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The Face–Name Mnemonic Strategy from a Different Perspective
CONTEMPORARY EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY ARTICLE NO.
22, 399–412 (1997)
EP970940
BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT The Face–Name Mnemonic Strategy from a Different Perspective Russell N. Carney Southwest Missouri State University
Joel R. Levin University of Wisconsin
and Tyson L. Stackhouse Southwest Missouri State University Prior research has demonstrated that the face–name mnemonic strategy is useful for facilitating memory for names in response to true-to-life representations of faces (e.g., photographs). In Experiment 1, we successfully extended this finding to a situation in which the stimuli cuing name memory were caricatures. In Experiment 2, photographs and caricatures alternated as the stimulus materials prompting either name recall or recognition. Students using the mnemonic strategy again outperformed students using their own best method of study on both immediate and delayed tests. Because caricatures exaggerate prominent features, we had anticipated that the mnemonic approach might be relatively more effective with caricatures than with photographs. However, students using the face–name mnemonic strategy derived comparable benefits with both types of material. q 1997 Academic Press
A task we all face is the task of faces — that is, the task of remembering people’s names in response to their faces. In many occupations and everyday social situations, remembering names is an important social skill that brings confidence to the daily interactions of both children and adults. To put a human face on history and current events, students are frequently provided with pictures of individuals to accompany the written text — in both textbooks and now computer compact disks. Although students are
Experiment 1 was presented at the 1994 annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association and Experiment 2 was presented at the 1995 annual meeting of the American Psychological Association. Address correspondence and reprint requests to Russell N. Carney, Department of Psychology, Southwest Missouri State University, Springfield, MO 65804-0095. E-mail: rnc201f@wpgate. smsu.edu. 399 0361-476X/97 $25.00 Copyright q 1997 by Academic Press All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.
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FIG. 1. Example of caricature and mnemonic materials used in Experiment 1. Reprinted with permission from Upper & Lower Case, The International Journal of Type and Graphic Design; q 1987 International Typeface Corporation.
not typically tested directly for face – name memory, remembering people’s names remains an important expectation in our society.1 In this regard, memory improvement books have for years recommended the face-name mnemonic strategy (e.g., Bellezza, 1982; Furst, 1944; Higbee, 1988; Lorayne & Lucas, 1974). Three steps are involved in using this mnemonic procedure, which will be illustrated in relation to the picture of Mr. Belmont in Fig. 1. The first step is to identify a prominent feature of the individual (e.g., the large protruding ear). Next, the individual’s name (e.g., Belmont) is recoded as a more familiar ‘‘keyword’’ or ‘‘name clue’’ that acoustically or orthographically resembles a salient part of the name (e.g., bell). Finally, the keyword and prominent feature are connected by a meaningful, interactive image (e.g., imagining that the individual is wearing a bell as an earring in his protruding ear). Upon 1 In a related vein, Carney and Levin (1991b) describe analogous picture-label tasks of educational importance, where students are expected to associate the two. For example, in undergraduate art appreciation classes, students are asked to associate paintings with artists’ names.
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next seeing the individual, one again notices the protruding ear. That brings back the image of the bell worn as an earring. The word bell, in turn, reevokes the name Belmont. Of the several models proposed to explain memory for proper names, mnemonic strategies seem to fit best with the ‘‘representational’’ model (Cohen & Burke, 1993, p. 261). This model suggests that names may be difficult to recall because they are both arbitrary and meaningless (Cohen, 1990; Cohen & Burke, 1993). In this regard, the face-name mnemonic strategy adds meaning to the name by recoding it as a more concrete keyword, and then incorporating this keyword into a meaningful, interactive image. In the end, the procedure builds a retrieval path leading from a pictorial stimulus (the face) to a verbal response (the person’s name). Several studies using different populations have demonstrated that the face– name mnemonic strategy can be an effective way to associate names and faces (e.g., Geiselman, McCloskey, Mossler, & Zielan, 1984; Hastings, 1982; McCarty, 1980; Morris, Jones, & Hampson, 1978; Yesavage & Rose, 1984; Yesavage, Rose, & Bower, 1983; Yesavage, Sheikh, Friedman, & Tanke, 1990). Most recently, Groninger, Groninger, and Stiens (1995) also found that the face–name mnemonic strategy (which they termed an ‘‘image mediator’’) facilitated face–name learning. Of special interest to us was Groninger et al.’s error analysis, which suggested that the majority of mnemonic errors were omissions—leading them to conclude that ‘‘many faces do not give distinctive clues to a mediator and/or name’’ (p. 163). Thus, it may be that faces typically do not have distinctive features that lend themselves directly to the face-name mnemonic technique. The majority of the face-name studies just cited used true-to-life representations of faces (e.g., photographs, slides, or videotapes) as their stimulus materials. However, another type of portrait found in textbooks, newspapers, and magazines is the caricature. A caricature generally takes the form of a penand-ink drawing that represents the faces from a different perspective—that is, by metrically distorting or exaggerating the distinctive features of the face. [In addition, caricatures may be used in a variety of other situations, such as medical illustrations (Gonzalez-Mendendez et al., 1987), bird identification drawings (Rhodes & McLean, 1990), and so forth.] In that facial caricatures emphasize those features that set faces apart from the average, they are often thought of as ‘‘superportraits’’ (e.g., Mauro & Kubovy, 1992). Theoretically, Mauro and Kubovy argue that such superportraits are more similar to the encoded facial representations than are more exact representations. We wondered how effective the face-name mnemonic strategy would be with caricatures of historical figures—the type often found in history textbooks and political cartoons. On the one hand, if caricatures are inherently memorable (and more so than true-to-life representations, such as photographs), then adding a mnemonic component to assist in remembering the
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name might not be that beneficial. On the other hand, in that caricatures provide ready-made prominent features for incorporation into the face-name mnemonic strategy, they may fit in quite well with, and derive additional benefits from, the mnemonic technique. Experiment 1 was designed as a preliminary investigation of these two alternatives. The students who participated in Experiment 1 had just completed a delayed test as part of a previous vocabulary learning study (Carney, Levin, & Cole, 1994). In that study, students had been randomly assigned to either mnemonic or repetition control conditions. Through study booklets, mnemonic students had been given brief training (7.5 min) in using the keyword method of vocabulary learning (e.g., Levin, 1993). Similarly, control students had been asked to practice studying by saying the vocabulary words and their meanings over and over to themselves (repetition). Following training, these students studied 24 nouns and their meanings. Day 1 concluded with an immediate test. The delayed test alluded to above was conducted 5 days later. In order to build upon the relevant training that mnemonic students had already received in the vocabulary learning study (and their resultant familiarity with a mnemonic approach), students retained their original control and mnemonic group assignments for the present Experiment 1. EXPERIMENT 1
Method Participants and design. Sixty-nine students were randomly assigned to one of two groups: control or face-name mnemonic, as described above. This time, control students were instructed to use their own best method to associate 20 caricatures of historical figures with their names. Mnemonic students were directed to use the face-name mnemonic strategy to learn these associations. All students were undergraduates at a midwestern university and received course credit for their participation. Materials and procedure. After excluding highly recognizable individuals (e.g., Abraham Lincoln, Mark Twain, Teddy Roosevelt, etc.), we unsystematically selected 22 caricatures (e.g., August Belmont, John Tyndall, Henry Ward Beecher, Emma Goldman, etc.) from a set drawn by Jerry Gersten to commemorate the history of the Great Hall of Cooper Union—an auditorium with a lectern that has served a multitude of important speakers since 1859 (Muller, 1987). Note, in that regard, that items were not selected on the basis of their being ‘‘keyword hospitable.’’ Two of the items were randomly selected as practice items, and the remaining 20 served as the to-be-learned face/name associations. The use of study booklets allowed for the simultaneous administration of both conditions within each testing session (which included about 27 students each). These testing sessions took place during the students’ regularly scheduled classes. Following the distribution of materials, students read a generic introduction stating that ‘‘Now we are going to briefly look at another memory task—that of remembering people’s names when you see their faces.’’ The next section (5 min) was titled ‘‘Your Strategy’’ and reviewed the study method the students were to use— either their own best method or the face–name mnemonic strategy. Two practice items were provided in this two-page section, along with a practice test. Figure 1 illustrates the way in which materials were presented to mnemonic students. In contrast, control students were provided with only the caricature and the typed surname for each individual.
