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Updated: Sep 2, 2025

Using a Classroom-Based Deese Roediger McDermott Paradigm to Assess the Effects of Imagery on False Memories
Published on: November 14, 2018
The relationship between interactive-imagery instructions and association memory
Jeremy J Thomas1, Kezziah C Ayuno2, Felicitas E Kluger2
1Department of Psychology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, T6G 2E9, Canada. jjthomas@ualberta.ca.
Abstract:
Interactive imagery, one of the most effective strategies for remembering pairs of words, involves asking participants to form mental images during study. We tested the hypothesis that the visual image is, in fact, responsible for its memory benefit. Neither subjectively reported vividness (all experiments) nor objective imagery skill (experiments 1 and 3) could explain the benefit of interactive imagery for cued recall. Aphantasic participants, who self-identified little to no mental imagery, benefited from interactive-imagery instructions as much as controls (experiment 3). Imagery instructions did not improve memory for the constituent order of associations (AB versus BA), even when participants were told how to incorporate order within their images (experiments 1 and 2). Taken together, our results suggest that the visual format of images may not be responsible for the effectiveness of the interactive-imagery instruction and moreover, interactive imagery may not result in qualitatively different associative memories.
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