PSYCHOLOGY advanced – CAT 1 – Practical Report - 18th May

ERA Effect of Mnemonic Techniques on Memory Recall

Introduction
In the field of cognitive psychology, mnemonic techniques are strategies used for encoding new information in
memory in such a way that they can be memorised more easily. This is a useful tool as what is learnt can be
remembered by associating with something else using existing knowledge. Mnemonics come in forms such as
verbal recall, use of acronyms, narrative chains and many more. Verbal recall is the process of listening to a list
of words being read out loud and then recalling it. The use of acronyms is the process of remembering words
that are formed from the corresponding letters of a specific word (e.g. HOUSE) and then using its letters as
retrieval clues. Narrative chaining is the method of recalling unrelated words put together as a short story.
Studies have shown the effectiveness of mnemonics against repetition and mentions that the better the
encoding of information, the easier it is to recall and retain it.

Aim
To investigate the most effective mnemonic technique to use out of; acronym, verbal recall or narrative form.
The effectiveness will be measured from the number of words successfully recalled.

Hypothesis
The narrative chaining technique will be the most efficient in retaining information than compared to using
verbal recall or the use of acronyms due to the flow on effect from each word, providing a logical sequence
and a trace back option should a word be forgotten. Verbal recall will be the least efficient as there will be no
indication as to what a forgotten word might have been than compared to using acronyms.

Independent Dependent Variable

Variable
Manipulation of the mnemonic technique to recall the words Measurement on the number of words recalled
Method
Materials required:

Random selection of 10 or 15 short, everyday words – preferably a different set for the three tests
Pen/pencil
A paper
Narrator (used from the internet)
Timer

Participants:

Group of 20 students including the investigator (the writer of this report)

Procedure:

1. Begin with a control test by recording the number of words remembered from a list of 15 words in 30
seconds on a piece of paper with a pen/pencil. Everyone begins and finishes the test simultaneously.
2. Take 30 seconds to write down as many words remembered. Do NOT look at others or make words
up as the result will be invalid.
3. Now move onto Test 1 by looking at the word; ‘ELECTRIC NANNY’. Try to remember the words
formed with the corresponding letters of this word within 30 seconds. Everyone begins and finishes
the test simultaneously. Then take 30 seconds to write down as many words rememberable.
4. Move onto Test 2 and listen to a narrator from the internet that narrates a set of words. Everyone
begins and finishes the test simultaneously. Then take 30 seconds to write down as many words
rememberable.
5. Move onto the final test; Test 3 and listen to 15 words being called out verbally. Everyone begins and
finishes the test simultaneously. Then take 30 seconds to write down as many words rememberable.
6. Add individual scores of the four tests to the classroom spreadsheet.
7. Create a Results table recording the mean, maximum, minimum and range of the scores achieved in
the four tests by the whole class.
Results
Class results from memory tests using mnemonic techniques
Control test Acronym (Test 1) Narrative (Test 2) Verbal (Test 3)

Mean score 8 9 14 9
Maximum score 11 15 15 14
Minimum score 3 4 12 5
Range of scores 8 11 3 9
Each test had a total of 15 words

