Journal of Experimental Psychology: Copyright 1986 by the American Psychological Association, Inc.

Learning, Memory, and Cognition 0278-7393/86/400.75

1986, Vol. 12, No. 1,42-53

Bizarre Imagery: The Misremembered Mnemonic

Neal E. A. Kroll, Eva M. Schepeler, and Karen T. Angin
University of California, Davis

Two experiments were performed to measure the effects of bizarre imagery and image interaction on
the brief and long-term memory of word pairs. Subjects in Experiment 1 performed an incidental
learning task and were tested with both free- and cued-recall tasks. Subjects in Experiment 2 performed
intentional learning tasks and were tested with cued-recafl tests. Because performance in the delayed
tests of Experiment 1 was extremely poor, subjects in Experiment 2 were given a much more intensive
training procedure. In both experiments, bizarre imagery did not improve memory more than plausible,
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interactive imagery. The degree of interaction in the image was a strong determinant of cued-recall
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performance at both retention intervals. Most subjects in Experiment 2, questioned after their cued-
recall test, believed that they had remembered more bizarre than plausible pairs, even though this
was clearly not the case.

Professional mnemonists (e.g., Furst, 1954; Lorayne & Lucas,
1974) have long advocated the use of bizarre imagery to improve
one's memory. O'Brien and Wolford (1982), among others, have
suggested that bizarre imagery should be effective; it should in-
crease the distinctiveness of items, thereby reducing interference
effects. Experiments designed to demonstrate this advantage,
however, have had mixed results. Wollen, Weber, and Lowry
(1972), for example, presented subjects with drawings of noun
pairs. These drawings depicted the objects named by the noun
pairs either in bizarre or in plausible ways—and, in addition,
the objects were either shown interacting with one another or
not. Although the degree of interaction between the objects
proved to be an important variable for memory, bizarreness had
no effect.
There were a number of reasons why this was not accepted
as the final evaluation concerning the effect of bizarreness on
memory. For one thing, the subjects in the Wollen et al. exper-
iment had the pictures shown to them rather than forming their
own idiosyncratic images. In an attempt to answer this criticism,
Nappe and Wollen (1973) presented noun pairs and required
subjects to form their own images. Although the bizarre images
took much longer to form than did the plausible ones, the plau-
sible interactive images were remembered just as well as were
the bizarre images. Similarly, Collyer, Jonides, and Bevan (1972)
presented subjects with noun-verb-noun triplets that suggested
either bizarre or plausible scenes, and they too found that image-
This research was funded by a University of California Faculty Research
Grant to the first author.
The second author helped with the designs of the pilot and second
experiments, helped to revise the word pairs and sentences and to supervise
the list presentation phase of these experiments, and helped to write the
manuscript.
The third author helped with the design of thefirstexperiment, helped
to prepare the word pairs and sentences and to supervise the list presen-
tation phase of this experiment, and commented on an early draft of the
manuscript.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Neal
Kroll, Department of Psychology, University of California, Davis, Cali-
fornia 95616.
formation times were longer for the bizarre images, but the plau-
sible images were, in fact, remembered better than the bizarre
ones.
Hauck, Walsh, and Kroll (1976) thought that perhaps profes-
sional mnemonists preferred bizarre images because they were
required to remember many more items than the experimental
subjects had been required to learn. In an attempt to measure
the effect of increasing interference (and increasing practice),
Hauck et al. required their subjects to form images to 48 noun
pairs per day over 5 days. The first member of the pairs remained
the same from day to day, but the second member of each pair
was always different. The subjects formed bizarre images to half
of the pairs in each list and plausible interacting images to the
other half of the pairs. At the end of the fifth day, subjects were
still taking longer to form the bizarre images than they were to
form the plausible images, but a surprise recall test at the end
of the experiment for all five lists showed that there was no mem-
ory advantage for the pairs with bizarre images.
More recently, experimenters have considered the possibility
that, although plausible interactive images may result in as good
or better memory as bizarre images over brief retention intervals,
bizarre images might result in better long-term memories. Ex-
perimenters making this argument have a tendency to reference
Delin's 1968 experiment, which found that bizarre imagery re-
sulted in better memory after a 15-week retention interval, but
tend not to reference Delin's 1969 experiment with an equally
long retention interval where he concluded: "Bizarreness, if it
has any effect, reduces the effectiveness of imagery mnemonics"
(p. 88).
There have been a number of recent experiments which seem
to demonstrate the effectiveness of bizarre imagery over longer
retention intervals. Andreoff and Yarmey (1976) reported finding
that bizarre imagery results in a greater improvement over plau-
sible imagery after a 24-hr retention interval than after an im-
mediate retention interval. However, they also found a large ad-
vantage of bizarre over plausible imagery even on the immediate
test and, together with the wording of their instructions, this
suggests that subjects may have had more interaction in their
bizarre imagery than in their plausible imagery.

42
 BIZARRE IMAGERY
Webber and Marshall (1978) also argued in favor of a delayed
bizarre imagery superiority. In an intentional learning task with
line drawings as stimuli, they found a cross-over interaction with
plausible imagery being superior to bizarre imagery at the 2-
min retention interval, but bizarre imagery being better at the
1-week retention interval. Unfortunately, they also neglected to
control or measure the degree of interaction present in their
plausible and bizarre drawings. Webber and Marshall were kind
enough to send the first author reproductions of drawings which
they said were similar to those used in their experiment. The
results from an informal testing suggested that the bizarre draw-
ings were more interactive than the plausible ones. Another study
originating in Marshall's laboratory (Marshall, Nau, & Chandler,
1980) also found an advantage of bizarre over plausible imagery
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after a 1-week retention interval, but immediate retention was
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not measured and, again, no measure of interaction was at-
tempted.
Opposed to the findings just mentioned of a possible advantage
of bizarre imagery at long retention intervals, there are not only
the negative findings of Delin (1969) after 15 weeks and Hauck
et al. (1976) after 5 days but also those of Bergfeld, Choate, and
Kroll (1982) who, after a 24-hr retention interval, found that
recall memory was better for bizarre imagery pairs than for non-
interactive imagery pairs, but also found that the bizarre imagery
pairs showed more forgetting than plausible interactive imagery
pairs. In addition, both the Hauck et al. (1976) and the Bergfeld
et al. (1982) experiments allowed at least some minimal test of
the hypothesis that bizarre imagery might be relatively more
effective in situations involving more potential interference. That
is, Hauck et al. (1976) had subjects learn five response lists to a
single stimulus list, and Bergfeld et al. (1982) used several of the
stimuli with two responses. Neither experiment found any relative
advantage accruing to bizarre imagery as a result of this increased
degree of interference.
More recently, however, O'Brien and Wolford (1982) have
published two experiments which found that plausible images
resulted in better memory at the immediate retention interval,
whereas bizarre images resulted in significantly better memory
at a 7-day interval, and with the cross-over occurring somewhere
between 1 and 3 days.
There are several potential problems with these findings; for
example, there was no attempt to measure the degree of inter-
action, and the overall level of memory at the longer retention
intervals is so low and the recall difference between the conditions
is so small (0.6 word for the plausible and 1.6 words for the
bizarre) that a few extraordinary word pairs could be accounting
for the entire effect. Nevertheless, these experiments probably
represent the strongest case yet for a possible improvement in
long-term memory resulting from the use of bizarre imagery.
The confirmation and understanding of such a finding could
have important implications for the understanding of memory
processes well beyond the study of this particular mnemonic
technique. The reason for this is that it would be one clear-cut
case of a variable affecting memory per se; other variables orig-
inally thought to influence memory now appear to affect pri-
marily the rate of learning, including such variables as depth of
processing (Nelson & Vining, 1978) and imagery itself (Olton,
1969).
43
Another set of findings which seem to support the hypothesis
that bizarre imagery results in longer lasting recallable memories
are those of Merry and Graham (1978) and Merry (1980). In
these studies, subjects were asked to rate sentences as plausible
or bizarre. Better recall was found for the bizarre sentences, and
this facilitation from the degree of bizarreness appeared to be
particularly pronounced in a delayed test. However, these results
held only with free-recall tasks and not with cued-recall tasks.
(The other experiments discussed earlier used cued-recall tests.)
Although Wollen and Cox (1981a) found similar results using
Merry's procedure, Wollen and Cox (1981b) discovered a con-
founding in this procedure and, when the confounding was re-
moved, so was the free-recall advantage for bizarre imagery.
However, Wollen and Cox (1981b) tested only after a brief (1
min) retention interval. Consequently, our first experiment was
designed to compare the memories resulting from bizarre and
plausible interactive imagery after brief and after 7-day retention
intervals with both free- and cued-recall tasks.
Subjects in Experiment 1 performed an incidental learning
task which consisted of rating their imagery for bizarreness, viv-
idness, and degree of interaction. The subjects in Experiment 2
also rated their imagery; however, they also knew that their
memory for the word pairs would be tested and they received
an intensive learning procedure to ensure a high level of long-
term memory performance.
Experiment 1
Method
Subjects. Thirty-two students of introductory psychology or intro-
ductory rhetoric classes at the University of California, Davis served as
subjects in this experiment, 16 in each of two retention-interval groups.
They received extra-credit points in their class in return for their partic-
ipation.
Materials. The critical pairs consisted of 48 pairs of high imagery
nouns. Four sentences were developed for each of these pairs. In each of
these sentences, the first member of the pair appeared in a beginning
noun phrase and the second in an ending noun phrase. When one of
these sentences was shown to a subject, these two nouns were presented
in capital letters. The four sentences developed for each of the critical
pairs were of four different types. The four types, with examples for the
pair ANT-COMB, were (a) the plausible-short (P-S) sentence, which was
plausible, very brief, and did not suggest much of an interaction between
the critical words, for example, "An ANT goes around a COMB."; (b) the
plausible-low (P-L) sentence, which used modifiers to suggest a complete
image, but like the P-S sentence, suggested a plausible image and a rel-
atively low degree of interaction, for example, "A large, black ANT slowly
turns and detours around a plastic COMB"; (C) the plausible-high (P-H)
sentence, which also suggested a plausible (feasible) image, but included
a relatively high degree of interaction occurring between the two critical
words, for example, "A large, black ANT crawls in and out of the teeth
of a plastic COMB"; and (d) the bizarre-high (B-H) sentence, which also
suggested an image with a high degree of interaction between the two
critical words, but now the image was bizarre (impossible, cartoon-like),
for example, "A large, black ANT carefully fixes its hair with a plastic
COMB." The P-S sentence for each pair was always very brief; the other
three types of sentences were always considerably longer, but within any
set, the three were of approximately the same length.
During the learning phase of the experiment, any given subject saw
only one sentence for any given critical pair. In addition to these 48
 44 N. KROLL, E. SCHEPELER, AND K. ANGIN

