EFFECTS OF PICTORIAL MNEMONIC STRATEGY USAGE ON PROSE RECALL OF YOUNG, MIDDLE-AGED, AND OLDER ADULTS

Young, middle-aged, and older adults were assigned to either a keyword illustration, keyword imagery, or a no-strategy control condition to learn concrete information about fictitious cities presented in short prose passages. The keyword illustration strategy facilitated recall performance in all three age groups, although the older adults' keyword illustration vs. control comparison reached significance only when verbal ability was used as a covariate. Usage of the keyword illustration strategy also enhanced the young, middle-aged, and older adults' performance with respect to accurately grouping together (clustering) a city's features, regardless of whether the features were associated with the correct city name. Usage of the keyword imagery strategy enhanced recall clustering in only the young and middle-aged groups. Implications of the findings and possibilities for future research are discussed.