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TABLE 1 MEAN PERCENTAGE CORRECT (AND STANDARD DEVIATION)
BY
CONDITION
FOR
EXPERIMENT 1
Condition
Measure Immediate Recall Recognition Delayed Recognition
Control (n Å 35)
Mnemonic (n Å 34)
42.2 (21.3) 63.4 (21.3)
55.7 (18.7) 90.2 (13.6)
54.6 (23.4)
86.9 (13.8)
Note. Delayed ns for control and mnemonic conditions were 32 and 31, respectively.
The practice section was followed by a familiarization stage. Control students were paced through a randomized list of the 20 historical surnames by means of a tape recording played at the front of the room that sounded a tone at 10-s intervals. Simultaneously, mnemonic students were paced through the same list of the 20 surnames—plus their corresponding keywords. This familiarization stage was immediately followed by study of the 20 historical caricature/surname pairs (presented in a different random order) at 20-s intervals. As we have indicated, control students studied using their own best method and mnemonic students were directed to use the provided keywords and described images to associate the caricatures with the names (e.g., ‘‘Imagine that this stylish man is wearing a bell as an earring in his prominent ear!’’). Study of the caricatures and names was followed by an unrelated 2-min filler task (a crossword puzzle). Dependent measures consisted first of an immediate recall test of the names when cued by caricatures (8 min), and then by a matching test cued by the same set of caricatures (6 min). A booklet presenting the 20 caricatures in a random order served as the stimuli for both tests. Students returned 2 days later for an unannounced delayed matching test on a randomly selected subset of 16 of the original items. This shorter test was used due to time constraints and for reasons of economy (i.e., the 16 caricatures were reduced in size, and placed next to the matching test on a single page).
Results Mean percentages correct (and standard deviations) are provided in Table 1. On all three measures (immediate recall, immediate recognition, and delayed recognition), mnemonic students statistically outperformed free-study controls, t (67) Å 2.82, t (67) Å 6.22, and t (61) Å 6.69, respectively, all ps õ .01. The effect size for the immediate recall test was moderate (ES Å .68 within-group standard deviations), whereas the effect sizes for the recognition tests were substantial (ES Å 1.50 and 1.69 for immediate and delayed, respectively). That the effects were larger on the recognition tests than on the recall test are consistent with related research documenting the importance of name familiarity in the mnemonic recall process (e.g., Carney & Levin, 1991a). Our finding of the descriptively largest effect size on the delayed test was especially noteworthy and encouraged our further investigation into the face– name mnemonic technique in a caricature context.
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EXPERIMENT 2
Experiment 1 demonstrated that use of the face–name mnemonic strategy may indeed be extended to situations involving the identification of caricatures. Experiment 2 was conducted in an effort to replicate and build on these positive mnemonic findings using a different set of caricatures and adding a delayed recall measure to our design. Further, we investigated an additional issue. Although it has been argued that caricatures are perhaps more similar to encoded facial representations in memory than are photographs (Mauro & Kubovy, 1992), studies comparing identification of caricatures and photographs have sometimes actually shown better name recall for the photographs of well-known individuals, compared to caricatures of those same individuals (Tversky & Baratz, 1985). As alluded to earlier, because the face–name mnemonic strategy requires the identification of a prominent visual feature, the procedure might be relatively more effective with caricatures—which, by nature, tend to exaggerate the distinctive features of the individual. Hence, Experiment 2 was conducted to compare mnemonic name recall (as well as recognition) of caricatures and photographs directly. Because photographs of many of the historical caricatures in Experiment 1 were unavailable, a new set of caricatures (and companion photographs) was chosen. Method Participants and design. One hundred seven students were randomly assigned to four groups, defined by the combination of strategy type (control or mnemonic) and test format (recall or matching). Here, control students were instructed to use their own best method to learn either caricature/name or photograph/name associations. Mnemonic students were directed to use the face–name strategy to learn these associations. As before, all students were undergraduates at a midwestern university who received course credit for their participation. Unlike Experiment 1, however, these students had not previously participated in a mnemonic study. All students were tested in groups of about 35, with all four conditions represented in each group. Materials and procedure. After once more excluding highly recognizable individuals (e.g., Harry Truman), 24 caricatures were selected unsystematically from a book by caricaturist Oscar Berger (1952). Next, 24 black and white photographs of those same individuals—photographs that closely resembled the caricatures in orientation, expression, and so forth—were selected from various sources.2 Two disjoint subsets of 12 items were randomly selected from the 24. Students ultimately studied 12 caricatures and 12 photographs, and the two subsets were counterbalanced within the two conditions. Upon entering the room, participants were randomly handed a study booklet representing one of two strategy conditions, control or mnemonic. A section entitled ‘‘Your Strategy’’ (6 min) explained the study strategy that students were to use and provided four examples and a practice test. Students in the control condition were instructed to use their own best method to remember
2
Although each caricature was matched as closely as possible with a photograph, clearly the matches were not perfect. It is important to note, however, that our major research questions here do not focus on direct caricature vs photograph comparisons, but rather on study strategy differences in relation to the two face format variations.
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the names associated with the pictures. As in Experiment 1, students in the mnemonic condition were provided with both a name clue (e.g., dew for Dewey) and a verbal description of an image connecting the name clue to a prominent feature of the picture (e.g., ‘‘Note this man’s prominent cheeks. Imagine drops of dew (Dewey) dripping down his cheeks.’’). This time, the number of practice items was increased to four, alternating photograph and caricature formats. (These four items were in addition to the 24 to-be-learned items.) Practice over the four items was followed by a practice test in which, for two of the items, the formats were switched (i.e., a caricature of an individual was replaced with a photograph, and vice versa). Students were informed that on the actual test some of the items would be switched in format. We added this manipulation to our experiment to investigate whether the benefits of the mnemonic approach would be comparable when the format of the individual’s portrait was switched. The format of the practice test corresponded to group assignment (recall or matching). A familiarization stage came next. Here, control students were paced (twice) through a randomized list of the 24 surnames by means of a tape recording that sounded a tone at 10-s intervals. Likewise, mnemonic students were paced through the list of surnames and their corresponding name clues. The list of surnames was systematically arranged in blocks of four in anticipation of the four subsets of test items described below, so that the four subsets of items were spread evenly throughout the 24-item test. Following the familiarization stage, students were allowed to review their entire strategy once again on two practice items and to get a feel for the upcoming 20-s study intervals. Finally, students studied a set of 24 pictures of individuals and their corresponding names, systematically alternating formats between photographs and caricatures. They were again paced through the items by means of a tape recording that sounded a tone at 20-s intervals. Following study and a two-minute filler task (a crossword puzzle), depending on their condition, students completed either name recall or recognition (matching) tests, prompted by items in a ‘‘picture booklet.’’ The picture booklet presented the 24 portraits in a new order—one that again systematically alternated caricatures and photographs. As an additional manipulation, six of the previously studied photographs were replaced by their corresponding caricatures and six of the previously studied caricatures were replaced by their corresponding photographs. These subsets were also counterbalanced within conditions. Hence, students were tested (10 min) over six previously studied photographs (PP), six previously studied caricatures (CC), six switched photographs (previously studied as caricatures, or CP), and six switched caricatures (previously studied as photographs, or PC). After 2 days, students returned to take an unannounced delayed test and to complete a questionnaire. The test presented all 24 pictures in the format in which they were originally studied (CCC, CPC, PPP, and PCP). The time limit was again 10 min.
Results Mnemonic vs control comparisons. Separate analyses were conducted on the matching and recall tasks, and for both the immediate and delayed performance measures. Mean performance, by condition (control and mnemonic), is summarized in Tables 2 and 3. A 2 (study strategies) by 4 (item types) multivariate repeated-measures ANOVA conducted on these data revealed statistically significant conditions effects: In all four cases (Tables 2a, 2b, 3a, and 3b), students in the mnemonic condition substantially outperformed controls, all Fs ú 11.24, ps õ .002, all ESs ú .94.3 For the immediate test, 3 In these analyses, Wilks’ lambda was used to assess all multivariate effects. Although sample sizes varied from one analysis to the next, univariate Fs are associated with about 50 error degrees of freedom.
