Biomedical subjects

JR Levin

Publications and source records attributed to JR Levin.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2000

Fading Mnemonic Memories: Here's Looking Anew, Again!

Associative mnemonic benefits on delayed memory tests have been questioned-especially in the absence of an immediate test (e.g., Wang & Thomas, 1995). In this regard, we recently described a series of experiments that placed delayed mnemonic performance in a more favorable light (Carney & Levin, 1998). Despite the positive findings, a nonstatistically steeper rate of forgetting was observed for mnemonic participants, which led us to search for additional decay-preventive measures. One such measure might be to provide actual pictures of mnemonic interactions rather than just verbal descriptions of them. To test this hypothesis, we assigned undergraduates to one of three conditions to study a set of artists and their paintings: own best method, verbal mnemonic, and pictorial mnemonic. Following study of over 24 paintings, students in the two mnemonic conditions outperformed those in the control condition on both immediate and delayed tests. Further, and in line with our expectation, pictorial mnemonic students exhibited a statistically lower rate of forgetting compared to control students. Copyright 2000 Academic Press.

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PubMed1998

Do Mnemonic Memories Fade as Time Goes By? Here's Looking Anew!

Recent research has suggested that information acquired through the mnemonic keyword method fades rapidly as time goes by-especially in the absence of an immediate test. Five experiments were conducted to investigate various aspects of this issue and our results turned up the "usual suspects." That is, we found consistent mnemonic advantages in acquisition (all experiments) as well as delayed mnemonic advantages in cases where students received an immediate test on studied items (Experiments 2, 3, 4, and 5). Further, and of special interest here, even in the absence of an immediate test, we found delayed mnemonic advantages (Experiments 3, 4, and 5). Nevertheless, these positive delayed findings were tempered by the observation that, in terms of absolute number retained, there was a somewhat faster forgetting rate for mnemonic students in comparison to repetition controls. In our discussion, we examine other delayed-recall indicators (relative differences and conditional probabilities) in an effort to better compare the "forgetting" of mnemonic and repetition participants. A theoretical explanation for the fragility of mnemonic memories, and implications for future research, are provided. Copyright 1998 Academic Press.

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PubMed1997

The Face-Name Mnemonic Strategy from a Different Perspective

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.

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