The mnemonic keyword method: The effects of bidirectional retrieval training and of ability to image on foreign language vocabulary recall

The mnemonic keyword method is an effective technique for vocabulary acquisition. This study examines the effects on recall of word-meaning pairs of (a) training in use of the keyword procedure at the time of retrieval; and (b) the influence of the self-rated ability to image. The performance of students trained in bidirectional retrieval using the keyword method to learn new Spanish words and their English definitions was compared to that of control group students who used the standard keyword procedure. Data on recall performance were gathered on five occasions and analysed using multilevel analysis procedures (HLM). The retrieval training was a significant predictor of both backward and forward recall performance, as was the ability to make images.     

Mnemonic artwork-learning strategies: Helping students remember more than “Who painted what?”

In two experiments, a recently devised mnemonic strategy was examined in the context of college students recalling the theme and contents of various paintings. With the painting-artist mnemonic strategy: (a) the artist's name is first recoded as a more concrete proxy; and (b) the recoded stimulus is then related to a prominent feature of the painting. Previous research has demonstrated that such a strategy enhances students' recall of artist names when cued with the associated paintings. The present study extends those findings by demonstrating that the strategy similarly facilitates students' recall of paintings and painting information when cued with the associated artist names. Of three different mnemonic variations included, one that incorporates a verbally described mnemonic interaction into the painting proved most effective. Suggestions for future research and educational implications are included in the discussion.     

Memory for Expository Text: the effects of verbal and pictorial enhancements

Previous research has shown that pictures can be effective in enhancing text memory. For example, Waddill and McDaniel (1992) found that pictures depicting detail information in an expository text effectively enhanced recall of those details and pictures depicting relational information effectively enhanced recall of those relations. However, the research on picture enhancement effects raises the question of whether the mnemonic value of pictures is simply a by‐product of having drawn attention to parts of the text through selective repetition of text content. The present study addressed the question by comparing the relative effectiveness of pictures versus simple verbal captions in promoting text memory. The results replicated the Waddill and McDaniel (1992) pictorial enhancement effect. However, the results showed that repeating the targeted information in a verbal caption was as effective as providing a pictorial illustration, thus suggesting that repetition of text content rather than nonverbal pictorial illustrations produced the effect. The findings generalized across three texts that differed in the amount of spatial content they conveyed.     

Skill Acquisition and Reflection‐based Decision Making in a Teaching Laboratory: an evaluative study

This paper continues the tradition of research, development and evaluation of teaching laboratories, and, at the same time, extends earlier research in two directions: by placing more emphasis on the improvement of a reflection‐based decision‐making ability in becoming a teacher (beyond effective skill acquisition), and by concentrating on the improvement of presentation skills, an area neglected in teacher training. Based on research on teaching and teacher training, a training program was developed for enhancing the trainees’ nonverbal expressiveness in presentations that, by fostering reflection‐based decision making through experimenting with presentation skills in a laboratory with feedback and discussions, also improves the clarity, interest and social climate of presentations. The evaluation of the most recent Version of this program reveals that significant gains could be achieved not only in nonverbal expressiveness as an indicator for successful skill acquisition, but also in the global aspects of successful lecturing indicating that the program was also effective for the improvement of the trainees’ reflection‐based decision making.     

BOOK REVIEWS

The relationship between state anxiety and free recall was examined in 74 elderly community‐dwelling adults who had completed a memory improvement program. State anxiety (as measured by the state version of the State Trait Anxiety Inventory) was a significant predictor of recall performance after accounting for age, vocabulary, and study time. State anxiety and age were negatively associated with performance scores, whereas study time and vocabulary were both positively correlated. The evidence suggests that state anxiety should be considered a potential source of variation in verbal learning studies with older adults. The implications of these findings for future research are discussed.     

Elderly Individuals with Diabetes: Adding Cognitive Training to Psychoeducational Intervention

The present research examined the effects of a cognitive training program combined with psychoeducational intervention for diabetic elderly patients. Specifically, it aimed at assessing the effects of an eight-session cognitive training and educational program in diabetic elderly individuals and investigating changes in their awareness about specific aspects of diabetes. The final sample consisted of 34 individuals—19 in the experimental group (EG) and 15 in the control group (CG), all residing in the eastern region of the city of São Paulo. The protocol included clinical and sociodemographic questions; the Diabetes Attitudes Questionnaire (ATT-19); Diabetes Knowledge Scale (DKN-A); Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE); Verbal Fluency-animal category (VF); Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS); Short Cognitive Performance Test (SKT); and the Rivermead Behavioral Memory Test (RBMT). Results pointed to a significant difference between the two groups for the ATT-19, DKN, and SKT- memory and SKT-total, and a marginally significant difference for the RBMT history in the posttest. As for the remaining cognitive variables, no changes were observed. Retest effects were not observed in the CG. We concluded that cognitive training combined with psychoeducational intervention in diabetic elderly individuals may be effective in producing cognitive gains as well as attitude and knowledge improvement concerning diabetes mellitus (DM).     