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MEAN PERCENTAGE CORRECT
ON THE
TABLE 2 MATCHING TEST
BY
CONDITION
IN
EXPERIMENT 2
Condition
Measure (a) Immediate (Day 1) CP PC PP CC (b) Delayed (Day 2) CPC PCP PPP CCC
Control (n Å 27)
Mnemonic (n Å 28)
23.5 25.9 67.9 67.3
31.6 38.7 82.2 88.7
33.3 41.7 59.0 55.1
70.4 67.9 81.5 85.2
Note. Here, and in Table 3, C Å caricature and P Å photograph. For example, on Day 1, CP means that participants studied caricatures of six individuals but were then tested on photographs of those individuals. On Day 2, CPC means that those same participants were tested over the six caricatures they had initially studied. Here, and below, scoring is based on six items possible. Delayed ns for control and mnemonic conditions were 26 and 27, respectively.
three planned comparisons were formulated to identify the locus of item type effects: (1) CP / PC vs PP / CC (switched vs same items), (2) CP vs PC (switched from caricatures to photographs vs the reverse), and (3) PP vs CC (same photographs vs same caricatures). For both the matching and recall measures, only the switched versus same comparison was statistically significant, F(1,53) Å 402.53 and F(1,50) Å 199.99, respectively, both ps õ .001, with the latter exceeding the former (Matching: Switched M Å 30%, Same M Å 77%; Recall: Switched M Å 29%, Same M Å 67%). Analogous comparisons (CPC / PCP vs PPP / CCC; CPC vs PCP; and PPP vs CCC) were conducted on the delayed test, with parallel statistical outcomes, F(1,51) Å 36.03 and F(1,48) Å 42.97, respectively, both ps õ .001 (Matching: Switched M Å 53%, Same M Å 70%; Recall: Switched M Å 38%, Same M Å 55%). None of the multivariate conditions by item types interactions was statistically significant, all ps ú .15. In addition to the foregoing analyses, at the request of a reviewer we conducted an analysis in which students with both immediate and delayed test data were included in a 2 (study strategies) 1 2 (item types) 1 2 (test intervals: immediate vs delayed) factorial, where study strategy represents a between-subjects factor and item type and test interval represent within-subjects factors. Four separate analyses were conducted on the two ‘‘same’’ and the two ‘‘switched’’ item types for students given either the matching or recall
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MEAN PERCENTAGE CORRECT
TABLE 3 RECALL TEST
ON THE
BY
CONDITION
IN
EXPERIMENT 2
Condition
Measure (a) Immediate CP PC PP CC (b) Delayed CPC PCP PPP CCC
Control (n Å 27)
Mnemonic (n Å 25)
22.8 21.6 57.4 57.4
33.3 38.0 76.7 77.3
28.9 28.2 48.1 41.0
48.6 45.8 65.2 64.6
Note. Delayed ns for control and mnemonic conditions were 26 and 24, respectively.
tests. In all four analyses, the main effect of study strategy was statistically significant: for ‘‘same’’ items on the matching test, F(1,51) Å 31.57, p õ .001; for ‘‘switched’’ items on the matching test, F(1,51) Å 21.87, p õ .001; for ‘‘same’’ items on the recall test, F(1,48) Å 10.62, p Å .002; and for ‘‘switched’’ items on the recall test, F(1,48) Å 13.17, p õ .001. In all cases, mnemonic students substantially outperformed controls. Of most interest here, however, was that only one statistically significant study strategy by test interval interaction emerged—for ‘‘switched’’ items on the matching test, where there was a greater performance increase from the immediate to the delayed test for students in the mnemonic condition, F(1,51) Å 11.51, p õ .001 (a mean difference of about 34% vs 13% for mnemonic and control students, respectively, based on the ‘‘switched’’ means in Table 2). As can also be seen in Table 2, the just noted interaction was somewhat more prevalent for CP/CPC items than for PC/PCP items, F(1,51) Å 4.14, p õ .05. All other effects involving study strategy conditions had associated ps greater than .15. These findings will be returned to in the next section. DISCUSSION AND EDUCATIONAL IMPLICATIONS
In that caricatures, by definition, exaggerate an individual’s distinctive features, we investigated whether the face–name mnemonic strategy would work well for associating caricatures of historical characters with their surnames. Strikingly positive effects were obtained in each of two experiments. In Experiment 1, students using the face–name mnemonic strategy statistically outperformed free-study control students on both immediate tests—
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recall and recognition—as well as on a two-day delayed recognition test. Likewise, in Experiment 2, students using the mnemonic approach outperformed control students on both immediate and delayed measures (both recognition and recall). Further, these mnemonic advantages were present even when the format of the picture (either photograph or caricature) was switched on the test (i.e., the CP and PC results in Tables 2 and 3). Although the performance of both control and mnemonic students was lessened when the format was switched, performance in the mnemonic condition remained higher. This is an important finding in that it suggests that the benefits of a mnemonic approach are not limited to precisely the same stimuli that existed during the original learning of the material. If caricatures serve as ‘‘superportraits’’ (Mauro & Kubovy, 1992), one might expect mean scores for caricatures to be higher than those for photographs, in both mnemonic and control conditions. However, we did not find statistical support for this notion in Experiment 2. Whereas our study dealt with memory for names of unfamiliar individuals who were studied only briefly, Tversky and Baratz (1985) found that name recall of famous persons was better for photographs than for caricatures. Further, it has been demonstrated that true-to-life drawings of faces are recognized more quickly than are caricatures (e.g., Rhodes & Moody, 1990). Because caricatures exaggerate prominent features, it was speculated that the mnemonic approach might be relatively more effective with caricatures than with photographs. Yet, in Experiment 2 we found no mnemonic advantage for caricatures over photographs. Two explanations for this lack of an advantage come to mind. First, in our experiment, we ‘‘imposed’’ (Levin, 1976) the technique. That is, for each item, we provided the keyword and identified the prominent feature to be used in the face–keyword connection. Had participants been called upon to generate keywords and, especially, to identify prominent features on their own, an advantage for caricatures over photographs might have been obtained for mnemonic participants. Second, because we used extant caricatures, the amount of exaggeration was not a manipulated variable. In that it is possible to produce caricatures automatically using a specific algorithm (e.g., Rhodes, 1993; Benson & Perrett, 1991, 1994), a future direction for this research would be to vary the amount of exaggeration systematically. Despite our lack of support here, it nonetheless remains tempting to predict that the degree of mnemonic facilitation will vary directly with the degree of distortion—especially if participants are required to identify a prominent feature on their own when applying the technique. Wang, Thomas, and their colleagues (Wang & Thomas, 1995; Wang, Thomas, Inzana, & Primicerio, 1993; and Wang, Thomas, & Ouellette, 1992) have suggested that—even in the presence of an immediate test—there is greater forgetting for students who learn mnemonically than for those using other study approaches. Our results came out quite differently. For example, for the ‘‘same’’
