Conquering Mnemonophobia, With Help From Three Practical Measures of Memory and Application

Abstract

Recent articles in Teaching of Psychology have endorsed the classroom use of various mnemonic techniques. Yet a degree of mnemonophobia (i.e., fear of using mnemonics) may persist in the minds of some ToP readers due to various lingering misconceptions. In this regard, we conducted 3 practical experiments with college students using the mnemonic keyword method to learn a set of psychological terms (namely, phobias, for which we provide a sample set, along with their mnemonic representations). We examined students' immediate and delayed recall, inference-demanding matching and categorization tests, and backward recall (recall of terms from definitions). On all measures, mnemonic students statistically outperformed control students. These findings provide further support for the use of classroom-based mnemonic techniques.Undergraduates enrolled in introductory psychology courses often face an overwhelming amount of new terminology. Acquiring this terminology for an upcoming examination, and then retaining it for the longer term, may prove daunting for neophyte college students. In this regard, the mnemonic keyword method (e.g., Atkinson, 1975;Atkinson & Raugh, 1975) can be a useful technique. Although Atkinson and Raugh (1975) originally studied the keyword method in a foreign vocabulary learning context, others have applied this versatile strategy to the acquisition of both native vocabulary and unfamiliar terminology (e.g., see Levin, 1993;Pressley, Levin, & Delaney, 1982, for reviews). The keyword method works by recoding the unfamiliar word as a more familiar and acoustically similar keyword and then relating the keyword and word meaning by way of an interactive visual image (Levin, 1983). Bower's (1970) componential analysis and Paivio's familiar dual-coding hypothesis (e.g., Clark & Paivio, 1987;Paivio, 1971Paivio, , 1986 provide theoretical explanations of these learning benefits.Carney and Levin (1998a) applied the keyword method to nervous system terminology typically presented in introductory psychology courses. We compared control students using a repetition strategy with students using two versions of the keyword method. Consider the term medulla, the part of the brain associated with control of heart rate, respiration, and blood pressure. Students in the repetition condition simply repeated the term and its association over and over to themselves. In one version of the keyword method, we provided students with a keyword for each term (e.g., medal for medulla), and then asked them to generate an image relating the keyword to the term's meaning. In the second keyword version, we provided students with a description of an appropriate image: "Imagine the winner of a race. Heart pounding and breathing heavily, a medal is hung round the winner's neck." Participants studied 18 terms at 20-sec intervals. Following a 2-min filler task, students completed a matching test over the 18 terms and their definitions. The study yielded statistically significant mnemonic advantages. Carney and Levin recommended that ins...

Keyword Mnemonics: Effects of Immediate Recall on Delayed Recall

“…The results of this study have revealed that with immediate recall, participants recalled a significantly higher number of Spanish meanings of Basque words at one week, than participants with no immediate recall. This result is in agreement with studies where half of the participants had delayed recall, and the other half both immediate and delayed recall (Carney & Levin, 1998, 2008Wang & Thomas, 1995;Wang et al, 1992Wang et al, , 1993. Moreover, the classmate-generated keyword group recalled more meanings of Basque words at one week than the researcher-supplied keyword group, or the participant-generated keyword group.…”

“…Alternatively, in other studies half of the participants remembered immediately and in the long-term, and the other half remembered only in the long-term in order to analyse the effect of immediate recall on delayed recall. In all of the studies, immediate recall influenced delayed recall (Carney & Levin, 1998, 2008Wang & Thomas, 1995;Wang et al, 1992Wang et al, , 1993. There were no significant differences between rote learning and keyword mnemonics, and rote learning even outperformed keyword mnemonics when there was delayed recall without immediate recall, (Carney & Levin, 1998, 2008Wang & Thomas, 1995;Wang et al, 1992Wang et al, , 1993.…”

“…In the only study reporting significant long-term differences without shortterm recall, where participants recalled half of the words immediately, and all of the words in the long-term to expose only half of the words to immediate recall but not the other half, significantly more words were recalled both in the short and long-term with keyword mnemonics than through rote learning (Carney & Levin, 2008).…”

“…In most of the studies analysing the efficacy of keyword mnemonics in the long-term, participants first performed intentional immediate recall prior to incidental delayed recall, normally after a one-week interval (Campos et al, 2003(Campos et al, , 2010Carney & Levin, 2008;Soleimani et al, 2012). Alternatively, in other studies half of the participants remembered immediately and in the long-term, and the other half remembered only in the long-term in order to analyse the effect of immediate recall on delayed recall.…”

Brain-Training Pessimism, but Applied-Memory Optimism

“…They concluded that keyword mnemonics may be most helpful for foreign language learning and expressed concerns about the shorter-term nature of the learning. Yet some research has in fact demonstrated long-term learning, with transfer to applied assessments, for the keyword technique (e.g., Carney & Levin, 2008). Additional studies are needed to determine the best fit of specific mnemonic strategies to different types of content and learning environments.…”