A theoretical interpretation of learning vs. Memorizing text

Learning and memory have been studied by researchers throughout psychological history, however similar tasks have been used to measure them. Dependence upon recall and recognition memory is a result of both the list learning tradition in psychology and the efficient and objective scoring for which they provide. Several studies are described which point out the differences between memory and learning and the shortcomings of using recall and recognition to measure both. Results regarding differential effects of independent variables on learning and memory are interpreted in terms of the van Dijk and Kintsch (1983) theory of text comprehension.     

Memory for action events: The power of enactment

Memory researchers have traditionally made use of verbal materials in their empirical studies. During the last decade or so, there has been a burgeoning interest in memory for other classes of materials — in particular, memory for action events. This report reviews briefly some of the research in this area. The emphasis is on the recall of series of instructions, such aslift the pen, put on the ring. The core finding in those studies is that enactment of the instructions during the study phase, either by the subject or by the experimenter, improves performance on a subsequent recall test. Some explanations for the mnemonic effect of enactment are examined, as also are subsidiary issues, such as population and individual differences in the recall of action events. Implications for education are discussed, including the possibility of a two-way interaction between enactment and cognition.     

The Effect of Teachers' Memory‐Relevant Language on Children's Strategy Use and Knowledge

Building on longitudinal findings of linkages between aspects of teachers' language during instruction and children's use of mnemonic strategies, this investigation was designed to examine experimentally the impact of instruction on memory development. First and second graders (N = 54, M_age = 7 years) were randomly assigned to a science unit that varied only in teachers' use of memory‐relevant language. Pretest, posttest, and 1‐month follow‐up assessments revealed that although all participating children learned new information as a result of instruction, those exposed to memory rich teaching exhibited greater levels of strategic knowledge and engaged in more sophisticated strategy use in a memory task involving instructional content than did students exposed to low memory instruction. The findings provide support for a causal linkage between teachers' language and children's strategic efforts.     

Judgment‐Based Scoring by Teachers as Professional Development: Distinguishing Promises from Proof

The engagement of teachers as raters to score constructed response items on assessments of student learning is widely claimed to be a valuable vehicle for professional development. This paper examines the evidence behind those claims from several sources, including research and reports over the past two decades, information from a dozen state educational agencies regarding past and ongoing involvement of teachers in scoring‐related activities as of 2001, and interviews with educators who served a decade or more ago for one state's innovative performance assessment program. That evidence reveals that the impact of scoring experience on teachers is more provisional and nuanced than has been suggested. The author identifies possible issues and implications associated with attempts to distill meaningful skills and knowledge from hand‐scoring training and practice, along with other forms of teacher involvement in assessment development and implementation. The paper concludes with a series of research questions that—based on current and proposed practice for the coming decade—seem to the author to require the most immediate attention.     

‘Some people even died’: Martin Luther King,Jr, the civil rights movement and the politics of remembrance in elementary classrooms

This article examines the interpretive practices and cultural texts that shape what teachers and students remember and forget during the annual observance of the King holiday in two second‐grade classrooms. Drawing on data from an ethnographic case study of the curriculum in use and theory and research on collective memory, the author analyzes the contest between two commemorative narratives, one focused on King’s boyhood experiences of discrimination and his advocacy of non‐violent protest to end segregation, the other on remembering discriminatory practices in the South and the violence perpetrated by Whites against civil rights protestors. After discussing the nature of mnemonic socialization in these classrooms and the consequences of this struggle over collective memory for students, the paper concludes with a call to reconceptualize classrooms as ‘critical mnemonic workspaces’ where teachers and students are able to draw on a diversity of cultural resources for remembering multiple, even contradictory, pasts.     