critical pairs, eight other pairs were presented during the learning phase: Table i
two within each of the four sentence types, four at the beginning of the Experiment 1; Image Formation Times (in Seconds), Average
learning list, and four at the end. These were used to reduce primacy and Ratings (5-Point Scale), Percentage of Free Recall, and
recency effects on recall results. The subjects also saw two pairs before Percentage of Cued Recall as a Function of Sentence Type
the learning phase began—one in the instructions and one in the practice
phase—both of which were presented within P-H sentences. The entire Sentence type
list of words and sentences used in Experiment 1 are presented in the
Appendix. Plausible Plausible Plausible Bizarre
Procedure and design. Subjects were tested individually and were Dependent measure short low high high
assigned to either the 5-min or 1 -week retention interval group according
to a predetermined schedule. Regardless of the assignment, the subjects Image formation
were informed that the purpose of the experiment was to measure visual times 3.8 6.5 6.4 6.9
Average rating
imagery, but they were not informed that there would be a memory test.
Bizarreness 2.0 2.1 2.2 4.1
All subjects were told that they would have to participate in a second Vividness 4.1 3.8 3.8 3.7
session 1 week later but were told that this session was to test another Interaction 3.0 3.0 3.6 3.4
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aspect of visual imagery. The subjects were then given a detailed set of Free recall
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instructions to read, followed by a practice trial, and were strongly en-
couraged to ask questions or make comments while reading the instruc-
tions or performing the practice trial. After the practice trial, the exper-
imental (incidental) learning phase began, and subjects were discouraged
from commenting during this phase of the experiment.
Each trial began with a sentence centered on a display screen of a
personal computer. The subjects had been instructed to form an image
of the objects named by the two capitalized nouns, using the sentence to
help choose the image. The subjects were asked to form a strong, vivid
image and to press a switch as soon as the image was formed. The times
taken to form these images were recorded to the nearest millisecond. As
soon as the subject pressed the switch, the sentence would disappear from
the screen and was replaced by the words "COMMON-BIZARRE IMAGERY
RATING SCALE" on the same line, and, beneath it, the words "1-Common.
2-Plausible. 3-Possible. 4-Unlikely. 5-Bizarre." The subjects then re-
sponded on the basis of the bizarreness of the image formed. As soon as
that response had been made, a new rating scale appeared: "VIVIDNESS
OF IMAGERY RATING SCALE," "1-No Image. 2-Faint. 3-Bright. 4-Vivid.
5-Very Vivid." Following the subject's rating of the vividness of image, a
third 5-point rating scale appeared: "INTERACTION OF IMAGERY RATING
SCALE," ranging from (I) little interaction to (5) much interaction. Subjects
were told that only the second scale asked if they actually had an image,
and they were told, "Although we hope that you are able to form an
image for each sentence, you can rate your ideas for bizarreness and for
degree of interaction even if you did not form a true image." After the
third rating response, the screen would go blank for 5 s, then a tone would
sound, and the next sentence would be presented.
Each subject received 12 critical word pairs with each of the four types
of sentences. Within a retention-interval group, a set of 4 subjects received
the 48 critical word pairs in the same order, but across these 4 subjects,
each word pair would be shown with all four of the different sentence
types. The next 4 subjects within a group would receive the 48 word
pairs in a different order. Only the first and last four(noncritical) sentences
were the same for all subjects. The subjects in the two groups were yoked
so that the first subject in each group received all 48 critical pairs in the
same order with the same sentences.
When subjects completed the entire list of 56 sentences, they were sent
to another office, where the subjects in the 5-min retention group were
given the memory tests, and the subjects in the 1-week retention group
were then given an appointment slip to return 1 week later for the second
session. All of the latter subjects returned for the memory test and all
expressed surprise when given the memory test.
The memory test phase of the experiment began with a free-recall test
where the subjects were requested to write down as many of the capitalized
nouns as they could remember. They attempted to write them down as
pairs, but if they remembered single words—without the paired word—
they were to write these down as well. When a subject reported that it
would be unlikely that any additional words would be recalled, the subject
5-min retention 20.8 18.7 20.8 20.3
1-week retention 4.7 5.2 3.9 5.5
Cued recall
5-min retention 50.5 55.7 65.6 57.8
1-week retention 6.3 3.7 10.9 6.8
was given a cued-recall test sheet which contained a list of 52 nouns and
was asked to try to recall the capitalized noun which had been paired
with each of the cued words. The first four cues were always from the
first four (noncritical) words in the learning list. The remaining 48 cues
were from the critical pairs and were presented in a different order from
that shown during the learning phase. For each subject half of the cues
were the first word of the pair and half were the second word. When the
subject had finished the cued-recall test, the experimenter explained the
purpose of the experiment and requested that the subject not inform
other students about the surprise recall tests. Given that there were no
systematic differences either in the free recall of the first versus the second
word or in the use of the first versus the second word as a cue, the results
reported average over first and second word recall.
Results
Image formation: Formation times and ratings. The aver-
age formation time and the standard deviation of the formation
times were found for each subject. To reduce the effects of a few
inordinately long formation times, any formation time longer
than two standard deviations above the average was replaced by
this maximum. The average times taken to form an image for
each of the four sentence types are presented in the first row of
Table 1.
The speed of reporting an image after a P-S sentence may
reflect the relative shortness of P-S sentences. The P-H and
B-H sentences were of approximately the same length, however,
and yet the images following the B-H sentences took significantly
longer to form, F(U 30) = 6.404, p < .025.'
1
A reviewer noted that this reaction time is not necessarily measuring
only the image formation time. The long reaction times following bizarre-
high (B-H) sentences may reflect a subject's playing with the image. This
is, of course, possible, but (a) subjects were instructed to press the switch
as soon as they had formed an image and (b) if the longer times following
B-H sentences reflect processing beyond initial formation, then these
items should have a large memory advantage from that fact alone. As we
will see later no such advantage occurs.
 BIZARRE IMAGERY 45

