How do Presentation Modality and Strategy Use Influence Memory for Paired Concepts?

This experiment attempted to determine how modality (i.e., visual, auditory, textual, visual-textual, visual-auditory, and auditory-textual) influenced learners recall ability on a paired-associate learning task. The experimental procedure required subjects to observe paired-concepts either by visually observing pictorial representations of the concepts, by observing the words themselves, by listening to the concept pairs, or through some combination of modalities. Subjects were then tested as to their recall of the concept pairs. Additionally, subjects were asked to describe the recall strategy they used to remember the pairs. Results indicated that significant differences in recall performance related to both presentation modality and recall strategy.

Determining the ideal way to instruct students has been a research question among educators since formal education began. It has been suggested that many instructional techniques are inadequate because they require too heavy of a cognitive load-the amount of cognitive activity required for a student to learn a task (Sweller, 1994). Current research in educational psychology has attempted to realize the most efficient ways to reduce cognitive load among students and maximize their working memory. More specifically, the combining of various presentation modes (e.g., visual and auditory) has been investigated (Mousani, Low & Sweller, 1995) and there is a growing trend towards the pedagogical use of multimedia presentations in the classroom (Velayo & Smith, 1997). Paired-associate learning paradigms are useful experimental designs when investigating the learning and memory functioning (Houston, 1991).

Paired-associate learning strategies have been shown to be effective in improving subjects' recall ability (Bulgren, Hock, Schumaker, & Deshler, 1995). In addition, research has examined qualities that lead to improved recall of paired-associates. Similarity of pairs has been evidenced to lead to improved cued-recall performance (Guttentag, 1995) and direct oppositionality of pairs has also been linked with improved recall (Ulasevich & Rychlak, 1994).

Previous studies have noted the impact of presentation modality on recall. Audiovisual presentations made to 2nd and 5th graders led to improved recall of paired-associates (Godley, Estes, & Fournet, 1984). Audiovisual presentations also led to greater recall of a political broadcast shown to 1825 year old undergraduates (Gunter, Furnham, & Leese, 1986). Thompson and Paivio (1994) found recall of picture-sound stimuli was consistently greater than that of picture-only or sound-only stimuli. The results of these studies are consistent with Paivio's dual coding theory (Clark & Paivio, 1991). This theory states that the building of visual and verbal representations together result in the construction of a third referential connection in working memory, which will lead to improved learning.

Other studies have found that the combined visual-textual modality has improved recall. Text presented with visual stimuli has been shown to lead to better recall than text presented with sentences (Zoller, Workman, & Kroll, 1989). One study found the visual-textual modality to be related to better recall than the textual-only modality even when the visual-textual modality presented summarized information and the textual-only modality provided either full text or full text with summaries (Mayer, Bove, Bryman, Mars, & Tapangco, 1996).

A study comparing two different bimodal presentations also found differences in subjects' recall. In this study subjects shown an audiovisual presentation outperformed subjects shown a visual-textual presentation on retention tests (Mayer & Moreno, 1998).

The visual modality alone has also been shown to improve recall. In one study, paired-associates presented visually were remembered more successfully than those presented in the auditory modality (Dwivedi & Pandey, 1983). In another study, visual presentations were also shown to be more effective than olfactory presentations (Bowers, Trina, Philip, & May, 1994).

Research has also been done to examine the impact of encoding strategy on recall. Studies have found that use of specific encoding strategies can improve recall. For example, Straub & Granaas (1992) found that subjects given specific instructions to use imagery techniques recalled more items correctly than subjects given general memory instructions did. Bethene-Ervin and Smicklas-Wright (1998) found that instructions as to the use of encoding strategy aided older adults with their recall. Another study found that sixth and seventh graders shown reading material and told to use their prior knowledge to integrate what they read showed improved recall over students who were instructed to read for understanding alone (Woloshyn, Paivio, & Pressley, 1994). Therefore, another important element of recall ability appears to be the encoding strategy that a given individual uses.

This experiment attempted to determine how modality (i.e., visual, auditory, textual, visual-textual, visual-auditory, and auditory-textual) influence learners recall ability on a paired-associate learning task. It was hypothesized that: 1) the recall of concept pairs in the visual modality would be significantly higher than the recall of concept pairs in the textual and auditory conditions, and 2) the recall of concept pairs in the bi-modal conditions with a visual element (e.g., audiovisual) would be significantly higher than the recall of concept pairs in the textual-audio condition. Additionally, subjects were asked to describe the recall strategy they used to remember the pairs. These different strategies were explored with regard to how they related to recall performance.

