1. Nervous Mnemonics: The Study of the Utility of Memory Enhancing Devices Kristi Helmkamp Michele Neal Danelle Pattison Hanover College

2. Mnemonic Research Students did not create memory enhancing images on their own- suggests mnemonics only work if explicitly given to the student (Hwang & Levin, 2002) Keyword method less effective than rote learning and hindered recall (Campos, Gonzalez, & Amor, 2003) Keyword method was effective in increasing learning-other methods resulted in fewer recalled words(Uberti, Scruggs, & Mastropieri, 2003)

3. Research Objective To determine the importance of created and given mnemonic devices on a person’s recall abilities.

4. Hypothesis We hypothesized that individuals who created their own mnemonic device in recalling a list of words would be more likely to recall more words than those who were provided a specific mnemonic device or those who were not provided with a mnemonic device at all.

5. Procedure Sign-up sheets posted and e-mails eliciting participants sent- participants could receive extra credit for their introductory psychology courses 21 participants: 7 per condition  3 males, 18 females

6. Procedure cont. Created 3 separate conditions with Microsoft Power Point presentations  No mnemonic at all  Explanatory example mnemonic/irrelevant  Given specific mnemonic

7. What Did They Memorize? Two different groups of recall words:  Functions of Blood: Oxygen, Carbon Dioxide, Food, Heat, Waste, Hormones, Disease, Clotting  Mnemonic: Old Charlie Foster Hates Women Having Dull Clothes  Order of Superior Orbital Nerves: Lacrinal, Frontal, Trochlear, Lateral, Nosocillary, Internal, Abduceir  Mnemonic: Lazy French Tarts Lie Naked In Anticipation

8. Example of Power Point Presentation Oxygen

9. Proceeding On… Between each memorization task, participants completed a visual task  Stroop Effect  First time for meaning  Blue  Second time for color  Red

10. Worksheet Given to Participants Code #_____________ Functions of Blood Did you use a mnemonic for recalling the information? If so, describe the mnemonic. If no, please describe how you remembered the information. If you used a mnemonic, mark how meaningful it was in recalling the information. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 not meaningful very meaningful at all

11. Findings Word mnemonic Method of Locii RepetitionMean Wds. Recalled (7.5) Condition 1 4287.3 Condition 2 31116.6 Condition 3 12026.8

12. More Findings One-Way ANOVA  meaning of the mnemonic had significant effects on the nerve condition with p=.012, but not for blood p=.71  no significance was found for the number of recalled words and reaction time, however, for blood it approached significance with p=.085

13. Pearson’s r Correlation  A significant correlation was found between the # of recalled blood words and the meaningfulness of the blood mnemonic with r=.788, and p<.05

14. Limitations Small number of participants Visual task possibly not long/distracting enough Difference in difficulty levels of the stimuli

15. Future Directions Create more of a time difference between memorization and recall Use a different variety of words Look at a more diverse population