1. Effects of Word Presentation
Modality and Word
Visualizability on Memory
Ann P. Beck, Roberto Araujo, George R. Foss, and
Roy G. Biv
San Jose State University

2. Theoretical Background
• Words are usually remembered better
when presented visually than aurally
(Smith, 1985; Jones, Ragalooshian, and
Bosner, 1992)
• Visual imagery is helpful in encoding
words into memory (Rork and Wendel,
1972; Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern,
1997)
– these studies always used visual
presentation of words

3. high visual imagery word
cow

4. low visual imagery word
truth
?

5. Question
• If words are presented aurally, will
visual imagery still be helpful?
• Our hypothesis: No. Visual mode must
be active in order to use visual imagery.

6. Our Hypotheses
1. high visual imagery words remembered
better than low visual imagery words
2. visually presented words remembered
better than aurally presented words
3. interaction: the effect of visual imagery
will be greater for visually presented
words than for aurally presented words

7. Method
• Participants: 40 participants (23 females, 17
males)
– SJSU students
• Procedure: participants were presented with
40 words, which they then recalled by
writing down the words in any order

8. Method (continued)
• Design:
– IV #1: visualizability of word (high visual
imagery, low visual imagery)
• within subjects
– IV #2: modality of word presentation
(visual, auditory)
• between subjects
– DV: number of words correctly recalled

9. Example of word list
cow
truth
respect
book
belonging
spoon
…

10. Results

11. Results (continued)
• no main effect of modality
– F(10, 1) = 2.41, p > .05
– visually presented words recalled slightly better than
aurally presented words, but not significantly different
• main effect of visualizability of word
– F(10, 1) = 4.35, p < .05
– high visual imagery words recalled significantly better
than low visual imagery words
• interaction
– F(10, 1) = 6.57, p < .05
– the effect of visualizability is greater for visually
presented words than for aurally presented words

12. Discussion
• High visual imagery words are remembered
better than low visual imagery words
• Visual imagery is a more helpful tool for
memory when words are presented visually
than when they are presented aurally
• We did not find that words are remembered
better when they are presented visually than
aurally. This may have been due to
difficulties reading the visual words.
– two subjects reported difficulty reading the words,
which were in 10-point font

13. Note!
• I didn’t include the “theoretical impact of
the study” in this example