CL ASS RESULTS FROM MEMORY

TESTS USING MNEMONIC
TECHNIQUES
Mean

15 14
No. of words recalled

10 9 9
8

0
Control Test 1 (Acronym) Test 2 (Narrative) Test 3 (Verbal)
Mnemonic Technique

In the control test, students returned with an average recall of 8 words with a minimum of 3 and a maximum
of 11 with a range score of 3. The acronym test, students returned with a mean score of 9 words with a
minimum of 4 and a maximum of 15 with a range score of 11. In the narrative chaining test, students returned
with an average recall of 14 words with a minimum of 12 and a maximum of 15 with a range score of 3. Finally,
in the verbal test, students returned with a mean score of 9 words with a minimum of 14 and a maximum of 5
with a range score of 9.
Discussion
1. The aim of the investigation was to determine the most effective mnemonic technique to use for
effective recall of words and this was reached as using the different techniques produced a different
result than the control test. It was hypothesized that the narrative chaining technique will be the
most efficient in retaining information than compared to using verbal recall or the use of acronyms
due to the flow on effect from each word, providing a logical sequence and a trace back option should
a word be forgotten. According to the results, students averaged a recall of 14 words out of a total 15
than compared to the control test. Verbal recall will be the least efficient as there will be no indication
as to what a forgotten word might have been than compared to using acronyms. Students returned
with an average recall of 9/15 words for both the verbal recall and acronym method which is one
more than that if the control test.
2. A control test establishes a baseline that the behaviour of the experimental group can be compared
to. A control test was included in this test so that the number of words recalled without using
mnemonic techniques (control group) only could be compared against the number of words recalled
with the use of mnemonic techniques (experimental group).
3. Compared to the control test, the narrative chaining technique produced a significantly different
result. As the results state, the use of narrative chaining displayed a 40% increase in retention of
memorized words (14/15) than compared to the control test (8/15). The narrative chaining provided a
trace back method and repetition of the same words and this ensured that if a word was forgotten,
certain clues within the chain can be used to trace backwards and figure out what the forgotten word
may have been. With the control test however, this was not possible as there were no clues to what
the forgotten word may have been due to the decay of retention in the short-term memory.
4. Using the control test as a reference, the use of mnemonic techniques impacted in the retention of
information than just repeating. The use of acronyms helped with remembering one more word than
the control test (9/15 than compared to 8/15). The level of processing required was relatively low
than compared to the control test where the mind had to work hard to recall the 15 words. The
acronyms provided with a clue as to what the words may have been and required less work to
remember as only a certain set of words starting with beginning with letter would have been possible.
Narrative chaining required a higher level of processing than the control and acronym test as students
had to remember the story plot. However, despite the high level of processing, students managed to
recall 14 out of 15 words in average than the control test of 8 out of 15. The use of narrative chaining
provided a significant 40% increase in information retention. Finally, the verbal recall method
returned with an average score as the acronym test (9/15). The verbal recall required the same
amount of high level of processing as of the control test and therefore did not happen to be a method
that yielded good information retention. The improvement of only one (9/15 than compared to the
control test of 8/15) can be since the control test provided students a practice run.
5. Based on the findings of this experiment, some mnemonic techniques assist in better information
retention than repetition. Narrative chaining is the most reliable method when it comes to
information retention (based on this experiment however there are other methods) as it helped
students remember more words than the control, acronym and verbal test. This is mainly because
recovering forgotten words were easier to recover using the story plot re-tracing method than
compared to the other tests. Based on this evidence, it is highly advisable to use mnemonic
techniques and narrative chaining when trying to retain information as these devices provide a better
method when it comes to information retention than just repetition.
6. Encoding and retrieval of information refers to the brain processing, or encoding, new information
into a storable form so that it can be recalled later (retrieval). In this experiment, students tried to
encode new words into the brain by purely remembering, using acronyms and a narrative story and
by just listening to the words being called out and then testing how many words were recalled using
each method.
 7. The most important variable that may have impacted the results is the word length. Varying word
lengths between testing influences how much can be remembered as longer words take more effort
to memorize than shorter words in general. The acronym test had a total of 15 words like the other
tests however the words were slightly lengthier than compared to the other tests.
8. The experiment was undertaken without any problems and therefore no changes are needed for
improvements. It is suggested that the words should be a bit more carefully considered for so that the
test is fair and so that the dependent variable is not impacted in any way.

Conclusion
Mnemonic techniques are useful for encoding and retrieving information as the methods provide better
retention of information than repetition. The aim of this experiment was to investigate the most effective
mnemonic technique to use out of; acronym, verbal recall or narrative form. The effectiveness has been by the
number of words successfully recalled. It was hypothesized that the narrative chaining technique will be the
most efficient in retaining information than compared to using verbal recall or the use of acronyms due to the
flow on effect from each word, providing a logical sequence and a trace back option should a word be
forgotten. This is supported by the result as narrative chaining displays a 40% increase in information retention
than compared to the control test. Verbal recall will be the least efficient as there will be no indication as to
what a forgotten word might have been than compared to using acronyms. The graph shows that both verbal
and acronym tests only resulted in a one word increase in the amount of words retained (from 8/15 to 9/15). A
small improvement of careful consideration of word choices is suggested so that the dependent variable is not
impacted.

References
https://sciencetrends.com/experimental-control-important/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_control

https://examples.yourdictionary.com/examples-of-mnemonics.html