The average ratings for the four sentence types are presented Table 2
in the second (plausible/bizarre), third (vividness), and fourth Experiment 1: Image Formation Times (in Seconds),
(degree of interaction) rows of Table 1. Percentages of Free Recall, and Percentage of Cued
It would appear from the average ratings for plausible/bizarre Recall as a Function of Subjects' Rating
images that the sentences were effective in controlling this aspect
of the images: Every subject gave a higher (more bizarre) average Rating scale
rating to the images formed in response to the B-H sentences
than to any of the others. There was, however, also significant Bizarreness Vividness Interaction
variation among the rated bizarreness of the images produced
to the remaining three sentence types, F\2,62) = 3.930, p< .05. Dependent measure Low High Low High Low High
There was significant variation among the sentence types for
Degree of attribute
the vividness of the images, F(3,62) = 9.740, p< ,001. However, times 5.4 6.8 7.1 5.6 6.0 6.0
we had expected the P-S sentences to produce the least vivid Free recall
images; instead, they produced the images with the highest viv- 5-min retention 21.2 20.0 17.7 22.3 17.0 24.2
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1 -week retention 5.5 4.6 4.2 4.6 2.9 5.5

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idness ratings. In fact, when the P-S sentences were removed

from the analysis, the variation in vividness ratings was no longer
significant, F(2,62) = 1.960, p > .05. One possible interpretation
of this is that the extra words in the other sentence types—which
were meant to increase the image content—decreased the image-
forming options.
The formation time data were also analyzed as a function of
the rating given to the image. For this analysis (and for the similar
memory test analyses), sentences with ratings of either 1 or 2
were classified as low and those with ratings of either 4 or 5 were
classified as high, on each of the three scales. There were 5 subjects
who did not rate any of their images as 1 or 2 on the vividness
dimension, and for these subjects, sentences with vividness ratings
of 3 were classified as low. The average image-formation times
for the sentences falling into the low and high categories of the
three rating scales are presented in the first row of Table 2.
Given that the subjects were controlling how the images were
rated, unequal numbers of images fell into the various categories,
and some subjects did not report images in all eight cells; con-
sequently, separate analyses were performed on the image-for-
mation times for each of the rating scales. Images rated as bizarre
were formed more slowly than those rated as plausible, F( 1,30) =
74.12, p < .001, whereas those images rated highly vivid were
formed more rapidly than those rated low in vividness, F\ 1, 30) =
34.56, p < .001. The degree of interaction did not affect image-
formation time, F(\, 30) = 0.009?
Free-recall performance. The average percentages of words
recalled in the free-recall test are presented in rows 5 (5-min
retention interval) and 6 (1-week retention interval) of Table 1
as a function of the type of sentence used to present the words
to the subject. Analyses of the free-recall performance as a func-
tion of sentence type found no significant differences at either
of the retention intervals nor between any set of sentence types.
Table 2 presents the average percentages of words recalled in
the free-recall test as a function of the rating level on each of the
three rating scales. Three 2 X 2 (Rating Level X Retention In-
terval) analyses were performed, one for each rating scale. The
effect of retention interval was, of course, significant in each,
Fs(l, 30) = 51.40 (bizarreness), 26.67 (vividness), and 33.37
(interaction), p < .001, but neither the effect of rating level, Fs( 1,
30) = 0.352, 1.197, and 2.550, nor the interaction between re-
tention interval and rating level, Fs(l, 30) = 0.006, 0.965, and
0.820, reached significance in any of the analyses. Thus, the free-
recall performance did not appear to be affected either by sen-
Cued recall
5-min retention 62.4 52.4 61.3 60.9 55.2 60.2
1 -week retention 9.3 5.7 2.7 7.9 4.1 11.4
tence type or by any of the image attributes measured by the
rating scales. There was, however, a suggestion of an effect of
rated interaction, and it is possible that a more sensitive exper-
iment would find this effect to be significant.
Cued-recall performance. The average percentages of words
recalled in the cued-recall test are presented in rows 7 (5-min
retention interval) and 8 (1-week retention interval) of Table 1
as a function of the type of sentence used to present the words
to the subjects. Two analyses were performed, one at each re-
tention interval. Both found significant variation in the per-
centage of words recalled as a function of sentence type, F(3,
45) = 3.006 (5-min) and 2.909 (1-week), p < .05. The main
effect was broken down into three component parts of one degree
of freedom each: (a) interactive versus noninteractive, that is, B-
H and P-H versus P-S and P-L; (b) B-H versus P-H; (c) P-S
versus P-L. Of these, only the first was significant, and that was
significant at both the 5-min and 1-week retention intervals, Fs(l,
45) = 5.650 and 4.873, p < .05. This first component accounted
for 62.6% of the between-conditions variance at the 5-min re-
tention interval and 55.8% of the between-conditions variance
at the 1-week retention interval.
Table 2 presents the average percentages of words recalled in
the cued-recall test as a function of the rating level on each of
the rating scales. Three 2 X 2 (Rating Level X Retention Interval)
analyses were performed, one for each rating scale. The effect of
retention interval was, of course, again significant in each, Fs(\,
30) = 92.00 (bizarreness), 102.93 (vividness), and 60.59 (inter-
action), p < .001. In addition, the effect of rating level was sig-
nificant for bizarreness, F(l, 30) = 11.55, p < .01, and for in-
teraction, F{\, 30) = 5.032, p < .05, but not for vividness, F{\,
30) = 0.198. The statistical interaction between retention interval
and rating level did not reach significance in any of the analyses,
Fs(l,30) = 2.619, 0.264, and 0.176.
2
The extremely low F value reflects the fact that, in this analysis, the
effects of both bizarreness and vividness were appearing in the error
term but were nearly balanced across the two levels of interaction.
 46 N. KROLL, E. SCHEPELER, AND K. ANGIN
Thus, the cued-recall performance appeared to be affected by
the degree of interaction, whether measured by sentence type or
by rating level, with high interaction leading to better cued recall.
Words linked by images that were rated as bizarre were signifi-
cantly less likely to be recalled than those rated as plausible. The
effect of bizarreness, as measured by sentence type, was in the
same direction but was not significant.
The results of Experiment 1, then, did not support the con-
clusions of O'Brien and Wolford (1982). Rather, as with earlier
experiments which controlled for degree of interaction present
in the imagery (e.g., Bergfeld et al., 1982; Hauck et al., 1976;
Nappe & Wbllen, 1973; Wollen et al., 1972), a high degree of
interaction in the suggested image proved to be the critical feature
for improving memory. Increasing the degree of bizarreness re-
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sulted in much longer image-formation times (see also Hauck et
al., 1976; Nappe & Wollen, 1973) but did not improve cued
recall. In fact, rather than finding that bizarre mental images
aided cued recall more than plausible images after a I-week re-
tention interval, the advantage of plausible images over bizarre
images—when both were interactive—was present over the entire
interval.
One might complain that the subjects did not know that they
were to be tested for their memory of the word pairs and that,
therefore, the bizarre-image mnemonic did not have a "fair"
chance. After all, the amount remembered after the 1-week in-
terval (6.9% overall and only 11.4% even with images rated as
high in interaction) was awfully low for a mnemonic technique.
However, if this complaint is valid for our Experiment 1, it is
also valid for the O'Brien and Wolford experiments. Their sub-
jects were also uninformed about the memory component of the
task and their cued-recall level was even lower than that found
with our subjects (4.5% overall and 7% for the words presented
with bizarre pictures).
A pilot experiment used materials similar to those of Exper-
iment 1 (but with only B-H and P-H sentence types) to measure
cued-recall performance after subjects had been informed of the
memory component. In order to accomplish this, while at the
same time keeping the likelihood of their practicing during the
longer retention interval low, we tested them for half of the pairs
immediately, told them that this was a "partial-report technique,"
and then asked them to return a week later to control "for the
possible self-selection occurring among the 'other' subjects who
are tested a week later." They were not told that they would be
tested for the other half of the list. It was thought that this pro-
cedure would also give us a more sensitive within-subjects mea-
sure of a potential Bizarreness of Image X Retention Interval
interaction.
This pilot experiment was terminated after 8 subjects when
it was obvious that giving the subjects foreknowledge concerning
the memory test did not improve their memory performance
scores with respect to those of Experiment 1 subjects, although
it seemed to have lengthened the amount of time they were taking
with each pair. In fact, if anything, their performance on the
memory tests seemed to be a trifle worse. During the second
(delayed) test, the subjects complained that the images tested
during the first (immediate) test kept interfering with their efforts
to recall those needed for the second test. In any case, fore-
knowledge of a memory test did not improve memory perfor-
mance in this situation, nor did it give any advantage to word
pairs presented with bizarre sentences.
Rather than continuing with this experiment, it seemed more
advantageous to perform another experiment with an increased
likelihood of a more reasonable recall performance at the end
of a 1-week retention interval.
Experiment 2
As in the pilot experiment, the subjects in this experiment
were told that they would be tested on their memory, and that
this was the main point of the experiment. After receiving the
presentation list, they were given two memory tests during the
same session: one cuing them with the first word of the pairs
and asking them for the second, and one cuing them with both
words of the pairs and asking them for the image that they had
formed. They were then told to return a week later to participate
in another experiment, at which time they were given another
(surprise) cued-recall test where they were given the first word
of each pair and asked to recall the second.
Method
Subjects. Twenty-four students of introductory psychology or intro-
ductory rhetoric classes at the University of California, Davis served as
subjects in this experiment and received extra-credit points in their class
in return for their participation.