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test format items in Table 1 (matching), control students dropped from 68% to 57% over two days (a difference of 11%), whereas mnemonic students dropped from 86% to only 83% (a difference of 3%). Thus, in Table 2, the mnemonic forgetting rate—at least for previously tested items—was found to be statistically comparable to (and descriptively less steep than) that for participants in the control condition. In Table 3 (recall), the forgetting rate was found to be statistically equivalent for the two conditions (a difference of about 12% in each case). In viewing such results, one should note that our experiments differed from Wang et al.’s in that we used the face-name mnemonic strategy (as opposed to the keyword method of vocabulary learning), our control students studied using their own best method (as opposed to repetition), and our delay was only over two days (as opposed to 7 days). At the same time, the two ‘‘switched’’ item types in our within-subjects design of Experiment 2 may be regarded as similar in some respects to the once-tested delay items in Wang et al.’s between-subjects designs. These ‘‘switched’’ items may have been processed by our participants as ‘‘new’’ or ‘‘unfamiliar’’ items to some extent, as reflected by: (1) the much lower performance on ‘‘switched’’ than ‘‘same’’ items on the immediate test, and (2) the substantial increase in performance over time when items were returned to their initially studied format. This was found to be true for both matching and recall tests and generally for both control and mnemonic students (although less so for mnemonic students when photographs, rather than caricatures, were reinstated on the delayed matching test). Such increases for ‘‘switched’’ items over time are consistent with the literature that studied materials that are physically or psychologically altered in some respects will suffer memory consequences (e.g., McDaniel & Einstein, 1989; Tulving & Thompson, 1973). Unfortunately, in our study we cannot cleanly separate the negative effects of stimulus switching and test delay because we did not include CPP and PCC items on the delayed test. To determine whether item type switching or a test delay is more potent in this context would require a systematic manipulation of the two factors. Given the above arguments, the present data can be used in a loose way to approximate the between-subjects (once tested) designs of Wang et al. This is done by comparing students’ performance on immediate test ‘‘same’’ items (PP and CC) with delayed test ‘‘switched’’ items (PCP and CPC, respectively). With that approach, delayed test means are lower than immediate test means in all cases (i.e., for both strategy conditions with both item types on both matching and recall tests). However, and most importantly here, the decrement is typically not greater for mnemonic than control students. For photographs on the matching test, control students drop from a mean of 68 to 42% (a difference of 26%), compared to 82 and 68% (14%) for mnemonic students. The comparable figures are: for caricatures on the matching test, 67 and 33% (34%) for control, and 89 and 70% (19%) for mnemonic; for photo-
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graphs on the recall test, 57 and 28% (29%) for control, and 77 and 46% (31%) for mnemonic; and for caricatures on the recall test, 57 and 29% (28%) for control, and 77 and 49% (28%) for mnemonic. Thus, from this perspective, the present results (as well as recent ones reported by Carney, Levin, Bingham, and Cook, 1996) do not support Wang et al.’s negative findings regarding delayed mnemonic memory performance. Our study dealt specifically with face–name study materials, and it replicates the positive results others have found in using this mnemonic technique with undergraduates (e.g., Geiselman, McCloskey, Mossler, & Zielan, 1984; Groninger, Groninger, & Stiens, 1995; Hastings, 1982; McCarty, 1980; Morris, Jones, & Hampson, 1978; Patton, 1994). In addition, the results are similar to those of Carney, Levin, and their associates (Carney & Levin, 1991a; Carney & Levin, 1994; Carney, Levin, & Morrison, 1988; Franke, Levin, & Carney, 1991), who adapted and validated the face–name mnemonic strategy for associating artists and their paintings. Although similar (e.g., both caricatures and paintings represent a stable set of pictorial features), the two stimulus types are nonetheless different. Paintings do not necessarily distort their subject, and they often involve scenes, themes, or styles that may be useful mnemonically. We would argue that the face–name mnemonic works well in both instances because of: (a) the stability (permanence) of the features, and (b) the presence of either a distorted feature (for caricatures) or a meaningful aspect (for paintings) that can be incorporated into an interactive image involving the keyword for the name (Carney, Levin, & Hoyt, 1997). In contrast to caricatures, the prominent features of real faces can change (as in ‘‘hair’’ today, gone tomorrow) and prominent features or ‘‘themes’’ may not hit one between the eyes. Finally, we would note that, like its cousin, the much-researched keyword method of vocabulary learning (Levin, 1993), the face–name mnemonic strategy is quite versatile. The strategy should also lend itself well to other educational situations in which a pictorial stimulus prompts a verbal response. As was already mentioned, it can be used to facilitate memory for artists’ names and their paintings—the kind of task presented to students taking an art appreciation class. Additional curricular areas that might be served well by the face-name mnemonic strategy are geology, geography, anatomy, botany, and zoology. In the latter domain, for example, we recently completed a study in which the strategy was successfully applied to the name identification of rare/unfamiliar animals (Carney, Hoyt, & Levin, 1997). In addition, a mnemonic strategy for helping students identify U.S. states, in response to their shapes, has been developed for a study currently in progress. REFERENCES Bellezza, F. S. (1982). Improve your memory skills. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Benson, P. J., & Perrett, D. I. (1991). Perception and recognition of photographic quality facial
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caricatures: Implications for the recognition of natural images. European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 3, 105–135. Benson, P. J., & Perrett, D. I. (1994). Visual processing of facial distinctiveness. Perception, 23, 75–93. Berger, O. (1952). My victims. Harper: New York. Carney, R. N., Hoyt, W. D., & Levin, J. R. (1997, March). Mnemonic identification of animals: Running the gamut from A (addaz) to Z (zebu). Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Chicago. Carney, R. N., & Levin, J. R. (1991a). Mnemonic facilitation of artists and their paintings: Effects of familiarity and correspondence. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 16, 154–170. Carney, R. N., & Levin, J. R. (1991b). Mnemonic techniques and art education: Get the picture. College Student Journal, 25, 318–324. Carney, R. N., & Levin, J. R. (1994). Combining mnemonic strategies to remember who painted what when. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 19, 323–339. Carney, R. N., Levin, J. R., Bingham, C. T., & Cook, C. M. (1996, April). Do mnemonic memories fade as time goes by?: Here’s looking anew! Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, New York. Carney, R. N., Levin, J. R., & Cole, A. R. (1994, November). Delayed recall following mnemonic vocabulary learning: Some ‘‘sound’’ and not-so-sound findings. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Psychonomic Society, St. Louis. Carney, R. N., Levin, J. R., & Hoyt, W. D. (1997, March). Mnemonic artwork learning: Who painted what, and what else? Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Chicago. Carney, R. N., Levin, J. R., & Morrison, C. R. (1988). Mnemonic learning of artists and their paintings. American Educational Research Journal, 25, 107–125. Cohen, G. (1990). Why is it difficult to put names to faces? British Journal of Psychology, 81, 287–297. Cohen, G., & Burke, D. M. (1993). Memory for proper names: A review. Memory, 1, 249–263. Franke, T. M., Levin, J. R., & Carney, R. N. (1991). Mnemonic artwork-learning strategies: Helping students remember more than ‘‘who painted what?’’ Contemporary Educational Psychology, 16, 375–390. Furst, B. (1944). The practical way to a better memory. New York: Grosset & Dunlap. Geiselman, R. E., McCloskey, B. P., Mossler, R. A., & Zielan, D. S. (1984). An empirical evaluation of mnemonic instruction for remembering names. Human Learning, 3, 1–7. Gonzalez-Mendendez, R., Otero-Ojeda, A. A., Calzadilla-Fierro, L., & Calabuch-Donaire, I., et al. (1987). The diapophonogram in medical training: Comparison with other informational media. Revista del Hospital Psiquiatorico de La Habana, 28, 545–553. Groninger, L. D., Groninger, D. H., & Stiens, J. (1995). Learning the names of people: The role of image mediators. Memory, 3, 147–167. Hastings, M. W. (1982). Effectiveness of face-name learning strategies. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 54, 167–170. Higbee, K. L. (1988). Your memory: How it works and how to improve it (2nd ed.). New York: Prentice Hall. Levin, J. R. (1976). What have we learned about maximizing what children learn? In J. R. Levin & V. L. Allen (Eds.), Cognitive learning in children: Theories and strategies (pp. 105–134). New York: Academic Press. Levin, J. R. (1993). Mnemonic strategies and classroom learning. A 20-year report card. Elementary School Journal, 94, 235–244. Lorayne, H., & Lucas, J. (1974). The memory book. New York: Ballantine. Mauro, R., & Kubovy, M. (1992). Caricature and face recognition. Memory and Cognition, 20, 433–440.
