The Effects of Imagery on Recall

Which word is easier to picture, house or honor? Both begin with the letter h, both are five letters long and most people would like to possess both. However, the word house is a concrete idea, meaning that it is a physical item that can be perceived with our senses. This is not true of honor which is an abstract concept with no physical properties and therefore beyond our senses. Studies have shown that concrete words are easier to imagine and therefore to recall (Binder, Westbury, McKiernan, Possing, & Medler, 2005; Fliessbach, Weis, Klaver, Elger, & Weber, 2006; Walker & Hulme, 1999). However, this is not the only factor that can affect recall. Studies have shown that how information is remembered can be just as important in regards to one’s ability to recall that information (Bower & Winzenz, 1970; De Beni & Moe, 2003; Elliot, 1973). This paper will examine the possibility that an individual’s ability to recall information increases when instructed to use imagery versus rehearsal memory techniques and that recall of concrete words will be higher than that of abstract words.

Imagery versus Rehearsal Memory Techniques

The process of taking information and storing it into our memory is called encoding (Goldstein, 2011). This process can be facilitated by using a number of techniques including organizing information into groups, creating mnemonics or by relating the information in a personal manner (Rogers, Kuiper, & Kirker, 1977). Two other techniques are imagery and rehearsal. Imagery is the process of relating incoming information by creating mental images. Rehearsal is the act of repeating information several times in order for it to be memorized. But which of these two latter techniques are more effectiv...

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...urnal of Experimental Psychology, 100(2), 270-276.

Fliessbach, K., Weis, S., Klaver, P., Elger, C. E., & Weber, B. (2006). The effect of word concreteness on recognition memory. NeuroImage, 32, 1413-1421. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2006.06.007

Goldstein, E. B. (2011). Cognitive psychology: Connecting mind, research, and everyday experience. (3rd ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

Rogers, T. B., Kuiper, N. A., & Kirker, W. S. (1977). Self-reference and the encoding of personal information. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 35(9), 677-688.

Walker, I., & Hulme, C. (1999). Concrete words are easier to recall than abstract words: Evidence for a semantic contribution to short-term serial recall. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 25(5), 1256-1271. Retrieved from http://psycnet.apa.org.proxy.lib.odu.edu/journals/xlm/25/5/1256.pdf