Materials. With few exceptions, the word pairs were those used in
Experiment I, but now the word pairs were embedded within P-H and
B-H phrases. For example, the phrases for the word pair ANT-COMB were
the B-H phrase "a large, black ANT carefully fixing its hair with a plastic
COMB" and the P-H phrase "a large, black ANT crawling in and out of
the teeth of a plastic COMB." These phrases seemed to be more descriptive
of an actual image than were the sentences.
Procedure and design. The subjects in this experiment were told that
this was an experiment on memory and that, after receiving the presen-
tation list, they would be given two memory tests: one (word-recall) cuing
them with the first word of the pairs and asking them for the second, and
one (image-recall) cuing them with both words of the pairs and asking
them to report the image that they had formed. They were not told in
advance which of the two types of tests they would receive first. (In fact,
half of the subjects received one order, and the other half received the
other order.)
During the presentation of the list, the word pair appeared in capital
letters centered on the computer screen. Below the pair was the word
imagine, and below this word was a phrase containing both words, again
capitalized. They were told that "professional memory experts claim that
one excellent way to remember that two things go together is to form a
mental image of the two things interacting with each other." They were
asked to attempt to form the image suggested by the phrase, but to pay
particular attention to the capitalized nouns. They were warned that
sometimes the noun itself would be capitalized, but the plural s might
not be. For example, the bizarre phrase for the pair NEWSPAPER-SOLDIER
was "Hundreds of NEWSPAPERS marching down the street like well-trained
SOLDIERS." In these cases, they were to attempt to form the suggested
image, but at the same time, to try to remember the words in the singular.
The point of this was to assess the advice often given by professional
mnemonists (e.g., Lorayne & Lucas, 1974, p. 16) to use exaggerated
plurality to help form bizarre images.
They were instructed to form "a good, strong image as quickly as
possible" and to press a lever as soon as they had done so. It was em-
phasized that, although they were being timed and that they should per-
 BIZARRE IMAGERY
form as rapidly as possible, it was most important that they form "good,
strong images." After pressing the lever indicating that the image was
formed, the screen went blank for 1 s and then presented the words
INTERACTION OF IMAGERY RATINO SCALE and, below that, the following:
"1 = No Interaction, 2 = Some Interaction, and 3 = Much Interaction."
Following their rating of the degree of interaction between the objects
suggested by the capitalized words that was afforded by their image, the
screen again went blank, this time for 2 s, followed by the presentation
of the next word pair and the related phrase.
Following the presentation of the entire list of 56 pairs, subjects received
the two cued-recall tests. In the word-recall test, the first word from a
given pair would appear on the screen, followed by the question "What
was the other word?" The subject then attempted to recall the other word
of the pair. After the subject responded, the experimenter keyed-in a code
for the correctness of the response which also signaled the computer to
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present the correct word pair for 2 s, followed by a blank screen for 1 s,
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followed by the next cue word. In order to be correct, the word had to
be precisely as it was in the presentation list; that is, the response was
scored as incorrect if a plural word was made singular or vice versa.
Errors of this type were drawn to the subject's attention. The cue words
were always the first member of the pair and the order was different than
that in the original presentation.
In the image-recall test, both words of a given pair would appear, fol-
lowed by the question "What was the image?" The subject then attempted
to explain the image. They were told to be as complete as possible and
were given the following example, which followed from the example given
in the instructions prior to the original list presentation:
BOOK RUG. What was the image? In this case the image phrase was "A
dark orange BOOK sliding off the window sill onto the bright green
RUG" and an adequate correct response would be "A BOOK sliding off
a window sill onto a RUG" but the following response would not: "A
BOOK fell onto a RUG."
Following the experimenter's recording of the correctness of the response,
the original phrase seen with that word pair was presented for 2 s, followed
by a 1-s blank screen, followed by the next word pair. To be correct, the
response had to retain the plausibility-bizarreness characteristic suggested
by the original phrase. Errors due to making a plausible into a bizarre
phrase (which only occurred rarely) or due to making a bizarre into a
plausible phrase (which occurred frequently) were drawn to the subject's
attention. The order of the word pairs was different than that of the
original presentation list and different than that of the word-recall test.
The ordering of the pairs in both presentation lists and recall tests
changed after every 4 subjects. Within any 4 subjects with the same order,
2 received the word-recall test before the image-recall test, and across
these 2 subjects, the type of phrase used with any particular pair was
reversed. Subjects received half of the pairs with bizarre and half with
plausible phrases and half of the primacy (first four) and half of the
recency (last four) pairs were presented with each of the phrase types.
After finishing both of the recall tests, subjects were told that the first
experiment was completed but were requested to return in 1 week to a
different room to participate in another experiment. When they returned,
they were given another (surprise) cued-recall test, consisting of a test
sheet containing the first word of each pair, and asked to recall the second.
When they could not recall any more words, they were asked to go back
over the list and to write B or P after each cue word—whether or not
they had recalled the associated word—indicating the type of image they
had formed with that cue word during the original list presentation.
When they had finished, they were asked which pairs they thought
they remembered better: those with bizarre images or those with plausible
images. Almost all of the subjects reported remembering those with the
bizarre phrases better, even though this was, in fact, not the case. When
confronted with their actual performance, most supposed they had thought
47
Table 3
Experiment 2: Image Formation Times (in Seconds), Average
Interaction Ratings, Percentage of Immediate Cued Word
Recall, Percentage of Immediate Cued Image Recall, and
Percentage of Delayed Cued Word Recall as
a Function of Phrase Type
Phrase type
Dependent measure Plausible Bizarre
Image formation times 11.5 12.7
Average interaction rating 2.5 2.2
Immediate word recall 87.1 78.0
Immediate image recall 75.0 70.5
Delayed word recall score
Strict scoring 68.2 65.4
Lenient scoring 71.4 70.4
they had done better with the bizarre pairs because bizarre images were
recalled more easily or more rapidly than were the plausible images.
Consequently, the subjects in the second half of this experiment were
asked to first rush through the cued-recall test sheet, writing down only
those words that came easily and rapidly; then, when they began to require
more time, apparently needing to really search their memories, they were
asked to switch from writing their responses with a pencil to a red pen.
In this way, we had hoped to separate their fast-and-easy responses from
those requiring more time and effort.
Results
Image formation: Formation times and ratings. In this ex-
periment, the untruncated image formation times were used to
find the average formation time for images following bizarre
phrases and for those following plausible phrases. These averages
are presented in the first column of Table 3. As usual, subjects
reported needing significantly more time to form bizarre images
than to form plausible ones, F\\, 22) = 15.429, p < .001. These
times are considerably longer than those obtained in Experiment
1, perhaps because of the additional emphasis that was given in
the instructions of this experiment on the importance of remem-
bering both the images and the words.
The average interaction rating for the two phrase types are
presented in the second column of Table 3. The advantage
favoring the plausible images is significant, F{\, 22) = 9.181,
p<-01.
Immediate cued-recall performance. The average percentages
of words recalled in the immediate cued word-recall test are
presented in column 3 of Table 3. There was not much difference
between the word-recall performance of subjects having this as
their first test (87.2 and 77.1 for plausible and bizarre phrases,
respectively) and those having this as their second test (86.9
and 78.9).
The average percentage of images recalled in the immediate
cued image-recall test are presented in column 4 of Table 3.
There was a considerable difference between the groups, with
those subjects receiving the image-recall test first (89.9 and 84.8)
remembering considerably more of the images than did those
subjects receiving the image-recall test second (60.1 and 56.2).
When evaluating the scores on the immediate cued-recall tests,
 48 N. KROLL, E. SCHEPELER, AND K. ANGIN
one must keep in mind that the experimenter had to make instant
decisions concerning the correctness of the responses that the
subject was making verbally. The sense of the experimenter was
that subjects tended to misremember bizarre phrases as plausible
and tended to remember the plurality of the words in the phrases,
rather than the way that the word itself had been presented. Both
of these tendencies led to more errors for the word pairs presented
within the bizarre phrases, F( 1, 22) = 8.119, p < .01. The words
were remembered better than the images, F(l, 22) = 13.575,
p < .01, although this could be at least partially a function of a
differential scoring criterion; that is, it is much easier to make a
fast decision concerning the correctness of a word than of a
phrase.
There was also a Group X Test interaction, resulting from the
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very low performance obtained on the image-recall test by the
group receiving this test second, F(\, 22) = 31.958, p < .001.
One possible reason for the Group X Test interaction is that in
the image-recall test, subjects received both members of each
word pair as the cue for the image. Thus, the group receiving
the image-recall test first did well on the image test because they
had it immediately, and did well on the word test because they
had, in effect, received another word-pair practice trial before
receiving the word-recall test. The group receiving the word-
recall test first, on the other hand, still did well on the word-
recall test because they received this test immediately, but did
poorly on the image-recall test because the intervening word-
recall test did not overtly provide additional practice with the