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McCarty, D. L. (1980). Investigation of a visual imagery mnemonic device for acquiring facename associations. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Learning and Memory, 6, 145–155. McDaniel, M. A., & Einstein, G. O. (1989). Material appropriate processing: A contextualist approach to reading and study strategies. Educational Psychology Review, 1, 113–145. Morris, P. E., Jones, S., & Hampson, P. (1978). An imagery mnemonic for the learning of people’s names. British Journal of Psychology, 69, 335–336. Muller, M. (1987). The Great Hall of Cooper Union: A room with multitudinous views. Upper and Lower Case, 14(3), 5–9. Rhodes, G. (1993). When do caricatures look good? New Zealand Journal of Psychology, 22(2), 110–113. Rhodes, G., & McLean, I. G. (1990). Distinctiveness and expertise effects with homogeneous stimuli: Towards a model of configural coding. Perception, 19, 773–794. Rhodes, G., & Moody, J. (1990). Memory representations of unfamiliar faces: Coding of distinctive information. New Zealand Journal of Psychology, 19(2), 70–78. Tulving, E., & Thompson, D. M. (1973). Encoding specificity and retrieval processes in episodic memory. Psychological Review, 80, 352–373. Tversky, B., & Baratz, D. (1985). Memory for faces: Are caricatures better than photographs? Memory and Cognition, 13, 45–49. Yesavage, J. A., & Rose, T. L. (1984). The effects of a face-name mnemonic in young, middleaged, and elderly adults. Experimental Aging Research, 10, 55–57. Yesavage, J. A., Rose, T. L., & Bower, G. H. (1983). Interactive imagery and affective judgments improve face-name learning in the elderly. Journal of Gerontology, 38, 197–203. Yesavage, J. A., Sheikh, J. I., Friedman, L., & Tanke, E. (1990). Learning mnemonics: Roles of aging and subtle cognitive impairment. Psychology and Aging, 5(1), 133–137. Wang, A. Y., & Thomas, M. H. (1995). The effects of keywords on long-term retention: Help or hindrance? Journal of Educational Psychology, 87, 468–475. Wang, A. Y., Thomas, M. H., Inzana, C. M., & Primicerio, L. J. (1993). Long-term retention under conditions of intentional learning and the keyword mnemonic. Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society, 31, 545–547. Wang, A. Y., Thomas, M. H., & Ouellette, J. A. (1992). Keyword mnemonic and retention of second-language vocabulary words. Journal of Educational Psychology, 84, 520–528.
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EP970940
BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT The Face–Name Mnemonic Strategy from a Different Perspective Russell N. Carney Southwest Missouri State University
Joel R. Levin University of Wisconsin
and Tyson L. Stackhouse Southwest Missouri State University Prior research has demonstrated that the face–name mnemonic strategy is useful for facilitating memory for names in response to true-to-life representations of faces (e.g., photographs). In Experiment 1, we successfully extended this finding to a situation in which the stimuli cuing name memory were caricatures. In Experiment 2, photographs and caricatures alternated as the stimulus materials prompting either name recall or recognition. Students using the mnemonic strategy again outperformed students using their own best method of study on both immediate and delayed tests. Because caricatures exaggerate prominent features, we had anticipated that the mnemonic approach might be relatively more effective with caricatures than with photographs. However, students using the face–name mnemonic strategy derived comparable benefits with both types of material. q 1997 Academic Press
A task we all face is the task of faces — that is, the task of remembering people’s names in response to their faces. In many occupations and everyday social situations, remembering names is an important social skill that brings confidence to the daily interactions of both children and adults. To put a human face on history and current events, students are frequently provided with pictures of individuals to accompany the written text — in both textbooks and now computer compact disks. Although students are
Experiment 1 was presented at the 1994 annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association and Experiment 2 was presented at the 1995 annual meeting of the American Psychological Association. Address correspondence and reprint requests to Russell N. Carney, Department of Psychology, Southwest Missouri State University, Springfield, MO 65804-0095. E-mail: rnc201f@wpgate. smsu.edu. 399 0361-476X/97 $25.00 Copyright q 1997 by Academic Press All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.
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FIG. 1. Example of caricature and mnemonic materials used in Experiment 1. Reprinted with permission from Upper & Lower Case, The International Journal of Type and Graphic Design; q 1987 International Typeface Corporation.
not typically tested directly for face – name memory, remembering people’s names remains an important expectation in our society.1 In this regard, memory improvement books have for years recommended the face-name mnemonic strategy (e.g., Bellezza, 1982; Furst, 1944; Higbee, 1988; Lorayne & Lucas, 1974). Three steps are involved in using this mnemonic procedure, which will be illustrated in relation to the picture of Mr. Belmont in Fig. 1. The first step is to identify a prominent feature of the individual (e.g., the large protruding ear). Next, the individual’s name (e.g., Belmont) is recoded as a more familiar ‘‘keyword’’ or ‘‘name clue’’ that acoustically or orthographically resembles a salient part of the name (e.g., bell). Finally, the keyword and prominent feature are connected by a meaningful, interactive image (e.g., imagining that the individual is wearing a bell as an earring in his protruding ear). Upon 1 In a related vein, Carney and Levin (1991b) describe analogous picture-label tasks of educational importance, where students are expected to associate the two. For example, in undergraduate art appreciation classes, students are asked to associate paintings with artists’ names.
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next seeing the individual, one again notices the protruding ear. That brings back the image of the bell worn as an earring. The word bell, in turn, reevokes the name Belmont. Of the several models proposed to explain memory for proper names, mnemonic strategies seem to fit best with the ‘‘representational’’ model (Cohen & Burke, 1993, p. 261). This model suggests that names may be difficult to recall because they are both arbitrary and meaningless (Cohen, 1990; Cohen & Burke, 1993). In this regard, the face-name mnemonic strategy adds meaning to the name by recoding it as a more concrete keyword, and then incorporating this keyword into a meaningful, interactive image. In the end, the procedure builds a retrieval path leading from a pictorial stimulus (the face) to a verbal response (the person’s name). Several studies using different populations have demonstrated that the face– name mnemonic strategy can be an effective way to associate names and faces (e.g., Geiselman, McCloskey, Mossler, & Zielan, 1984; Hastings, 1982; McCarty, 1980; Morris, Jones, & Hampson, 1978; Yesavage & Rose, 1984; Yesavage, Rose, & Bower, 1983; Yesavage, Sheikh, Friedman, & Tanke, 1990). Most recently, Groninger, Groninger, and Stiens (1995) also found that the face–name mnemonic strategy (which they termed an ‘‘image mediator’’) facilitated face–name learning. Of special interest to us was Groninger et al.’s error analysis, which suggested that the majority of mnemonic errors were omissions—leading them to conclude that ‘‘many faces do not give distinctive clues to a mediator and/or name’’ (p. 163). Thus, it may be that faces typically do not have distinctive features that lend themselves directly to the face-name mnemonic technique. The majority of the face-name studies just cited used true-to-life representations of faces (e.g., photographs, slides, or videotapes) as their stimulus materials. However, another type of portrait found in textbooks, newspapers, and magazines is the caricature. A caricature generally takes the form of a penand-ink drawing that represents the faces from a different perspective—that is, by metrically distorting or exaggerating the distinctive features of the face. [In addition, caricatures may be used in a variety of other situations, such as medical illustrations (Gonzalez-Mendendez et al., 1987), bird identification drawings (Rhodes & McLean, 1990), and so forth.] In that facial caricatures emphasize those features that set faces apart from the average, they are often thought of as ‘‘superportraits’’ (e.g., Mauro & Kubovy, 1992). Theoretically, Mauro and Kubovy argue that such superportraits are more similar to the encoded facial representations than are more exact representations. We wondered how effective the face-name mnemonic strategy would be with caricatures of historical figures—the type often found in history textbooks and political cartoons. On the one hand, if caricatures are inherently memorable (and more so than true-to-life representations, such as photographs), then adding a mnemonic component to assist in remembering the
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name might not be that beneficial. On the other hand, in that caricatures provide ready-made prominent features for incorporation into the face-name mnemonic strategy, they may fit in quite well with, and derive additional benefits from, the mnemonic technique. Experiment 1 was designed as a preliminary investigation of these two alternatives. The students who participated in Experiment 1 had just completed a delayed test as part of a previous vocabulary learning study (Carney, Levin, & Cole, 1994). In that study, students had been randomly assigned to either mnemonic or repetition control conditions. Through study booklets, mnemonic students had been given brief training (7.5 min) in using the keyword method of vocabulary learning (e.g., Levin, 1993). Similarly, control students had been asked to practice studying by saying the vocabulary words and their meanings over and over to themselves (repetition). Following training, these students studied 24 nouns and their meanings. Day 1 concluded with an immediate test. The delayed test alluded to above was conducted 5 days later. In order to build upon the relevant training that mnemonic students had already received in the vocabulary learning study (and their resultant familiarity with a mnemonic approach), students retained their original control and mnemonic group assignments for the present Experiment 1. EXPERIMENT 1
Method Participants and design. Sixty-nine students were randomly assigned to one of two groups: control or face-name mnemonic, as described above. This time, control students were instructed to use their own best method to associate 20 caricatures of historical figures with their names. Mnemonic students were directed to use the face-name mnemonic strategy to learn these associations. All students were undergraduates at a midwestern university and received course credit for their participation. Materials and procedure. After excluding highly recognizable individuals (e.g., Abraham Lincoln, Mark Twain, Teddy Roosevelt, etc.), we unsystematically selected 22 caricatures (e.g., August Belmont, John Tyndall, Henry Ward Beecher, Emma Goldman, etc.) from a set drawn by Jerry Gersten to commemorate the history of the Great Hall of Cooper Union—an auditorium with a lectern that has served a multitude of important speakers since 1859 (Muller, 1987). Note, in that regard, that items were not selected on the basis of their being ‘‘keyword hospitable.’’ Two of the items were randomly selected as practice items, and the remaining 20 served as the to-be-learned face/name associations. The use of study booklets allowed for the simultaneous administration of both conditions within each testing session (which included about 27 students each). These testing sessions took place during the students’ regularly scheduled classes. Following the distribution of materials, students read a generic introduction stating that ‘‘Now we are going to briefly look at another memory task—that of remembering people’s names when you see their faces.’’ The next section (5 min) was titled ‘‘Your Strategy’’ and reviewed the study method the students were to use— either their own best method or the face–name mnemonic strategy. Two practice items were provided in this two-page section, along with a practice test. Figure 1 illustrates the way in which materials were presented to mnemonic students. In contrast, control students were provided with only the caricature and the typed surname for each individual.
