Coming to Terms with the Keyword Method in Introductory Psychology: A “Neuromnemonic” Example

Abstract

We should point out that although Soldat e t a1. (1997) demonstrated that the colors used did not affect current mood, other researchers have shown small color-related niood effects. For example, Jacobs and Blandino (1992) demonstrated that red led to less reported fatigue than yellow, hlue, green, and white. Furthermore, Jacobs and Suess (1975) demonstrated that red and yellow led to greater anxiety than did blue or green, and Wilson (1966) showed that red was more arousing than green. Although we chose particular colors for our study to remove the confound between item order and examination form color, it is important to note that colot may have other psychological effects in other situations. Thus, regardless of the colors chosen for different forms of examinations, the potentialexisrs for color effectson performance-a possibility apparently not recognized by many instructors.Our results have an important implication for test situations. That is, instructors should not he cavalier about colot codingdifferent forms ofexaminations. In fact, we believe that it would be best if instructors did not use color-coded forms.

Promoting higher‐order learning benefits by building lower‐order mnemonic connections

“…Hence, some of the more recent mnemonic-strategy research is consistent with the argument that by facilitating lower-level memory for facts and relationships, systematic memory strategies can in turn aid higher-order thinking and application (e.g. Atkinson et al, 1999;Carney and Levin, 1998a, 2000, 2001.…”

“…Levin and Levin, 1990), mnemonic strategies have been shown to facilitate students' comprehension (Levin, 1993), inference (Levin et al, 1988), application (Carney and Levin, 1998a;Glover et al, presentation at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Montreal, 1999), and transfer (Carney and Levin, 2000). By cementing lower-order connections, mnemonic strategies have produced 4 This is in contrast to traditional verbal analogies, such as 'wood is to tree, as milk is to ______.…”

Non-pharmacological cognitive enhancement

“…at delayed recall after several days compared to immediate recall (Bower, 1970;Roediger, 1980;Bellezza et al, 1992;Hill et al, 1997;Higbee, 1997;Wang and Thomas, 2000). A third mnemonic that has to be shown effective is the keyword method, designed specifically to enhance the acquisition of foreign vocabulary (Raugh and Atkinson, 1975), but also helps to learn scientific terminology (Rosenheck et al, 1989;Brigham and Brigham, 1998;Balch, 2005;Carney and Levin, 1998). It associates the meaning of a to-be-remembered term with what the term sounds like in the first language of the learner.…”

Memory modulation in the classroom: Selective enhancement of college examination performance by arousal induced after lecture

“…That is, they require the learner to change his or her approach to learning. Some of the strategies include studying in groups (Johnson & Johnson, 1983;Nastasi & Clements, 1991), active learning (e.g., Cherney, 2008), focusing on key words (Reutzel & Hollingsworth, 1988), using specific note-taking and review strategies that emphasize the encoding specificity principle (Kobayashi, 2006), maintaining congruence of encoding and retrieval conditions (Cassaday, Bloomfield, & Hayward, 2002;Metzger, Boschee, Haugen, & Schnobrich, 1979), and employing imagination (Cooper, Tindall-Ford, Chandler, & Sweller, 2001;Leahy & Sweller, 2005) or mnemonics Carney & Levin, 2002;Dretzke, 1993;Levin & Levin, 1990;Peters & Levin, 1986;Rummel, Levin, & Woodward, 2003). Yet, some strategies are better than others (Butler & Roediger, 2007;Rickards & McCormick, 1988) and each strategy has limitations.…”