Abstract
Two experiments are reported, in which subjects were told to use visual images to help them remember lists of words. Both experiments yielded the typical results with immediate free recall: In mixed lists, words in bizarre contexts are remembered better than those in common contexts, but no such advantage exists for pure lists. In Experiment 1, memory was also tested after 48 h, and no evidence was found to suggest that the advantage for bizarre contexts continued to increase during this longer retention interval, or that it is even present for groups tested only after this delay. That is, the bizarre context effect (BCE) appears to be limited to brief retention intervals. In Experiment 2, words presented with pictures were found to be remembered better than those presented with sentences, but there was no interaction of this picture advantage with the BCE. In Experiment 1 no correlation between extroversion and BCE magnitude was found, and Experiment 2 yielded no correlation between mental image ability and BCE magnitude. However, subjects with high mental-image ability scores remembered more from pure bizarre lists than did those with low mental-image scores.
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Zoller, C.L., Workman, J.S. & Kroll, N.E.A. The bizarre mnemonic: The effect of retention interval and mode of presentation. Bull. Psychon. Soc. 27, 215–218 (1989). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03334588
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03334588