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TABLE 1 MEAN PERCENTAGE CORRECT (AND STANDARD DEVIATION)
BY
CONDITION
FOR
EXPERIMENT 1
Condition
Measure Immediate Recall Recognition Delayed Recognition
Control (n Å 35)
Mnemonic (n Å 34)
42.2 (21.3) 63.4 (21.3)
55.7 (18.7) 90.2 (13.6)
54.6 (23.4)
86.9 (13.8)
Note. Delayed ns for control and mnemonic conditions were 32 and 31, respectively.
The practice section was followed by a familiarization stage. Control students were paced through a randomized list of the 20 historical surnames by means of a tape recording played at the front of the room that sounded a tone at 10-s intervals. Simultaneously, mnemonic students were paced through the same list of the 20 surnames—plus their corresponding keywords. This familiarization stage was immediately followed by study of the 20 historical caricature/surname pairs (presented in a different random order) at 20-s intervals. As we have indicated, control students studied using their own best method and mnemonic students were directed to use the provided keywords and described images to associate the caricatures with the names (e.g., ‘‘Imagine that this stylish man is wearing a bell as an earring in his prominent ear!’’). Study of the caricatures and names was followed by an unrelated 2-min filler task (a crossword puzzle). Dependent measures consisted first of an immediate recall test of the names when cued by caricatures (8 min), and then by a matching test cued by the same set of caricatures (6 min). A booklet presenting the 20 caricatures in a random order served as the stimuli for both tests. Students returned 2 days later for an unannounced delayed matching test on a randomly selected subset of 16 of the original items. This shorter test was used due to time constraints and for reasons of economy (i.e., the 16 caricatures were reduced in size, and placed next to the matching test on a single page).
Results Mean percentages correct (and standard deviations) are provided in Table 1. On all three measures (immediate recall, immediate recognition, and delayed recognition), mnemonic students statistically outperformed free-study controls, t (67) Å 2.82, t (67) Å 6.22, and t (61) Å 6.69, respectively, all ps õ .01. The effect size for the immediate recall test was moderate (ES Å .68 within-group standard deviations), whereas the effect sizes for the recognition tests were substantial (ES Å 1.50 and 1.69 for immediate and delayed, respectively). That the effects were larger on the recognition tests than on the recall test are consistent with related research documenting the importance of name familiarity in the mnemonic recall process (e.g., Carney & Levin, 1991a). Our finding of the descriptively largest effect size on the delayed test was especially noteworthy and encouraged our further investigation into the face– name mnemonic technique in a caricature context.
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EXPERIMENT 2
Experiment 1 demonstrated that use of the face–name mnemonic strategy may indeed be extended to situations involving the identification of caricatures. Experiment 2 was conducted in an effort to replicate and build on these positive mnemonic findings using a different set of caricatures and adding a delayed recall measure to our design. Further, we investigated an additional issue. Although it has been argued that caricatures are perhaps more similar to encoded facial representations in memory than are photographs (Mauro & Kubovy, 1992), studies comparing identification of caricatures and photographs have sometimes actually shown better name recall for the photographs of well-known individuals, compared to caricatures of those same individuals (Tversky & Baratz, 1985). As alluded to earlier, because the face–name mnemonic strategy requires the identification of a prominent visual feature, the procedure might be relatively more effective with caricatures—which, by nature, tend to exaggerate the distinctive features of the individual. Hence, Experiment 2 was conducted to compare mnemonic name recall (as well as recognition) of caricatures and photographs directly. Because photographs of many of the historical caricatures in Experiment 1 were unavailable, a new set of caricatures (and companion photographs) was chosen. Method Participants and design. One hundred seven students were randomly assigned to four groups, defined by the combination of strategy type (control or mnemonic) and test format (recall or matching). Here, control students were instructed to use their own best method to learn either caricature/name or photograph/name associations. Mnemonic students were directed to use the face–name strategy to learn these associations. As before, all students were undergraduates at a midwestern university who received course credit for their participation. Unlike Experiment 1, however, these students had not previously participated in a mnemonic study. All students were tested in groups of about 35, with all four conditions represented in each group. Materials and procedure. After once more excluding highly recognizable individuals (e.g., Harry Truman), 24 caricatures were selected unsystematically from a book by caricaturist Oscar Berger (1952). Next, 24 black and white photographs of those same individuals—photographs that closely resembled the caricatures in orientation, expression, and so forth—were selected from various sources.2 Two disjoint subsets of 12 items were randomly selected from the 24. Students ultimately studied 12 caricatures and 12 photographs, and the two subsets were counterbalanced within the two conditions. Upon entering the room, participants were randomly handed a study booklet representing one of two strategy conditions, control or mnemonic. A section entitled ‘‘Your Strategy’’ (6 min) explained the study strategy that students were to use and provided four examples and a practice test. Students in the control condition were instructed to use their own best method to remember
2
Although each caricature was matched as closely as possible with a photograph, clearly the matches were not perfect. It is important to note, however, that our major research questions here do not focus on direct caricature vs photograph comparisons, but rather on study strategy differences in relation to the two face format variations.
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the names associated with the pictures. As in Experiment 1, students in the mnemonic condition were provided with both a name clue (e.g., dew for Dewey) and a verbal description of an image connecting the name clue to a prominent feature of the picture (e.g., ‘‘Note this man’s prominent cheeks. Imagine drops of dew (Dewey) dripping down his cheeks.’’). This time, the number of practice items was increased to four, alternating photograph and caricature formats. (These four items were in addition to the 24 to-be-learned items.) Practice over the four items was followed by a practice test in which, for two of the items, the formats were switched (i.e., a caricature of an individual was replaced with a photograph, and vice versa). Students were informed that on the actual test some of the items would be switched in format. We added this manipulation to our experiment to investigate whether the benefits of the mnemonic approach would be comparable when the format of the individual’s portrait was switched. The format of the practice test corresponded to group assignment (recall or matching). A familiarization stage came next. Here, control students were paced (twice) through a randomized list of the 24 surnames by means of a tape recording that sounded a tone at 10-s intervals. Likewise, mnemonic students were paced through the list of surnames and their corresponding name clues. The list of surnames was systematically arranged in blocks of four in anticipation of the four subsets of test items described below, so that the four subsets of items were spread evenly throughout the 24-item test. Following the familiarization stage, students were allowed to review their entire strategy once again on two practice items and to get a feel for the upcoming 20-s study intervals. Finally, students studied a set of 24 pictures of individuals and their corresponding names, systematically alternating formats between photographs and caricatures. They were again paced through the items by means of a tape recording that sounded a tone at 20-s intervals. Following study and a two-minute filler task (a crossword puzzle), depending on their condition, students completed either name recall or recognition (matching) tests, prompted by items in a ‘‘picture booklet.’’ The picture booklet presented the 24 portraits in a new order—one that again systematically alternated caricatures and photographs. As an additional manipulation, six of the previously studied photographs were replaced by their corresponding caricatures and six of the previously studied caricatures were replaced by their corresponding photographs. These subsets were also counterbalanced within conditions. Hence, students were tested (10 min) over six previously studied photographs (PP), six previously studied caricatures (CC), six switched photographs (previously studied as caricatures, or CP), and six switched caricatures (previously studied as photographs, or PC). After 2 days, students returned to take an unannounced delayed test and to complete a questionnaire. The test presented all 24 pictures in the format in which they were originally studied (CCC, CPC, PPP, and PCP). The time limit was again 10 min.
