On the generality of some memory laws

Abstract

L.: On the generality of some memory laws. Scandinavian Journal of Several memory laws have been established for the free recall of word lists. The generality of some of these laws were tested, using tasks which the subjects performed (SPTs) as to-be-recalled list items. SPT recall obeyed one law of word recall in showing a strong positive recency effect in immediate free recall, which appeared to be due to these events being in a temporary state of high accessibility. Differences between word and SPT recall were: 1) The reliable primacy effect associated with word recall did not appear in SPT recall; 2) Subjects reported using active memorisation strategies for word lists, but not for SPT lists; 3) Unlike word recall, diverting the subject's attention to so-called deep or shallow features of the SPTs during presentation did not affect the level of their recall. These results considered together with Cohen & Stewart's (1981) finding that SPT recall was not age-sensitive were taken to indicate that SPTs should be regarded as a different class of memory event than words, and that memory models dealing with SPT recall should de-emphasize the importance of encoding, stressing instead retention, and retrieval operations.

Gesturing makes learning last

“…Expressing information in gesture may produce stronger and more robust memory traces than expressing information in speech because of the larger motor movements involved or because of the potential for action-based, bodily encoding. Indeed, when speakers are asked to use their hands to act out an event conveyed in a sentence, their memory for the event is better than if they merely read the sentence or translate it into another spoken language (Cohen, 1981;von Essen & Nilsson, 2003). Similarly, children understand stories better when they enact the story with objects or imagine enacting the story with objects than when they read the story twice (Glenberg, Gutierrez, Levin, Japuntich, & Kaschak, 2004), and actors recall the lines they produce while moving better than the lines they produce while standing still (Noice & Noice, 1999).…”

A helping hand with language learning: teaching French vocabulary with gesture

“…Explanations for such effects focus, then, on encoding, processing and accessibility. Cohen (1981Cohen ( , 1983 suggested that memory for action events is non-strategic (evidenced by a lack of properties usually associated with word recall: primacy, age and levels of processing effects), and, as such, acted as an optimal form of encoding. In this way, encoding was not reliant upon 'deliberate strategies for remembering' (Nilsson 2000: 137) and has, therefore, been suggested to be of particular use with both younger and learning-impaired learners (Cohen 1989).…”

“…In practical terms, such traces should result in higher recall (production) and lower attrition (loss) of lexical items learnt with gestures as supports. The theoretical framework for this paper will set out ideas relating to levels of processing in memorisation (Craik and Lockhart 1972), a model of working memory (Baddeley 2003) which posits the idea that visual and non-visual information can be processed simultaneously, and research relating to memorization of 'events involving actions' (Cohen, 1989: 60) which holds that enactment might enhance accessibility of traces (Cohen and Otterbein 1992: 118), is non-strategic (Cohen 1981(Cohen , 1983) and also creates more distinctive and richer traces Nilsson 1984, 1985). The multi-faceted role of gesture in language use will be acknowledged, and existing research relating to the idea that gestures can aid language learning will be examined.…”

Memory for actions: Enactment and source memory

“…The participants were divided evenly across the visual feedback conditions. Ninety simple action phrases (e.g., break the toothpick ) served as the critical items (many from R. L. Cohen, 1981). These items were randomly divided into three sets, and each set was rotated through the SPT, EPT, and a nonstudied condition.…”