Method

Participants

There were 324 participants (179 females and 145 males) in the study ranging in age from 14 to 85 years old. A majority of them were Pace University students varying in academic majors. The rest varied in occupation and educational level.

Materials

The presentation stimuli were three-ring binders containing pages, each showing a pair of concepts, for example "seashell" and "ear" (See Figure 1). The participant was shown a total of 40 different paired concepts. Each item in the pair was either represented visually (through a picture of the item), textually (through the written word corresponding to the item), and/or aurally (through hearing the words from a standard audio cassette player). The six modality type conditions are shown in Table 1 each with the corresponding number of participants.

[Figure 1 ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Table 1

Visual Representation of Number of Subjects per Modality Presentation

Modality Type    Number
                 of Participants
Visual           n = 56
Audio            n = 56
Textual          n = 97
Audio-Visual     n = 52
Visual-Textual   n = 30
Audio-Textual    n = 32

                 N = 324

Procedure

The experimental procedure required subjects to observe paired-concepts either by visually observing pictorial representations of the concepts (e.g., a picture of a tree with a picture of a leaf), observing the words themselves (e.g., viewing the words "tree" and "leaf"), by listening to the concept pairs (e.g., hearing the words "tree" and "leaf"), or through some combination of modalities (e.g., hearing "tree" and "leaf" while observing pictures of the objects). Participants were then tested as to their recall of the concept pairs. One item of the pair would be presented, and the participants would then be asked to indicate the concept it was paired with. The total number of correct pairs was considered the subject's memory score. Each participant was presented the concept pairs through only one of the experimental modalities (i.e., visual, auditory, textual, visual-textual, visual-auditory, and auditory-textual), therefore creating an independent 6-group design. After being tested, participants were asked to identify the recall strategy they used. Recall strategies were then broken down into five categories. The five recall strategies are shown in Table 2, each with the corresponding number of participants.

Table 2

Recall Strategies Used by Corresponding Number of Participants

Recall Strategy                 Number of Participants Using
                                          Strategy

Rehearsal/repetition/                      n = 71
memorization/listening/
looking/reciting

Word association/                          n = 93
made sentences

Visualization/imagery                      n = 79

Similarities between words/                n = 48
common attributes

Others                                     n = 26

Results

A single-factor between subjects ANOVA revealed significant differences in memory scores across the various modalities, F = 5.291, p [is less than] .0001. (See Tables 3 and 4). [Eta squared as a measure of effect size is .08]

Table 3

ANOVA Table for Number of Concept Pairs Correctly Recalled as a function of Modality Type

                 Sum of Squares   df    Mean Square     F     Sig.

Between Groups      1658.804        5     331.761     5.291   .000

Within Groups      19875.419      317      62.698

Total              21534.223      322

Table 4

Significant Mean Differences Related to Presentation Modality (Bonferroni)

Dependent Variable: # of concepts correctly recalled

modality (I)     modality (J)    Mean          Std. Errorr    Sig.
                                 Difference
                                 (I-J)

audio            textual         -4.48         1.329          .013
                 visual          -5.36         1.496          .006
                 audio-visual    -5.96         1.525          .002
textual-audio    visual          -5.22         1.755          .047
                 audio-visual    -5.82         1.779          .018

The audio-only modality condition (M = 7.77, sd = 6) showed significantly lower recall scores than the visual-only modality condition (M = 13.13, sd = 9.27), the textual-only modality condition (M = 12.25, sd = 8.20), and the audio-visual modality condition (M = 13.73, sd = 8.03). In addition, the textual-audio modality condition (M = 7.91, sd = 8.17) showed significantly lower recall scores than both the audio-visual modality condition (M = 13.73, sd = 8.03) and the visual-only modality condition (M = 13.13, sd = 9.27). See Figure 2 for a graph of mean recall scores for each presentation modality condition.

[Figure 2 ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

In addition, analysis of the different recall strategies used revealed a significant difference between groups, F = 8.651, p = [is less than] .0001. (See Tables 5 and 6). [Eta squared as a measure of effect size is .09.]