The Role of Attention in the Development of Short-Term Memory: Age Differences in the Verbal Span of Apprehension

In previous studies of memory span, participants have attended to the stimuli while they were presented, and therefore have had the opportunity to use a variety of mnemonic strategies. In the main portion of the present study, participants (first- and fourth-grade children, and adults; 24 per age group) carried out a visual task while hearing lists of spoken digits and received a post-list digit recall cue only occasionally, for some lists. Under these conditions, list information presumably must be extracted from a passively held store such as auditory sensory memory. The results suggest that each individual has a core memory capacity limit that can be observed clearly in circumstances in which it cannot be supplemented by mnemonic strategies, and that the capacity limit appears to increase with age during childhood. Other, attention-demanding processes also contribute to memory for attended lists.     

Age‐Related Changes in Spreading Activation During Infancy

The concept of spreading activation describes how retrieval of one memory cues retrieval of other memories that are associated with it. This study explored spreading activation in 6‐, 12‐, and 18‐month‐old infants. Infants (n = 144) learned two tasks within the same experimental session; one task, deferred imitation (DI), is typically remembered longer than the other task, visual recognition memory (VRM). At all ages, retrieval of the DI memory facilitated retrieval of the VRM memory, but the conditions under which this spreading activation occurred changed as a function of age. The implications of these findings are discussed in relation to the development of mnemonic networks during infancy and the value of studying infants for our understanding of memory more generally.     

COUNSELING THE ELDERLY: A TRAINING PROGRAM FOR PROFESSIONALS

The present study examined the effectiveness of a training program designed to teach mental health professionals information and skills specific to counseling the elderly client. Twenty‐eight women and four men, ranging in age from 23 to 56, completed the 12‐hour training program. Results indicated that participants showed statistically significant gains on the two major assessment devices after completion of the training program. Concomitantly, job satisfaction and perception of preparedness for their current jobs as counselors to the elderly were affected in a positive direction, providing support for the efficacy of the program. The impact of the training was also sustained at the two‐month follow‐up. Regression analyses revealed that the trainee characteristic that was most predictive of success in the program was that having to do with prior knowledge; those entering the program with a higher level of basic knowledge tended to improve and learn more in training.     

精加工策略训练对盲生理解记忆影响的实验研究

本研究以全盲学生为被试,开设专门的精加工学习策略训练课,探讨表象和言语在盲生理解记忆中的功用,考察盲校开设学习策略训练课程的可行性及对盲生理解记忆的影响.结果表明专门的精加工策略训练课能提高盲生理解记忆的水平,在短期内低年级盲生效果显著,对高年级盲生更多地促进信息的理解、消化以及提高学习策略意识水平;对盲生学习表象值配对组无显著影响,对学习缺乏知觉经验的信息有明显的促进作用,低年级盲生更显著;表象和言语在盲生理解记忆中起中介作用;针对盲生生理、心理特点进行专门的精加工策略训练是可行的.     

Gain-Loss Framing Enhances Mnemonic Discrimination in Preschoolers

Episodic memory relies on discriminating among similar elements of episodes. Mnemonic discrimination is relatively poor at age 4, and then improves markedly. We investigated whether motivation to encode items with fine-grain resolution would change this picture of development, using an engaging computer-administered memory task in which a bird ate items that made her healthier (gain frame), sicker (loss frame), or led to no change (control condition). Using gain-loss framing led to enhanced mnemonic discrimination in 4- and 5-year-olds, but did not affect older children or adults. Despite this differential improvement, age-related differences persisted. An additional finding was that loss-framing led to greater mnemonic discrimination than gain-framing across age groups. Motivation only partially accounts for the improvement in mnemonic discrimination.     

Learning to control variables: Main effects and aptitude treatment interactions of two rule-governed approaches to instruction

The study investigated the relative effectiveness of two rule-governed approaches to teaching children how to control variables. In the elaborative-rules treatment students were given a mnemonic to stimulate recall of three elements of a well-designed experiment: causes, effects, and controls. In the organized-rules treatment students were given a well-organized set of six rules that provided detailed direction with respect to the same three elements of an experiment. Intact classes of grade-5 students (n = 283 students) were randomly assigned to two treatments and a control condition consisting of existing teacher practice; after four weeks control-group classes were reassigned to the rules treatments. Student achievement was observed prior to the implementation of conditions, after instruction, and three months later. Both rules treatment outperformed traditional instruction. The organized-rules method was slightly more effective overall, but the elaborative-rules approach had a slightly greater benefit for two groups which tend to be disadvantaged in science achievement: females and field-dependent students.