NCJ Number
102845
Date Published
1986
Length
11 pages
Annotation
This study tested the hypothesis that the magnitude of hypermnesia (increased recall over time in a series of structured recall sessions) for words or pictures is a function of individual differences in imagery ability.
Abstract
Twenty-four female undergraduates between 18 and 34 years old were evenly divided into two groups based on their high and low scores on the Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire. All subjects viewed 40 line drawings of common objects from the set used by Erdelyi and Becker (1974). Three minutes after the viewing, subjects were given a response sheet with 40 blank spaces and instructed to list as many pictures as they could recall. After subjects listed as many drawings as they believed they could accurately recall, they were asked to complete any blank spaces remaining even if it meant guessing. The response sheets were collected, and the subjects were instructed to think about the pictures for 2 minutes, after which two additional forced-recall tests were administered, separated by 2-minute 'think' intervals. Twenty-three days later, the world-learning phase of the experiment was implemented. Subjects were presented with a mixed list of 40 words selected for high and low imageability. Three forced-recall tests were administered in a manner similar to the test for picture recall. The recall of pictures increased over the forced-recall periods comparably for subjects with both high and low imagery ability. The same was true for word recall. For the word phase, all subjects' probability of recall was a positive function of the word's imageability rating. 7 references and 4 graphs.