| The human ability to memorize and recall information, presented either through written, spoken, or pictorial media, may depend in part upon one's choice of memory strategy during the acquisition process, as well as one's very choice of medium from which to learn. Specific strategies may be particularly powerful when used with specific media, and our selecting the right memory strategy for the right medium could make the difference between success and failure in the memorizing process. With the memory needs of young students in mind, an experiment was designed to test the effectiveness of various memory strategies on the retention of information presented respectively through written, spoken, and pictorial media. 100 middle-school students were first pretested for memory proficiency on 20 pairs of written stimuli, 20 pairs of spoken stimuli, and 7 pairs of pictorial stimuli. Next, they were simply introduced to the idea of inventing memory strategies, and given a second battery of comparable tests for memory strength on all three media. Finally, three specific strategies, two vocalization strategies ("rehearsal" and "phrase"), and one visualization strategy ("link"), were isolated for testing by assigning one each to three experimental groups for exclusive use during a third battery of verbal and visual memory tests. Certain combinations of strategy and medium did in fact prove either beneficial or detrimental to recall. Link, when employed with written media, proved to be the most effective on retention. Rehearsal, when used to memorize spoken information, was the least effective. This combination actually seemed to impede the memory process. Unexpectedly, link turned out to be the best choice of strategy no matter what the choice of medium. Students equipped with a repertory of visualization strategies, then, should be able to memorize information more effectively than those who are inclined to use vocalization strategies alone, whether that information comes from books, or from the more popular media of radio and television. This finding challenges our general cultural emphasis on verbal skills, and suggests we might teach visualization techniques as a part of every student's mental training. |
