COMING TO TERMS WITH THE KEYWORD METHOD IN INTRODUCTORY PSYCHOLOGY - A NEUROMNEMONIC EXAMPLE

An introductory psychology course presents extensive new terminology t o beginning students-a lexicon that may prove difficult to master. A u seful technique In this regard is the mnemonic keyword method. However , because textbook examples often focus on the acquisition of foreign vocabulary, students and instructors may not see the relevance of the keyword method for the learning of terminology in psychology. To illus trate this connection, eve provide a set of ''neuromnemonic'' material s that we developed for terminology related to th central nervous syst em. Furthermore, we describe a simple experiment in which eve compared 2 versions of our keyword approach to a repetition condition. The 2 m nemonic approaches produced advantages on an immediate definition-memo ry test as well as on a task that required application of the material learned. These findings provide additional evidence that mnemonic str ategies facilitate more than just rote memorization of facts.