Stories as a mnemonic aid for older learners.
The effectiveness of a story mnemonic for free-recall learning was assessed in 71 community-dwelling elderly adults. Participants received 1 of 3 memory-training programs: (a) narrative story, (b) method of loci, or (c) placebo training. The stimuli consisted of 26 nouns chosen for being highly imagible and concrete. Recall was examined immediately following study of the words, after 1 hr, and after 3 days. At each testing interval, both mnemonic condition groups outperformed the placebo group. The results suggest that a story mnemonic can enhance word retention on a free-recall task.
Department of Educational Psychology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City 84112.
R D
RD
Hill
C
C
Allen
P
P
McWhorter
D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000375:Aging / Q000523:psychology*; D001245:Association Learning; D001288:Attention; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011939:Mental Recall; D008875:Middle Aged; D012153:Retention, Psychology; D012660:Semantics; D014706:Verbal Learning