images.
Delayed cued word-recall performance. The average per-
centages of words recalled in the delayed cued word-recall test
are presented in the last two columns of Table 3. In the first of
these columns are the results of a "strict" criterion where the
word had to be essentially the same as the original word: Only
the plurality of the word could be different. We did not score
plurality because only bizarre phrases changed a word's plurality.
(Contrary to the advice of professional mnemonists, this did not
increase the likelihood of remembering the pair; it only increased
the likelihood of misremembering the plurality.) The last column
represents the results of a "lenient" criterion where words that
suggested the original image were also scored as correct. For
example, the bizarre phrase for the pair BICYCLE-SKYSCRAPER
was "a bright, blue BICYCLE being ridden up the side of a tall
concrete SKYSCRAPER." With the strict criterion, BUILDING was
not scored as a correct response to BICYCLE, but was scored as
correct with the lenient criterion. Neither the strict nor the lenient
criterion resulted in a significant difference between word pairs
presented with plausible versus bizarre phrases, ts(23) = 1.120
and 0.431.
One possibility is that the bizarre mnemonic is only effective
for those with superior memories. To test this possibility, cor-
relations were found between the total number of words remem-
bered and the difference between the words remembered which
had been presented with bizarre versus plausible phrases. With
both strict and lenient criteria, these correlations were both in-
significant and negative; that is, the more a subject remembered,
the more likely the subject was to have remembered more
plausible than bizarre word pairs, rs = -0.135 and -0.140,
rs(22) = 0.64 and 0.67.
Table 4
Experiment 2: Percentage of Delayed Cued Word Recall as a
Function of Phrase Type and Rating for Degree of Interaction
Interaction rating
Phrase type Low High
Plausible 57.5 71.1
Bizarre 62.1 68.1
Subjects were also asked which they thought they remembered
better, words presented within bizarre or within plausible phrases.
Only 2 subjects thought they remembered those within plausible
phrases better, and only I subject thought the two were remem-
bered equally well. All others reported that they thought they
had remembered the words within the bizarre phrases better—
many thought they had done much better with the words in
bizarre phrases. When these subjects were told that they had not
remembered the bizarre pairs better and then asked why they
had thought that they had, most had no idea, but several (6 over
all 24) reported that the bizarre pairs came faster or easier (one
said the bizarre image "popped" into her head) than did the
plausible pairs.
In an attempt to verify this subjective feeling of the subjects,
the last 6 of the subjects in each of the groups were asked to first
go through the list as rapidly as possible, writing only those re-
sponses which came quickly and easily. Then their pencils were
replaced by red pens and they were asked to try to recall as many
more responses as possible. Under these conditions and using
the strict criterion (again, with no penalty for misremembering
the plurality of bizarre pairs), subjects remembered 14.8 plausible
and 15.3 bizarre pairs on the first attempt and 4.83 plausible
and 3.58 bizarre pairs on the second attempt. Although these
scores are in the expected direction, they are neither large nor
significant, rs(l I) = 0.467 and 1.419.
Delayed cued word-recall performance was also evaluated as
a joint function of phrase type (bizarre vs. plausible) and inter-
action rating. If a subject had at least four high interactive (3)
and at least four low interactive (I) rated pairs within a given
phrase type, medium interactive (2) rated pairs were not used
in the analysis. If a subject had fewer than four of either the high
or low interactive pairs, the medium interactive pairs were av-
eraged into the small cell. The resulting delayed cued word-recall
performance, using the strict criterion, is presented in Table 4.
The difference in the recall of high and low interaction pairs is
significant, F(\, 22) - 8.463, p < .01, but not the difference in
recall of plausible and bizarre pairs, F(\, 22) = 0.173, nor the
statistical interaction of phrase type and interaction rating, F{\,
22) = 0.923. There was also no significant effect of the group
(order of immediate tests) nor any significant group interaction
effect on the delayed cued-recall performance.
Delayed memory for type of image. After the subjects had
recalled as many of the words as they could, they were asked to
go back through the test sheet and to indicate the type of imagery
that they had used to learn a particular pair. They wrote B if
they thought they had used bizarre imagery, P if they thought
they had used plausible imagery, and left the spot blank if they
 BIZARRE IMAGERY
could not remember the type of imagery. They were asked to
write aBoraP if they remembered the image at alt, even if they
did not remember what the image was, but not to make totally
wild guesses.
The percentage of pairs that were marked with B or P or not
marked, averaged over all 24 subjects, is presented in Table 5 as
a function of the type of phrase that had been originally presented
with the pair and as a function of whether or not the subject had
remembered the second word of the pair.
When the subjects remembered the second word of the pair
correctly (the first two rows of Table 5), they also tended to cor-
rectly classify the type of imagery suggested by the original
phrase—and there did not appear to be any difference in their
accuracy as a function of the type of phrase. This was tested by
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forming difference scores for each subject and comparing the
advantage of P responses over B responses to cues learned with
plausible phrases with the advantage of B over P responses to
cues learned with bizarre phrases. Fourteen subjects had greater
difference scores for the plausible than for the bizarre, 8 had
greater difference scores for the bizarre, and 2 had equal difference
scores. A two-tailed sign test performed on the 22 subjects without
tied difference scores gave no evidence of a difference in the
accuracy as a function of phrase type, p > .20.
When the subjects did not remember the second word (rows
3 and 4), their classification of the imagery type was much poorer.
What makes this more interesting is the fact that the classification
of the imagery resulting from the bizarre phrases is much more
accurate than is that for the plausible phrases. With the cues
learned with the plausible phrases, nearly half of the cues that
did not lead to the correct response were not classified at all and
the remaining cues that did not lead to the correct response were
split nearly equally between the P and B classifications. Ten sub-
jects made more P classification responses, 8 made more B re-
sponses, and 6 made an equal number of P and B responses,
p > .80.
On the other hand, the cues learned with bizarre phrases were
much more likely to be classified correctly (B) and much less
likely to be classified incorrectly (P). Twenty-one subjects made
more B responses, and only 1 made more P responses, p < .001.
Comparing these difference scores, we find that 16 subjects had
larger correct difference scores to the cues learned with the bizarre
phrases, 3 had larger correct difference scores to those learned
with plausible phrases, and 5 had equal difference scores for cues
learned with the two types of phrases, p < .05. Thus, there is at
least some evidence that subjects remember something about the
bizarre images, even when they do not remember enough to help
them recall the correct word.
General Discussion
Many psychologists seem to be strongly motivated to prove
that bizarre imagery has a positive effect on memory. Recently,
it appeared that the difficulty in finding such an effect was that
the experiments had all been using cued-recall test, but that bi-
zarre imagery did not improve cued recall, only free recall (Merry,
1980; Merry & Graham, 1978; Wollen & Cox, 1981a). Wollen
and Cox (1981 b), however, found a confounding in the construc-
tion of the materials that had been used to demonstrate this
49
Table 5
Experiment 2: Percentage of Pairs Thought to Have Been
Learned With Plausible or With Bizarre Imagery
After the Delayed Cued Word-Recall Test
Response
Recall Type of
of word phrase Plausible Bizarre No indication
Correct Plausible 91.1 8.5 0.4
Correct Bizarre 11.8 88.0 0.2
Incorrect Plausible 25.8 27.7 46.5
Incorrect Bizarre 8.6 54.7 36.6
effect and they showed that, in the absence of this confounding,
there was no advantage of bizarre imagery on either cued or free
recall at short retention intervals. Our Experiment 1 extends this
lack of a benefit from bizarre imagery to free recall over a re-
tention interval of 1 week.
McDaniel and Einstein (1986) have recently found what ap-
pears to be a free recall advantage following bizarre imagery in
a within-list design. They speculate that our failure to find such
an effect might be due to our orienting tasks. That is, they found
that subjects recalled more bizarre sentences following a vividness
rating task—but not after a bizarreness rating task—and con-
cluded that the bizarreness rating task may lead the subjects into
semantic as opposed to imagery processing. When evaluating
this speculation, one should first note that although their subjects
were instructed to rate the bizarreness of the sentences per se,
our subjects were instructed to rate the bizarreness of their im-
ages. Perhaps this difference in instructions contributed to the
variable results between the experiments. Second, our subjects
were asked to indicate, with their vividness rating, whenever they
had not formed an image. The number of trials so indicated
constituted less than 1.5% of the trials, and the distribution of
these no-image trials was nearly uniform over the P-L, P-H, and
B-H sentence types. Thus, our subjects apparently did use imag-
inal processing.
Some have suggested that bizarre imagery has a benefit on
cued recall after longer retention intervals (Andreoff & Yarmey,
1976; Marshall, Nau, & Chandler, 1980; O'Brien & Wolford,
1982; Webber & Marshall, 1978). For example, O'Brien and
Wolford charted the time course of cued-recall performance and
found an advantage of plausible imagery at brief intervals and
an advantage of bizarre imagery at longer intervals, with the
cross-over occurring between 1 and 3 days. This meant that the
cross-over was occurring when there were approximately three
plausible and three bizarre pairs (out of a list of 48 pairs) left in
memory. Unfortunately, none of these experiments controlled
for, or made any attempt to even measure, the degree of inter-
action, provided by the images, between the items in a pair. This
is particularly strange given that the degree of interaction has
been clearly demonstrated to have a potent effect on memory
(e.g., Wollen, Weber, & Lowry, 1972). The present experiments
demonstrated once again that the bizarreness of the image does
not improve memory accuracy beyond that obtained from an
interactive plausible image. This was true at both short and long