Table 5

ANOVA Table for Number of Concept Pairs Correctly Recalled as a Function of Recall Strategy.

                 Sum of Squares   df    Mean Square     F     Sig.

Between Groups      2102.713        4     525.678     8.651   .000

Within Groups      18958.485      312      60.764

Total              21061.199      316

Table 6

Significant Mean Differences Related to Recall Strategy (Bonferroni)

(I) code for             (J) Code for recall     Mean
recall description       description             Difference
                                                 (I-J)

rehearsal/repetition/    word association/            -4.31
memorization/            made sentences
listening/looking/
reciting
                         visualization/               -6.81
                         imagery

                         similarities between         -5.53
                         words/common
                         attributes

others                   visualization/
                         imagery                      -5.76

(I) code for             (J) Code for recall    Std. Error    Sig
recall description       description

rehearsal/repetition/    word association/           1.229    .005
memorization/            made sentences
listening/looking/
reciting
                         visualization/              1.275    .000
                         imagery

                         similarities between        1.457    .002
                         words/common
                         attributes

others                   visualization/
                         imagery                     1.762    .012

Results of post-hoc (Bonferroni) comparisons showed a trend towards improved recall among those participants employing elaborative strategies (e.g., word association, visualizing, finding similarities). The findings showed significantly better performance for subjects using visualization (M = 14.34, sd = 7.80), identifying similarities in the pairs (M = 13.06, sd = 7.97), and using word association (M = 11.85, sd = 8.01) over subjects using rehearsal (M = 7.54, sd = 7.62). Also, participants using visualization strategies had significantly better recall scores than those who either could not identify the strategy they used or were inconsistent in their use of strategy-categorized as "others" with regard to recall strategy (M = 8.58, sd = 7.09). See Figure 3 for a graph of mean recall scores for each recall strategy.

[Figure 3 ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Discussion

The use of the visual modality and the audio-visual combination has been demonstrated to facilitate learning on a paired-associate memory task. This result might be explained by the common belief that people in general prefer to acquire knowledge using visual cues.

The facilitative effects of learning through the visual modality have been well documented. Hong and O'Neil (1992) found that subjects who received instruction through visual presentation performed better on a task than those that received descriptive instructions. Likewise, Waddill, McDaniel and Einstein (1988) found that subjects remembered information better when presented with pictures in addition to textual content.

Learning through the visual modality has been shown to have an impact with children (Godley et al., 1984) as well as young adults (Gunter et al., 1986). Students at various levels could benefit from greater emphasis on visual and audio-visual presentations. The increasing use of computers in the classroom presents an opportunity to make more use of both visual and audiovisual presentations.

Presentation of material through the visual modality is not emphasized enough in traditional teaching approaches (Westman, 1990). Therefore, given the context of this study, it is concluded that instructional material should focus on presenting material to students using both the visual and combined audio-visual modalities instead of many traditional approaches that concentrate on audio-textual presentation.

Additionally, learning strategies emphasizing elaborative skills should be related to students. As noted above, the increasing use of computers within classrooms and the relative ease of use of many modern multimedia authoring programs will allow instructors to more easily incorporate visual learning within the classroom. Encouraging such skills would be potentially valuable with a number of different populations and age groups.

This study found significant differences in recall ability related to participants encoding strategy use. Specifically, rehearsal/ repetition strategies were related to poorer recall performance. This result is especially important given previous research findings that suggest it may be possible to instruct individuals on the use of elaborative encoding strategies (Straub & Granaas, 1992; Bethene-Ervin and Smicklas-Wright, 1998).

Future research should address the role computers and multimedia presentation can play in the classrooms. Different individuals are very likely to use different encoding strategies even when exposed to the same presentation modality. Therefore, future research could also examine whether there is a relationship between presentation modality used and encoding strategy, and how this relationship contributes to recall. In addition, further research into the effectiveness of instruction of specific encoding strategies is also warranted. Further exploration of bimodal versus unimodal presentations and their impact on recall in other learning contexts is also warranted.

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Richard S. Velayo, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Psychology, Pace University (New York City Campus). Christopher E. Quirk, graduate student, Pace University's Psychology Department program in School-Clinical-Child Psychology.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Dr. Richard S. Velayo, Psychology Department, Pace University, 41 Park Row, New York, NY 10038.