fantasy (Johnson, Note 1)? thought and external reality. Does thought For memory theorists, the problem is cornreflect external reality? Does thought distort pounded. If it is difficult to separate the conour picture of reality ? Psychologists, in con-tributions of reality and thought in the pressidering this dilemma, have sometimes em-ent (Perky, 1910), it may be even more phasized reality at the expense of thought, difficult to separate the memory representaand sometimes emphasized thought at the tions of previous perceptual events and the expense of reality. If pressed, probably most memory representations of previous imaginaof us would say that both reality and thought tions. Memory theorists do not have contribute to our perception of the world, satisfactory ways of characterizing the dif-This resolution leaves open many questions ference between veridical and nonveridical memory or of dealing with the difference be-~~ tween a bit of harmless embellishment of This research was supported in part by an award ev ents that does not greatly affect the verato the second author from the Spencer Foundation, rf Qf the t and real distor ti on s and Teachers College. We thank Carol Sprafkin for her J , , .. , ,, a i. help in conducting Experiment 1. Part of these re-extreme thought dtsorders_ that may reflect suits were presented at the annual meeting of the substantial failures to discriminate fact from Psychonomic Society, St. Louis, November 1976. fantasy in memory. Whether or not we only Requests for reprints should be sent to Marcia K. re member what we thought, most of us be-Tohnson, Department of Psychology. State Un...

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Use of the keyword mnemonic has been shown to substantially increase learning speed and immediate recall of 2nd-language vocabulary words in comparison with other learning strategies. Although the majority of researchers examining long-term retention of material acquired through the keyword method have concluded that these gains are maintained over time, most have relied on experimental designs based on within-subject comparisons. However, within-subject comparisons of retention over time are confounded by both rates of initial acquisition and level of immediate recall. In this article data are presented from 4 experiments in which the retention interval (immediate vs. delay) was treated as a between-subjects factor. The findings consistently indicated that long-term forgetting was greater for learners instructed to use the keyword mnemonic than for learners engaged in rote rehearsal. It is suggested that preexperimental associations to keywords interfere with retrieval of the interactive images established in the laboratory.

Three experiments assessed the long-term effectiveness of the keyword mnemonic relative to a nonmnemonic (i.e., semantic-context) learning strategy. Following incidental-learning instructions, cued recall was assessed either immediately or after a 2-day delay. The keyword mnemonic produced superior immediate performance relative to the semantic-context strategy. However, after 2 days, there was a marked reversal in performance, with higher levels of delayed recall associated with semantic-context learning. This pattern of findings was obtained when obscure English words (Experiment 1) and second-language vocabulary (Experiment 2) were the learning stimuli. When practice frequencies were manipulated (Experiment 3), increased opportunities for study were more likely to boost the long-term retention of keyword learners compared with semantic-context learners. The implication is that keyword-based memories are especially fragile over time and will benefit from repeated testing and rehearsal.