A Classical Mnemonic for Older Learners: A Trip That Works!

A mnemonic procedure, a method of loci, was used with men and women over 60 years old in two studies of free recall. In this procedure, the learners take a mental trip through their residences stopping in order at 16 places. When they learn a list of words, they retrace the trip visualizing one of the items in association with each stopping place. This method was selected because it capitalizes on the familiarity of the stopping places and their natural order; these attributes provide strong retrieval cues that can be applied without adding to the information overload typically experienced by older learners. In the first study (N = 5), all subjects acquired the mnemonic readily and used it effectively during the training trials. An unexpected result was that the subjects did not use the mnemonic in a posttraining trial when no explicit instruction was given to use it. In the second study (N = 30), two experimental groups (with different instructional sets in a posttest trial) and a control group were included. Again all experimental subjects were able to master the mnemonic and apply it effectively during training. Furthermore, each experimental group (N = 10) improved more (from pretest to posttest) than did the control group. The two experimental groups did not differ in performance during training or in the posttest trial.