 50 N. KROLL, E. SCHEPELER, AND K. ANGIN
retention intervals, with both free and cued recall, and at several
levels of memory performance. And again, the degree of inter-
action provided by the image proved to be extremely influential
on cued recall. Its effect on free recall was much less. If one
concedes that there must be some self-cuing within any free-
recall task, it is quite conceivable that this small effect of inter-
action on free-recall performance was actually on the self cued-
recall portion of the task.
Although it seems strange that papers are still being published
that ignore what appears to be the most important variable—
interaction—nevertheless, bizarre imagery must have some effect
on memory. Why else do professional mnemonists insist on its
effectiveness, and why else do experimental psychologists con-
tinue to think they are finding something? One answer might be
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simply that, in the absence of controlled counterbalancing, it is
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often possible to make images interactive via bizarre imagery
more easily than it is via plausible imagery. However, this ar-
gument does not explain why subjects take so much longer to
form bizarre imagery than they do to form plausible imagery,
even when they are instructed to make this plausible imagery
interactive (e.g., Bergfeld et al., 1982; Hauck et al., 1976; Nappe
& Wollen, 1973; and the present experiments).
Another possible reason that people think that bizarre imagery
improves memory is that there are so many reasons why it should.
For example, it should make the image more distinctive and,
thus, less subject to interference. Also, given that it typically
requires more time and effort to produce, the resulting memory
trace should be stronger (e.g., Jacoby, Craik, & Begg, 1979; but
see also Zacks, Hasher, Sanft, & Rose, 1983). In any case, the
subjects in our second experiment, questioned after they had
made their responses, almost invariably thought they had re-
membered more of the bizarre imagery pairs, even when they
clearly had not. It does not seem likely that the plausible pairs
were being remembered as bizarre, because (a) the immediate
cued image-recall test had shown that subjects were very likely
to remember the bizarre images as plausible, but very unlikely
to remember the plausible images as bizarre and (b) subjects
were at least equally likely to correctly classify the type of imagery
after correctly recalling the pairs learned with plausible imagery
as they were to correctly classify the type of imagery after correctly
recalling the pairs learned with bizarre imagery.
Subjects reported that the recall of bizarre pairs seemed easier
or faster than the recall of plausible pairs. Our attempt to measure
this found that there was some tendency for subjects to remember
more bizarre items the first time through the cue list, but this
tendency was a relatively small one. It is possible that a few
bizarre items are remembered extremely well and that these few
extremely strong items stand out when one is making a meta-
memory assessment. This could easily explain the O'Brien and
Wolford (1982) results, which suggested that the last few items
in memory tended to be the bizarre pairs. But we did not find
this in Experiment 1, where the number of items recalled was
as low as those found by O'Brien and Wolford. We also found
no tendency for the bizarre items to be recalled first in the free-
recall test in Experiment 1.
We are left, then, with an anomaly. People—including mne-
monists, experimental psychologists, and experimental subjects—
believe that bizarre imagery helps their memories, but, once the
degree of interaction is controlled, it does not; or, at very least,
its effect on memory is much smaller than is the effect of inter-
action. It seems to us that the interesting phenomenon which
needs to be studied is not the effect of bizarre imagery on memory,
but rather its effect on metamemory. Why do we believe that it
improves our memory? The only potential clue that we have
been able to find is that subjects seem to remember that the
image was bizarre, even when they cannot remember enough
about this image to allow them to correctly recall the second
member of the pair. Thus, subjects may be responding to this
feeling-of-knowing the image when they say that they remem-
bered more bizarre pairs. Perhaps this feeling-of-knowing is
somehow related to the tip-of-the-tongue phenomena and, if so,
perhaps it can be profitably studied with similar techniques (e.g.,
Brown & McNeil, 1966).
References
AndreofF, G. R., & Yarmey, A. D. (1976). Bizarre imagery and associative
learning: A confirmation. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 43, 143-148.
Bergfeld, V. A., Choate, L. S., & Kroll, N. E. A. (1982). The effect of
bizarre imagery on memory as a function of delay: Reconfirmation of
interaction effect. Journal of Mental Imagery, 6, 141-158.
Brown, R. W., & McNeil, D. (1966). The "tip-of-the-tongue" phenomena.
Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 5, 325-337.
Collyer, S. C , Jonides, J., & Bevan, W. (1972). Images as memory aides:
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Delin, P. S. (1968). Success in recall as a function of success in imple-
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Delin, P. S. (1969). Learning and retention of English words with successive
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Jacoby, L. L., Craik, F. I. M , & Begg, I. (1979). Effects of decision difficulty
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Lorayne, H., & Lucas, J. (1974). The memory book. New York: Ballantine.
Marshall, P. H., Nau, K., & Chandler, C. K. (1980). A functional analysis
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McDaniel, M. A., & Einstein, G. O. (1986). Bizarre imagery as an effective
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Merry, R. (1980). Image bizarreness in incidental learning. Psychological
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Merry, R., & Graham, N. C. (1978). Imagery bizarreness in children's
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 BIZARRE IMAGERY
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Appendix
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To-Be-Remembered Words (in Capitals) and Sentences Used as Stimuli in Experiment 1
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
Practice
The tall, bearded PROFESSOR wrote the equation on the messy, green
CHALKBOARD.
Primacy Items
A CANDLE lies outside of the CHURCH.
A small, yellow CANARY, using its wings like arms, bends open a HAIRPIN.
Her ornate EARRING lies on top of a long, blue ENVELOPE.
The small, black HORSE stretches his neck out of his stall to eat the HAY.
Recency Items
The large, majestic EAGLE swoops down to land on the rotting, wooden
FENCE.
The smoking VOLCANO can be seen clearly from the little log CABIN.
The BELL hangs over the SANDAL.
The fancy, oriental KITS are held by strings made of colorful CATER-
PILLARS.
Critical Items
Each subject saw each of the following 48 pairs with one of the four
possible sentences. The sentences for each pair are presented in the order
plausible-short, plausible-low, plausible-high, and bizarre-high.
AUTOMOBILE-UMBRELLA
An AUTOMOBILE is next to an UMBRELLA.
An old, green AUTOMOBILE is parked in the sun next to an open UM-
BRELLA.
An old, green AUTOMOBILE drives over and flattens an open UMBRELLA.
An old, green AUTOMOBILE protects itself in traffic with an open UM-
BRELLA.
REFRIGERATOR-TABLE
A REFRIGERATOR stands by a TABLE.
A white REFRIGERATOR stands in the corner by a thick, pine TABLE.
A white REFRIGERATOR tips over and breaks a thick, pine TABLE.
A white REFRIGERATOR dances merrily with a happy, pine TABLE.
FOX-BOWL
A FOX sleeps next to a BOWL.
A thin red FOX sleeps lazily next to a rain-filled sugar BOWL.
A thin red FOX licks cautiously at the edges of a rain-filled sugar BOWL.
A thin red FOX skates on the frozen surface of a rain-filled sugar BOWL.
BOULDER-FROG
A BOULDER shades the FROG.
A large, round BOULDER provides nice, cool shade for the old, tired FROG.
A large, round BOULDER rolls relentlessly over the unfortunate, old FROG.
A large, round BOULDER bends and groans under the weight of the old,
tired FROG.
MAGAZINE-APPLE
The MAGAZINE covers an APPLE.
The new MAGAZINE partially covers a brown, dried-out APPLE.
The new MAGAZINE contains a picture of a brown, dried-out APPLE.
The new MAGAZINE is being read by a brown, dried-out APPLE.
51
Wollen, K. A., & Cox, S. D. (1981 b). Sentence cuing and the effectiveness
of bizarre imagery. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human
Learning and Memory, 7, 386-392.
Wollen, K. A., Weber, A., & Lowry, D. H. (1972). Bizarreness versus
interaction of mental images as determinants of learning. Cognitive
Psychology, 3, 518-523.
Zacks, R. T.( Hasher, L., Sanft, H., & Rose, K. C. (1983). Encoding effort
and recall: A cautionary note. Journal of Experimental Psychology:
Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 9, 747-756.
BOTTLE-PIANO
A BOTTLE stands on a PIANO.
A large, cracked beer BOTTLE stands on the top of a dusty PIANO.
A large, cracked beer BOTTLE is spilling its contents on a dusty PIANO.
A large, cracked beer BOTTLE sings loudly as it plays a dusty PIANO.
OCEAN-TOWER
The OCEAN rages beneath the TOWER.
The stormy OCEAN rages noisily on the rocks beneath the tall, dark TOWER.
The stormy OCEAN crashes over the rocks, demolishing the tall, dark
TOWER.
The stormy OCEAN angrily throws fish and rocks at the tall, dark TOWER.
AIRPLANE-TREE
The AIRPLANE flies over the TREE.
The large, silver AIRPLANE flies easily over the branches of the high TREE.
The large, silver AIRPLANE cuts through the top branches of the high
TREE.
The large, silver AIRPLANE grows like a fruit from a branch of the high
TREE.
SPOON-CUP
The SPOON rests against the CUP.
The monogrammed SPOON rests against the edge of the small, china CUP.
The monogrammed SPOON stirs the contents of the small, china CUP.
The monogrammed SPOON drinks the contents of the small, china CUP.
CAT-FIREPLACE
The CAT walks toward the FIREPLACE.
The long-haired CAT walks slowly toward the front of the brick FIREPLACE.
The long-haired CAT scratches her claws on the front of the brick FIRE-
PLACE.
The long-haired CAT builds herself a fancy house with a brick FIREPLACE.
GIRL-FLAG
The GIRL stands near the FLAG.
The tall, thin GIRL stands near a large American FLAG.
The tall, thin GIRL proudly folds a large American FLAG.
The tall, thin GIRL is suddenly attacked by a large American FLAG.
BUTTERFLY-COIN
A BUTTERFLY flits past the COIN.
A swallow-tailed BUTTERFLY flits hurriedly past the shiny foreign COIN.
A swallow-tailed BUTTERFLY is engraved on the shiny foreign COIN.
A swallow-tailed BUTTERFLY slyly takes off with the shiny foreign COIN.
CHAIR-CRATE
A CRATE is next to a CHAIR.
A sturdy wooden CRATE is next to an old, uncomfortable CHAIR.
A sturdy wooden CRATE is used as an old, uncomfortable CHAIR.
A sturdy wooden CRATE relaxes in an old, uncomfortable CHAIR.
PAINTING-RABBIT
The PAINTING hangs over the RABBIT.
The modern oil PAINTING hangs over the cage of a fat, old RABBIT.
 52 N. KROLL, E. SCHEPELER, AND K. ANGIN