Results Mnemonic vs control comparisons. Separate analyses were conducted on the matching and recall tasks, and for both the immediate and delayed performance measures. Mean performance, by condition (control and mnemonic), is summarized in Tables 2 and 3. A 2 (study strategies) by 4 (item types) multivariate repeated-measures ANOVA conducted on these data revealed statistically significant conditions effects: In all four cases (Tables 2a, 2b, 3a, and 3b), students in the mnemonic condition substantially outperformed controls, all Fs ú 11.24, ps õ .002, all ESs ú .94.3 For the immediate test, 3 In these analyses, Wilks’ lambda was used to assess all multivariate effects. Although sample sizes varied from one analysis to the next, univariate Fs are associated with about 50 error degrees of freedom.
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MEAN PERCENTAGE CORRECT
ON THE
TABLE 2 MATCHING TEST
BY
CONDITION
IN
EXPERIMENT 2
Condition
Measure (a) Immediate (Day 1) CP PC PP CC (b) Delayed (Day 2) CPC PCP PPP CCC
Control (n Å 27)
Mnemonic (n Å 28)
23.5 25.9 67.9 67.3
31.6 38.7 82.2 88.7
33.3 41.7 59.0 55.1
70.4 67.9 81.5 85.2
Note. Here, and in Table 3, C Å caricature and P Å photograph. For example, on Day 1, CP means that participants studied caricatures of six individuals but were then tested on photographs of those individuals. On Day 2, CPC means that those same participants were tested over the six caricatures they had initially studied. Here, and below, scoring is based on six items possible. Delayed ns for control and mnemonic conditions were 26 and 27, respectively.
three planned comparisons were formulated to identify the locus of item type effects: (1) CP / PC vs PP / CC (switched vs same items), (2) CP vs PC (switched from caricatures to photographs vs the reverse), and (3) PP vs CC (same photographs vs same caricatures). For both the matching and recall measures, only the switched versus same comparison was statistically significant, F(1,53) Å 402.53 and F(1,50) Å 199.99, respectively, both ps õ .001, with the latter exceeding the former (Matching: Switched M Å 30%, Same M Å 77%; Recall: Switched M Å 29%, Same M Å 67%). Analogous comparisons (CPC / PCP vs PPP / CCC; CPC vs PCP; and PPP vs CCC) were conducted on the delayed test, with parallel statistical outcomes, F(1,51) Å 36.03 and F(1,48) Å 42.97, respectively, both ps õ .001 (Matching: Switched M Å 53%, Same M Å 70%; Recall: Switched M Å 38%, Same M Å 55%). None of the multivariate conditions by item types interactions was statistically significant, all ps ú .15. In addition to the foregoing analyses, at the request of a reviewer we conducted an analysis in which students with both immediate and delayed test data were included in a 2 (study strategies) 1 2 (item types) 1 2 (test intervals: immediate vs delayed) factorial, where study strategy represents a between-subjects factor and item type and test interval represent within-subjects factors. Four separate analyses were conducted on the two ‘‘same’’ and the two ‘‘switched’’ item types for students given either the matching or recall
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TABLE 3 RECALL TEST
ON THE
BY
CONDITION
IN
EXPERIMENT 2
Condition
Measure (a) Immediate CP PC PP CC (b) Delayed CPC PCP PPP CCC
Control (n Å 27)
Mnemonic (n Å 25)
22.8 21.6 57.4 57.4
33.3 38.0 76.7 77.3
28.9 28.2 48.1 41.0
48.6 45.8 65.2 64.6
Note. Delayed ns for control and mnemonic conditions were 26 and 24, respectively.
tests. In all four analyses, the main effect of study strategy was statistically significant: for ‘‘same’’ items on the matching test, F(1,51) Å 31.57, p õ .001; for ‘‘switched’’ items on the matching test, F(1,51) Å 21.87, p õ .001; for ‘‘same’’ items on the recall test, F(1,48) Å 10.62, p Å .002; and for ‘‘switched’’ items on the recall test, F(1,48) Å 13.17, p õ .001. In all cases, mnemonic students substantially outperformed controls. Of most interest here, however, was that only one statistically significant study strategy by test interval interaction emerged—for ‘‘switched’’ items on the matching test, where there was a greater performance increase from the immediate to the delayed test for students in the mnemonic condition, F(1,51) Å 11.51, p õ .001 (a mean difference of about 34% vs 13% for mnemonic and control students, respectively, based on the ‘‘switched’’ means in Table 2). As can also be seen in Table 2, the just noted interaction was somewhat more prevalent for CP/CPC items than for PC/PCP items, F(1,51) Å 4.14, p õ .05. All other effects involving study strategy conditions had associated ps greater than .15. These findings will be returned to in the next section. DISCUSSION AND EDUCATIONAL IMPLICATIONS
In that caricatures, by definition, exaggerate an individual’s distinctive features, we investigated whether the face–name mnemonic strategy would work well for associating caricatures of historical characters with their surnames. Strikingly positive effects were obtained in each of two experiments. In Experiment 1, students using the face–name mnemonic strategy statistically outperformed free-study control students on both immediate tests—
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recall and recognition—as well as on a two-day delayed recognition test. Likewise, in Experiment 2, students using the mnemonic approach outperformed control students on both immediate and delayed measures (both recognition and recall). Further, these mnemonic advantages were present even when the format of the picture (either photograph or caricature) was switched on the test (i.e., the CP and PC results in Tables 2 and 3). Although the performance of both control and mnemonic students was lessened when the format was switched, performance in the mnemonic condition remained higher. This is an important finding in that it suggests that the benefits of a mnemonic approach are not limited to precisely the same stimuli that existed during the original learning of the material. If caricatures serve as ‘‘superportraits’’ (Mauro & Kubovy, 1992), one might expect mean scores for caricatures to be higher than those for photographs, in both mnemonic and control conditions. However, we did not find statistical support for this notion in Experiment 2. Whereas our study dealt with memory for names of unfamiliar individuals who were studied only briefly, Tversky and Baratz (1985) found that name recall of famous persons was better for photographs than for caricatures. Further, it has been demonstrated that true-to-life drawings of faces are recognized more quickly than are caricatures (e.g., Rhodes & Moody, 1990). Because caricatures exaggerate prominent features, it was speculated that the mnemonic approach might be relatively more effective with caricatures than with photographs. Yet, in Experiment 2 we found no mnemonic advantage for caricatures over photographs. Two explanations for this lack of an advantage come to mind. First, in our experiment, we ‘‘imposed’’ (Levin, 1976) the technique. That is, for each item, we provided the keyword and identified the prominent feature to be used in the face–keyword connection. Had participants been called upon to generate keywords and, especially, to identify prominent features on their own, an advantage for caricatures over photographs might have been obtained for mnemonic participants. Second, because we used extant caricatures, the amount of exaggeration was not a manipulated variable. In that it is possible to produce caricatures automatically using a specific algorithm (e.g., Rhodes, 1993; Benson & Perrett, 1991, 1994), a future direction for this research would be to vary the amount of exaggeration systematically. Despite our lack of support here, it nonetheless remains tempting to predict that the degree of mnemonic facilitation will vary directly with the degree of distortion—especially if participants are required to identify a prominent feature on their own when applying the technique. Wang, Thomas, and their colleagues (Wang & Thomas, 1995; Wang, Thomas, Inzana, & Primicerio, 1993; and Wang, Thomas, & Ouellette, 1992) have suggested that—even in the presence of an immediate test—there is greater forgetting for students who learn mnemonically than for those using other study approaches. Our results came out quite differently. For example, for the ‘‘same’’
