Images as Memory Aids: Is Bizarreness Helpful?

Collyer, Stanley C.; Jonides, John; Bevan, William

doi:10.2307/1420958

Cited by 45 publications

(22 citation statements)

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“…Memory researchers have been investigating this phenomenon for over 25 years; yet experimental support for the bizarreness effect over this time span has been somewhat mixed. Early experiments (e.g., Andreoff& Yarmey, 1976;Senter & Hoffman, 1976) failed to show any recall advantage ofbizarre stimuli, and some studies actually showed a recall advantage for common stimuli, a phenomenon referred to as the commonness effect (e.g., Collyer, Jonides, & Bevan, 1972;Wollen, Weber, & Lowry, 1972). More recent studies have shown that, under the right circumstances, a reliable bizarreness effect can be obtained experimentally.…”

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Memory for common and bizarre stimuli: A storage-retrieval analysis

Riefer

LaMay

1998

Psychonomic Bulletin & Review

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We tested the hypothesis that common stimuli are stored in memory better than bizarre stimuli are. Subjects memorized a series of noun pairs embedded within 20 common or bizarre sentences. By using a between-list design, free and cued recall, and intentional-learning instructions, we were able to obtain a commonness effect (Le., a recall advantage for the common sentences). Riefer and Rouder's (1992) multinomial processing-tree model for measuring storage and retrieval was applied to the data, which revealed that the recall advantage for common sentences was due to storage and not retrieval processes. We propose a two-factor theory: that common items are stored better in memory, but that bizarre items are retrieved better from memory. This storage-retrieval explanation does a good job of accounting for a number of fmdings associated with the bizarreness effect.The bizarreness effect is the observation that bizarre or unusual stimuli are remembered better than common or ordinary stimuli (Lang, 1995;Weir & Richman, 1996;Worthen & Marshall, 1996). Memory researchers have been investigating this phenomenon for over 25 years; yet experimental support for the bizarreness effect over this time span has been somewhat mixed. Early experiments (e.g., Andreoff& Yarmey, 1976;Senter & Hoffman, 1976) failed to show any recall advantage ofbizarre stimuli, and some studies actually showed a recall advantage for common stimuli, a phenomenon referred to as the commonness effect (e.g., Collyer, Jonides, & Bevan, 1972;Wollen, Weber, & Lowry, 1972). More recent studies have shown that, under the right circumstances, a reliable bizarreness effect can be obtained experimentally. Specifically, the effect is best achieved using free recall, mixedlist designs, incidental-learning instructions, and delayed recall (see McDaniel, 1987, andMcDaniel, Einstein, DeLosh, May, & Brady, 1995, for reviews).However, this recent work also reveals that the bizarreness effect is a fragile and complex one, requiring a very specific set ofexperimental conditions. For example, McDaniel and Einstein (1986) showed that the effect is obtained when subjects evaluate the vividness of stimuli, but it will not occur when subjects rate the bizarreness or interactiveness of stimuli. In addition, Kroll and his associates (Kroll, Jaeger, & Dornfest, 1992;Kroll, Schepeler, & Angin, 1986;Kroll & Tu, 1988) have documented a number of studies failing to achieve the bizarreness effect, and Riefer and Rouder (1992) achieved the effect in only two of three replications of the same experiment.This research was supported by NSF Grant SBR-9309667. The authors would like to thank Gil Einstein, Neal Kroll, and an anonymous reviewer for helpful comments on an earlier draft of the manuscript. Correspondence should be addressed to D. M. Riefer, Department of Psychology, California State University, San Bernardino, CA 92407 (e-mail: driefer@wiley.csusb.edu).Thus, the bizarreness effect continues to be a somewhat elusive phenomenon.In this article, we present a two-factor hypothesis...

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Memory for common and bizarre stimuli: A storage-retrieval analysis

Riefer

LaMay

1998

Psychonomic Bulletin & Review

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“…Another important factor in determining the bizarreness effect is list structure (mixed lists, in which both bizarre and common sentences are presented, vs. unmixed lists, in which all sentences presented are bizarre or common). The majority of studies done with unmixed lists (Collyer, Jonides, & Bevan, 1972;Cox & Wollen, 1981;Marshall, Nau, & Chandler, 1980) have not resulted in superior retention for bizarre as opposed to common items (see Einstein, McDaniel, & Lackey, 1989, for an important exception). In contrast, the majority of studies done with mixed lists (McDaniel & Einstein, 1986;O'Brien & Wolford, 1982;Pra Baldi et al, 1985) have resulted in enhanced free recall for bizarre as opposed to common items.…”

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Further constraints on the bizarreness effect: Elaboration at encoding Bridget Robinson-Riegler

Robinson-Riegler

McDaniel

1994

Memory & Cognition

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In this study, we attempted to determine why the mnemonic benefit of bizarreness is not found with the use of complex sentences (i.e., those containing additional modifiers of nouns) as stimuli. Several explanations were investigated, including the idea that complexity reduces the imageability of the sentence and the idea that complexity itself is mnemonically beneficial. The results of four experiments favored the latter explanation. We suggest that the cues associated with the complexity of the sentence provide more effective or salient retrieval cues than do those associated with sentence bizarreness. Consequently, the mnemonic benefit of bizarreness appears to occur only with relatively impoverished encoding contexts (e.g., simple, unelaborated sentences).

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“…Why do imagery instructions have so dramatic an effect? Although several factors have some effect on recall performance [among them, the figural unity (Atwood, 1971;Bower, 1970) and plausibility (Collyer, Jonides, & Bevan, 1972) of the images 1, the basic nature of the enhancement produced by imagery instructions remains obscure. Introspective reports by subjects strongly implicate vision; for example, given the instruction to image the pair "horse-rock," many subjects report that they "see" (in their mind's eye) a horse or a team of horses dragging a huge rock.…”

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Imagery instructions improve memory in blind subjects

Jonides

Kahn

Rozin

1975

Bull. Psychon. Soc.

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Instructing subjects to make images of word pairs greatly improves their memory for these pairs. It is commonly assumed that the memory improvement results from some advantage in memory of visual images over words. We show that the typical improvement in memory with imagery instructions that occurs in normal subjects also occurs in congenitally and totally blind adults. Hence, the mnemonic imagery effect cannot be explained with reliance on a mechanism that specifically relies on vision. We also demonstrate that the results cannot be explained in terms of imagery in nonvisual modalities.

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Images as Memory Aids: Is Bizarreness Helpful?

Cited by 45 publications

References 10 publications

Memory for common and bizarre stimuli: A storage-retrieval analysis

Memory for common and bizarre stimuli: A storage-retrieval analysis

Further constraints on the bizarreness effect: Elaboration at encoding Bridget Robinson-Riegler

Imagery instructions improve memory in blind subjects

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