The modern oil PAINTING appears to depict a fat, old RABBIT. A colorful hot-air BALLOON sails through the spray of a tall, steep WA-
The modern oil PAINTING is being painted by a fat, old RABBIT. TERFALL.
MOP-PAIL A colorful hot-air BALLOON provides the source of a tall, steep WATERFALL.
The MOP is by the PAIL. BASEBALL-WINDOW
The long-handled sponge MOP is in the hall closet by the dented metal A BASEBALL rolls beneath the WINDOW.
PAIL. A tattered, stained BASEBALL rolls to a stop beneath the stained-glass
The long-handled sponge MOP is dipped in and out of the dented metal WINDOW.
PAIL. A tattered, stained BASEBALL crashes noisily through the stained-glass
The long-handled sponge MOP walks slowly by, carrying a dented metal WINDOW.
PAIL. A tattered, stained BASEBALL turns in flight, missing the stained-glass
PENCIL-CALCULATOR WINDOW.
The PENCIL is along side of the CALCULATOR. TULIP-SHAMPOO
The yellow PENCIL is placed neatly along side of the tiny CALCULATOR. A TULIP lies next to the SHAMPOO.
The yellow PENCIL is used to push the small keys on the tiny CALCULATOR. A bright yellow TULIP lies on the shelf next to the bottle of creamy SHAM-
The yellow PENCIL tries to solve the problem with the tiny CALCULATOR. POO.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

