DO MNEMONIC MEMORIES FADE AS TIME GOES BY - HERES LOOKING ANEW

Recent research has suggested that information acquired through the mn emonic keyword method fades rapidly as time goes by-especially in the absence of an immediate test. Five experiments were conducted to inves tigate various aspects of this issue and our results turned up the ''u sual suspects.'' That is, we found consistent mnemonic advantages in a cquisition tall experiments) as well as delayed mnemonic advantages in cases where students received an immediate test on studied items (Exp eriments 2, 3, 4, and 5). Further, and of special interest here, even in the absence of an immediate test, we found delayed mnemonic advanta ges (Experiments 3, 4, and 5). Nevertheless, these positive delayed fi ndings were tempered by the observation that, in terms of absolute num ber retained, there was a somewhat faster forgetting rate for mnemonic students in comparison to repetition controls. In our discussion, we examine other delayed-recall indicators (relative differences and cond itional probabilities) in an effort to better compare the ''forgetting '' of mnemonic and repetition participants. A theoretical explanation for the fragility of mnemonic memories, and implications for future re search, are provided. (C) 1998 Academic Press.