Bizarre imagery in paired-associate learning: an effective mnemonic aid with mixed context, delayed testing, and self-paced conditions.

Recent findings have indicated that bizarre imagery can be an effective mnemonic aid with delayed testing, a context of mixed materials, and an adequate stimulus presentation pace, so we hypothesized an interaction among these variables. Using a variation of the McDaniel and Einstein 1986 methodology, 40 undergraduates were each randomly presented three paired-associate lists (i.e., normal, bizarre, and mixed). The sentences within each list consisted of stimulus-response pairs of high-imagery nouns. 20 of these subjects participated in an immediate cued-recall condition for each list while the remaining ones were tested after a 1-wk. retention interval. Subjects were further subdivided depending on whether the presentation pace was forced or not. As predicted, a three-way interaction was found, with bizarre imagery benefiting immediate recall under a combined mixed context, self-paced condition; with delayed recall, however, context was the determining factor in performance (and not presentation pace).