IA ideas

Imagery vs rehearsal.  Bower (1967); Paivio (1971)

Participants were shown a list of 20 words and were then asked to recall as many of them as possible. It was found that using an imagery method where the participant forms a vivid mental image and links it to the item was the most efficient way and worked better than either rehearsal or no particular method.


Does background music impair memory? (e.g. Perham & Vizard 2010).

In 2010 a study of how music affects our memory was conducted by Nick Perham and Joanne Vizard. The participants had to recall a list of 8 consonants in presentation order during five different circumstances. When it was quite, or when they were listening to liked music, disliked music, a changing state (hearing random numbers) and a steady state (hearing a repeated number). Their ability to recall was approximately the same but worst was music and the changing state. The authors expected that it was because when you are trying to memorize things in order you get thrown off by the other changing words that you are hearing at the same time. So, although music is good for our health by reducing anxiety for example, it is better to perform hard tasks is silence and listen to the music prior to the task rather that during it.


Exercise and memory. Coles & Tomporowski (2008)

This study was conducted to see how exercise effects short-term and long-term memory. 18 young adults were asked to perform different memory test before and then after a 40 minutes workout. The exercise did not improve the short-term memory but it improved the long-term memory. Before exercising lot of information was lost between short-term and long-term memory but after exercise the information was maintain and easier to recall.

Serial position effect

In 1962, Murdock did an experiment with the aim to provide evidence to support the multi-store explanation of memory. The multi-store model suggests that there are three types of memory: sensory memory, short term memory and long term memory. In his study, 40 participants were shown a list of between 10 and 40 worlds. Each word was shown for 1-2 seconds and when all the words had been shown, the participants were asked to recall as many of them as possible. Murdock found that most people remembered the first and the last words of the list, and the ones in the middle were more easily forgotten. This is known as the serial position effect. Remembering the first words would be called the primary effect and recalling the last words would be the recency effect. During the first few words the participant have time to go over and kinda reflect over the words and then by waiting for the whole list to finish, Murdock suggested that the memory was moved from the short term memory (STM) to the long term memory (LTM). The recency effect works since we can keep things in our STM for a while and that's what we are thought to do. But the words in the middle become replaced and moved from the STM, but they never make it to LTM so they are easily forgotten. This study suggests that memories are pulled out from two different section.