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The Effectiveness of Four Mnemonics in Ordering Recall Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Learning and Memory 1980, Vol. 6, No. 5, 558-567 The Effectiveness of Four Mnemonics in Ordering Recall Henry L. Roediger III Purdue University Four groups of subjects were given instructions in using one of four mnemonic techniques: imagery, the link method, a peg system, or the method of loci. Relative to a control group, all mnemonic groups showed an advantage in memorizing 20-word lists for unordered recall. However, the greatest dif- ferences appeared when recall was scored by a strict positional criterion whereby subjects received credit for recalling a word only when it was placed in its correct position. By this scoring method, peg and loci subjects performed best on an immediate test, and imagery and control subjects, worst. Per- formance of subjects told to use linking images was intermediate. Mnemonic devices have greater effects on the ordering of recall than on the number of words that can be recalled without regard to order. Some experimental failures to show that mnemonic devices are effective may have been due to testing only item information. Since the time of the ancient Greeks, a images should be bizarre does not seem ac- great variety of mnemonic systems have curate (Wollen, Weber, & Lowry, 1972; been developed for aiding recall when it is Wood, 1967). not possible to provide oneself with external There are several simple mnemonic sys- retrieval cues (Yates, 1966). There have tems involving imagery that can be used for been several studies to test the effective- remembering many different sorts of in- ness of the systems relative to the strategies formation. Perhaps the simplest is the link subjects normally adopt when faced with a method (Lorayne & Lucas, 1974). When memorization task. Although there are ver- using this technique people are told to take bal mnemonic systems, most memory aids the items they want to remember (whether rely on some form of imagery instruction to they be objects on a grocery list, points in subjects, who are encouraged to represent a speech, words on a list, etc.) and con- the to-be-remembered material in terms of vert each item into an imaginal representa- mental images. The simple advice to use tion. The point of the technique is to link images can serve as a powerful mnemonic. each successive pair of items in an interact- For example, Bower (1972) showed that ing image so that recall of one item in the paired associate recall of lists of concrete list should cue recall of the next. Thus, nouns was much better when subjects were ideally, one would have an associate chain instructed to form interactive images of the of interacting images that could support re- referents of the nouns at study than when call of the items in their appropriate order. they were instructed simply to rehearse the The advantage of this method is that it is pairs. It seems important that the images quite simple to learn; there is no necessary formed be interacting with one another to scheme or set of materials to learn in ad- aid recall, but the popular notion that the vance as in the other techniques. The link method should be better than a simple imagery instruction when people are re- The author would like to thank Deborah Griffith, quired to recall information in order, but Mary Rymers, and Stephen Schmidt for their aid in ordered recall may not be optimal, because conducting this research. Requests for reprints should be sent to Henry L. if people forget one item in the list, recall for Roediger III, Department of Psychology, Purdue the others (or at least their appropriate University, West Lafayette, Indiana 47907. order) may be disrupted. Morris and Copyright 1980 by the American Psychological Association, Inc. 0096-1515/80/0605-0558SOO.75 558 EFFECTIVENESS OF MNEMONICS IN RECALL 559 Stevens (1974) have shown that instructing one has a good system of retrieval cues; subjects to link the images of words together the numbers from 1 to 20 are not in danger improved their free recall of words relative of being forgotten, and if the rhyme system to subjects told to form images of each word. is well learned, one can generate the cues In fact, the latter subjects performed no bet- for the to-be-remembered items. The cues ter than uninstructed control subjects, sug- are effective because they have been linked gesting that imagery instructions only lead to the target items by interactive images. to improved free recall if they lead sub- Although there are ringing personal testi- jects to form interactive or linking images. monials to the effectiveness of these tech- The mnemonic techniques that have been niques in improving recall, the empirical most often investigated are the method of literature on their effectiveness relative to loci and the peg method. In the method of appropriate control groups is often surpris- loci, one takes a well-learned series of loca- ingly unimpressive. For example, Smith and tions, such as a path one travels daily, and in Noble (1965) investigated a peg or hook learning a series of items converts each item memory system in which, following an hour into an image and deposits the image at some lecture on the method and 4 days of practice salient location along the path. It is cus- using it, subjects were asked to memorize tomary to advise a person to mentally walk lists of 10 consonant-vowel-consonant the path while learning the series and to (CVC) trigrams that varied in meaningful- imagine the to-be-remembered items at ness. Control subjects were not trained on prominent locations along the way. When any special technique and were asked not to the series is to be recalled, one should again use any special system in learning. Sub- imaginally traverse the path, "looking" at jects received 20 trials of serial anticipation each location and calling out the name of the learning on the 10-item lists. Smith and item deposited there. The method of loci Noble (1965) found that the peg mnemonic should provide for better ordered recall of aided learning of medium and low mean- objects relative to the link method, since ingfulness trigrams but did not affect learn- forgetting of one item should not disrupt re- ing of the highly meaningful trigrams. They call of others. concluded that the mnemonic had "no The third popular type of imagery efficacy for remembering highly meaningful mnemonic is referred to as the peg or hook materials under the present conditions" system, and is based on principles similar (p. 123). to those embodied in the method of loci. Other studies have found the peg system The main difference is that instead of a to be effective (Bugelski, Kidd, & Segmen, series of places to be used as storage 1968; Senter & Hauser, 1968; Wood, 1967), "locations," one memorizes a set of pegs or although in some cases the advantage rela- hooks on which one can then "hang" the tive to the control condition was not par- information to be memorized. There are a ticularly impressive. Bugelski et al. (1968) variety of particular peg or hook systems varied presentation rate and found that sub- that can be used (see Paivio, 1971, chapter jects using the peg system performed better 6), but one of the most popular, and the one than controls only at the slower presentation investigated in the present research, is a sys- rates (4 and 8 sec per item). At rapid rates tem of rhyming pegs ("one is a gun, two of presentation, subjects presumably do not is a shoe, three is a tree," etc.) that one have time to indulge in the encoding gym- must memorize. Once the rhyme mnemonic nastics necessary for success with the has been learned, one can use it to remem- mnemonic. ber a series of items in order by forming There have been fewer investigations for an image of the first item and making it the method of loci and the link method. As interact with a gun, the first peg word. An already mentioned, Morris and Stevens image of the second item is constructed (1974) showed that instructions for subjects with it interacting with a shoe, and so on. to link images together improved free recall Each of the pegs or hooks allows one to relative to control groups that were told to hang on it a to-be-recalled item. At recall form images or were given no instructions. 560 HENRY L. ROEDIGER III However, they did not investigate the ex- was to compare four different mnemonic plicit link method as advocated by Lorayne devices in aiding recall. However, unlike and Lucas (1974), among others. Oc- prior experiments, the method allowed casionally, studies of the method of loci separation of the effects of mnemonics in (e.g., Ross & Lawrence, 1968) have pro- recall of items without regard to order and duced suggestive evidence for the effective- in their appropriate order. In previous ness of the method, but the cited study was studies subjects were tested in most cases marred by the lack of appropriate control on recall of items without regard to their conditions. However, there seems little order. It may be that the most common doubt that the feats of people well trained mnemonic devices, though aiding somewhat in the method are quite impressive (e.g., the number of items recalled, have their Bower, 1970; Groninger, 1971; Luria, 1968). greatest effect in the recall of the order in There are few studies that have attempted which the items occurred. It might be ex- to compare the effectiveness of different pected that the peg and loci methods pro- mnemonic techniques.
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