Content area
Recent studies give support to the use of imagery in facilitating recall. Bugelski, Kidd and Segmen (1968) demonstrated that using a mnemonic system, were able to learn the ordinal position of a list of ten words when response words were paired with a list of ten words that rhyme with the first ten numbers. In a later study (Bugelski, 1968), convincing evidence left no doubt as to the efficacy of the mnemonic system described in his report. Hulicka and Grossman (1967) found both imaginal and verbal mediation instructions to be effective with concrete noun pairs, but imagery had the stronger effect. Results obtained by Pavio (1968) indicated that the imagery instructions are indeed an effective component of the mnemonic techniques. A number of experiments (Epstein, Rock and Zuckermean, I960; Rohwer, 1966) have shown that object-pairs (pairing of pictured objects) are easier to learn than pairs comprised of their concrete noun labels, and Iscoe and Semler (1964) found object-pairs to be easier than pictures.
Many other studies take on similar extensions in support of images serving as mediators. However, the emphasis of this introduction is not that evidence might be given to the existence of imagery, but rather, assuming that imagery does occur, what does research reveal in terms of the differences between the learning of abstract and concrete words when the learning device employed is imagery.
In view of these interests, the present study was made in an effort to elicit support to the hypothesis that if the use of imagery in multiple associate learning serves as a mediator in the study and recall of abstract and concrete words, then there is little or no difference between learning concrete and abstract word lists.