POLICEMAN-WALL A bright yellow TULIP is shown on the label of the bottle of creamy
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.

The POLICEMAN rests against the WALL. SHAMPOO.

The slender rookie POLICEMAN rests against the tall, stone WALL. A bright yellow TULIP washes its petals with a full bottle of creamy SHAM-
The slender rookie POLICEMAN quickly climbs the tall, stone WALL. POO.
The slender rookie POLICEMAN hungrily eats the tall, stone WALL. COFFEE-SPONGE
TROUT-CANOE The COFFEE is by the SPONGE.
The TROUT swims under the CANOE. The steaming-hot, spilled COFFEE forms a puddle near the dry, pink
The brown TROUT swims under the birch-bark CANOE. SPONGE.
The brown TROUT is dropped into the birch-bark CANOE. The steaming-hot, spilled COFFEE soaks rapidly into the dry, pink SPONGE.
The brown TROUT paddles his own birch-bark CANOE. The steaming-hot, spilled COFFEE completely dissolves the dry, pink
FLASHLIGHT-VIOLIN SPONGE.
A FLASHLIGHT lies in front of the VIOLIN.
FEET-GRASS
A new FLASHLIGHT lies in the dark closet in front of the old VIOLIN.
Her FEET are on the GRASS.
A new FLASHLIGHT is used in the dark closet to find the old VIOLIN.
Her tired, swollen FEET relax as they stand on the cool, wet GRASS.
A new FLASHLIGHT is used to pluck the strings of the old VIOLIN.
Her tired, swollen FEET leave their impressions on the cool, wet GRASS.
DOCTOR-TELEPHONE
Her tired, swollen FEET float several inches above the cool, wet GRASS.
The DOCTOR ignores the TELEPHONE.
KEY-BOX
The old, bearded DOCTOR ignores the ringing of the pale green TELE-
The KEY lies in the BOX.
PHONE.
The small, silver KEY lies in the center of the elaborately carved BOX.
The old, bearded DOCTOR speaks urgently into the pale green TELEPHONE.
The small, silver KEY sticks in the lock of the elaborately carved BOX.
The old, bearded DOCTOR operates urgently on the pale green TELEPHONE.
The small, silver KEY fights to escape out of the elaborately carved BOX.
NEWSPAPER-SOLDIER
TRAIN-STRAWBERRIES
The NEWSPAPER lies next to the SOLDIER.
The TRAIN goes by the STRAWBERRIES.
The newly-arrived NEWSPAPER lies on the bench next to the anxious
The sleek new TRAIN speeds by a field filled with fresh, juicy STRAW-
SOLDIER.
BERRIES.
The newly-arrived NEWSPAPER is opened rapidly by the anxious SOLDIER.
The sleek new TRAIN crushes all of the spilled fresh, juicy STRAWBERRIES.
The newly-arrived NEWSPAPER shouts contemptuously at the anxious
The sleek new TRAIN is tragically derailed by the fresh, juicy STRAW-
SOLDIER.
BERRIES.
DOG-FRISBEE
BALLERINA-CAKE
A DOG watches the FRISBEE.
The BALLERINA buys a CAKE.
A shaggy, brown DOG sits in the shade watching the tossed FRISBEE.
A shaggy, brown DOG jumps high in the air to catch the tossed FRISBEE. The beautiful, young BALLERINA buys herself a five-layer birthday CAKE.
A shaggy, brown DOG balances precariously on top of the tossed FRISBEE. A tacky, plastic BALLERINA is placed on top of afive-layerbirthday CAKE.
ANT-COMB
The beautiful, young BALLERINA wears, as a hat, a five-layer birthday
CAKE.
An ANT goes around a COMB.
A large, black ANT slowly turns and detours around a plastic COMB. ROSE-TUXEDO
A large, black ANT crawls in and out of the teeth of a plastic COMB. A ROSE lies next to the TUXEDO.
A large, black ANT carefully fixes its hair with a plastic COMB. A tiny red ROSE lies on the dresser next to the elegant white TUXEDO.
CARPENTER-SHED A tiny red ROSE is placed in the lapel of the elegant white TUXEDO.
The CARPENTER goes to the SHED. A tiny red ROSE looks sharp wearing its elegant white TUXEDO.
The laughing CARPENTER carries his ladder back lo the metal SHED. BICYCLE-SKYSCRAPER
The laughing CARPENTER climbs up his ladder to the roof of the metal A BICYCLE is next to the SKYSCRAPER.
SHED. A bright blue BICYCLE is ridden swiftly past the tall, concrete SKYSCRAPER.
The laughing CARPENTER flies on his ladder to the roof of the metal A bright blue BICYCLE crashes noisily into the tall, concrete SKYSCRAPER.
SHED. A bright blue BICYCLE is ridden up the side of the tall, concrete SKY-
BALLOON-WATERFALL SCRAPER.
A BALLOON sails above a WATERFALL. PLUMBER-FEATHER
A colorful hot-air BALLOON sails quietly, high above a tall, steep WATER- The PLUMBER picks up a FEATHER.
FALL. The short, fat PLUMBER sings to himself as he walks by a fallen FEATHER.
 BIZARRE IMAGERY 53

The short, fat PLUMBER fixes the stopped drain by pulling out a FEATHER. MICROPHONE-DRUM
The short, fat PLUMBER fixes the stopped drain by tickling it with a The MICROPHONE is near the DRUM.
FEATHER. The singer's tall, thin MICROPHONE is on the stand near the big, bass
COCKROACH-STOVE DRUM.
The COCKROACH runs toward the STOVE. The singer's tall, thin MICROPHONE falls over, puncturing the big, bass
The large, reddish COCKROACH scurries across the floor toward the dirty DRUM.
STOVE. The singer's tall, thin MICROPHONE flails wildly, playing the big, bass
The large, reddish COCKROACH, waving its feelers, climbs up the dirty DRUM.
STOVE. STAR-OWL
The large, reddish COCKROACH, waving its feelers, carries off the dirty The STAR shines on the OWL.
STOVE. The bright, distant STAR provides light needed by the hunting horned
OWL.
PINEAPPLE-KNIFE
The bright, distant STAR is the "beak" in the constellation of the horned
The PINEAPPLE is near the KNIFE.
OWL.
The large, ripe PINEAPPLE is on the counter near a sharp, stainless-steel
The bright, distant STAR provides light needed by the hunting horned
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

KNIFE.
OWL.
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.

The large, ripe PINEAPPLE is being sliced with a sharp, stainless-steel

QUEEN-LOCKET
KNIFE.
The QUEEN wears a LOCKET.
The large, ripe PINEAPPLE stabs itself with a sharp, stainless-steel KNIFE.
The tall, richly-dressed QUEEN happily wears the dainty, golden LOCKET.
JACKET-BED
The tall, richly-dressed QUEEN angrily rips offthe dainty, golden LOCKET.
A JACKET is tossed on the BED.
The tall, richly-dressed QUEEN cries a tear that is a dainty, golden LOCKET.
A black, leather JACKET is casually tossed towards the king-sized BED. SURFBOARD-DOOR
A black, leather JACKET is mixed among the covers of the king-sized BED. The SURFBOARD is near the DOOR.
A black, leather JACKET crawls out from among the covers of the king- The new, red SURFBOARD leans on the house next to the solid oak DOOR.
sized BED. The new, red SURFBOARD is wedged under the knob of the solid oak
TUBA-ELEPHANT DOOR.
A TUBA is played behind the ELEPHANT. The new, red SURFBOARD has, at its very center, a solid oak DOOR.
A shiny brass TUBA is played by the man just behind the large, grey COW-BILLBOARD
ELEPHANT. The cow eats by the BILLBOARD.
A shiny brass TUBA is played into the ear of the sleeping, large, grey The fat, sleepy cow slowly chews its cud in front of the large BILLBOARD.
ELEPHANT. The fat, sleepy cow is shown in the advertisement on the large BILLBOARD.
A shiny brass TUBA is played very loudly by the weaving, large, grey The fat, sleepy cow slowly climbs to the very top of the large BILLBOARD.
ELEPHANT. COOKIE-BROOM

EGGS-NAPKIN The COOKIE is by the BROOM.

The EGGS are next to the NAPKIN. The broken peanut-butter COOKIE is lying to the left of the yellow, straw
The soft, sloppy EGGS are placed next to the red and white checked BROOM.
NAPKIN. The broken peanut-butter COOKIE is being swept up with the yellow,
The soft, sloppy EGGS are wiped up with the red and white checked straw BROOM.
NAPKIN. The broken peanut-butter COOKIE complains angrily to the yellow, straw
The soft, sloppy EGGS complain about the cheap red and white checked BROOM.
NAPKIN. WAITER-NECKTIE
The WAITER wears a NECKTIE.
SHIRTS-COCONUTS
The lazy, arrogant WAITER wears a black suit and a narrow, white NECKTIE.
The SHIRTS are sold near the COCONUTS.
The lazy, arrogant WAITER admires himself as he ties a narrow, white
The short-sleeved SHIRTS are sold under the decorative, large, shaggy
NECKTIE.
COCONUTS,
The lazy, arrogant WAITER serves a plate containing a narrow, white
The short-sleeved SHIRTS are patterned with decorative, large, shaggy
NECKTIE.
COCONUTS.
The short-sleeved SHIRTS are worn by a group of angry, large, shaggy Received January 17, 1985
COCONUTS. Revision received June 20, 1985 •