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test format items in Table 1 (matching), control students dropped from 68% to 57% over two days (a difference of 11%), whereas mnemonic students dropped from 86% to only 83% (a difference of 3%). Thus, in Table 2, the mnemonic forgetting rate—at least for previously tested items—was found to be statistically comparable to (and descriptively less steep than) that for participants in the control condition. In Table 3 (recall), the forgetting rate was found to be statistically equivalent for the two conditions (a difference of about 12% in each case). In viewing such results, one should note that our experiments differed from Wang et al.’s in that we used the face-name mnemonic strategy (as opposed to the keyword method of vocabulary learning), our control students studied using their own best method (as opposed to repetition), and our delay was only over two days (as opposed to 7 days). At the same time, the two ‘‘switched’’ item types in our within-subjects design of Experiment 2 may be regarded as similar in some respects to the once-tested delay items in Wang et al.’s between-subjects designs. These ‘‘switched’’ items may have been processed by our participants as ‘‘new’’ or ‘‘unfamiliar’’ items to some extent, as reflected by: (1) the much lower performance on ‘‘switched’’ than ‘‘same’’ items on the immediate test, and (2) the substantial increase in performance over time when items were returned to their initially studied format. This was found to be true for both matching and recall tests and generally for both control and mnemonic students (although less so for mnemonic students when photographs, rather than caricatures, were reinstated on the delayed matching test). Such increases for ‘‘switched’’ items over time are consistent with the literature that studied materials that are physically or psychologically altered in some respects will suffer memory consequences (e.g., McDaniel & Einstein, 1989; Tulving & Thompson, 1973). Unfortunately, in our study we cannot cleanly separate the negative effects of stimulus switching and test delay because we did not include CPP and PCC items on the delayed test. To determine whether item type switching or a test delay is more potent in this context would require a systematic manipulation of the two factors. Given the above arguments, the present data can be used in a loose way to approximate the between-subjects (once tested) designs of Wang et al. This is done by comparing students’ performance on immediate test ‘‘same’’ items (PP and CC) with delayed test ‘‘switched’’ items (PCP and CPC, respectively). With that approach, delayed test means are lower than immediate test means in all cases (i.e., for both strategy conditions with both item types on both matching and recall tests). However, and most importantly here, the decrement is typically not greater for mnemonic than control students. For photographs on the matching test, control students drop from a mean of 68 to 42% (a difference of 26%), compared to 82 and 68% (14%) for mnemonic students. The comparable figures are: for caricatures on the matching test, 67 and 33% (34%) for control, and 89 and 70% (19%) for mnemonic; for photo-
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graphs on the recall test, 57 and 28% (29%) for control, and 77 and 46% (31%) for mnemonic; and for caricatures on the recall test, 57 and 29% (28%) for control, and 77 and 49% (28%) for mnemonic. Thus, from this perspective, the present results (as well as recent ones reported by Carney, Levin, Bingham, and Cook, 1996) do not support Wang et al.’s negative findings regarding delayed mnemonic memory performance. Our study dealt specifically with face–name study materials, and it replicates the positive results others have found in using this mnemonic technique with undergraduates (e.g., Geiselman, McCloskey, Mossler, & Zielan, 1984; Groninger, Groninger, & Stiens, 1995; Hastings, 1982; McCarty, 1980; Morris, Jones, & Hampson, 1978; Patton, 1994). In addition, the results are similar to those of Carney, Levin, and their associates (Carney & Levin, 1991a; Carney & Levin, 1994; Carney, Levin, & Morrison, 1988; Franke, Levin, & Carney, 1991), who adapted and validated the face–name mnemonic strategy for associating artists and their paintings. Although similar (e.g., both caricatures and paintings represent a stable set of pictorial features), the two stimulus types are nonetheless different. Paintings do not necessarily distort their subject, and they often involve scenes, themes, or styles that may be useful mnemonically. We would argue that the face–name mnemonic works well in both instances because of: (a) the stability (permanence) of the features, and (b) the presence of either a distorted feature (for caricatures) or a meaningful aspect (for paintings) that can be incorporated into an interactive image involving the keyword for the name (Carney, Levin, & Hoyt, 1997). In contrast to caricatures, the prominent features of real faces can change (as in ‘‘hair’’ today, gone tomorrow) and prominent features or ‘‘themes’’ may not hit one between the eyes. Finally, we would note that, like its cousin, the much-researched keyword method of vocabulary learning (Levin, 1993), the face–name mnemonic strategy is quite versatile. The strategy should also lend itself well to other educational situations in which a pictorial stimulus prompts a verbal response. As was already mentioned, it can be used to facilitate memory for artists’ names and their paintings—the kind of task presented to students taking an art appreciation class. Additional curricular areas that might be served well by the face-name mnemonic strategy are geology, geography, anatomy, botany, and zoology. In the latter domain, for example, we recently completed a study in which the strategy was successfully applied to the name identification of rare/unfamiliar animals (Carney, Hoyt, & Levin, 1997). In addition, a mnemonic strategy for helping students identify U.S. states, in response to their shapes, has been developed for a study currently in progress. REFERENCES Bellezza, F. S. (1982). Improve your memory skills. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Benson, P. J., & Perrett, D. I. (1991). Perception and recognition of photographic quality facial
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McCarty, D. L. (1980). Investigation of a visual imagery mnemonic device for acquiring facename associations. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Learning and Memory, 6, 145–155. McDaniel, M. A., & Einstein, G. O. (1989). Material appropriate processing: A contextualist approach to reading and study strategies. Educational Psychology Review, 1, 113–145. Morris, P. E., Jones, S., & Hampson, P. (1978). An imagery mnemonic for the learning of people’s names. British Journal of Psychology, 69, 335–336. Muller, M. (1987). The Great Hall of Cooper Union: A room with multitudinous views. Upper and Lower Case, 14(3), 5–9. Rhodes, G. (1993). When do caricatures look good? New Zealand Journal of Psychology, 22(2), 110–113. Rhodes, G., & McLean, I. G. (1990). Distinctiveness and expertise effects with homogeneous stimuli: Towards a model of configural coding. Perception, 19, 773–794. Rhodes, G., & Moody, J. (1990). Memory representations of unfamiliar faces: Coding of distinctive information. New Zealand Journal of Psychology, 19(2), 70–78. Tulving, E., & Thompson, D. M. (1973). Encoding specificity and retrieval processes in episodic memory. Psychological Review, 80, 352–373. Tversky, B., & Baratz, D. (1985). Memory for faces: Are caricatures better than photographs? Memory and Cognition, 13, 45–49. Yesavage, J. A., & Rose, T. L. (1984). The effects of a face-name mnemonic in young, middleaged, and elderly adults. Experimental Aging Research, 10, 55–57. Yesavage, J. A., Rose, T. L., & Bower, G. H. (1983). Interactive imagery and affective judgments improve face-name learning in the elderly. Journal of Gerontology, 38, 197–203. Yesavage, J. A., Sheikh, J. I., Friedman, L., & Tanke, E. (1990). Learning mnemonics: Roles of aging and subtle cognitive impairment. Psychology and Aging, 5(1), 133–137. Wang, A. Y., & Thomas, M. H. (1995). The effects of keywords on long-term retention: Help or hindrance? Journal of Educational Psychology, 87, 468–475. Wang, A. Y., Thomas, M. H., Inzana, C. M., & Primicerio, L. J. (1993). Long-term retention under conditions of intentional learning and the keyword mnemonic. Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society, 31, 545–547. Wang, A. Y., Thomas, M. H., & Ouellette, J. A. (1992). Keyword mnemonic and retention of second-language vocabulary words. Journal of Educational Psychology, 84, 520–528.
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