Memory (Part 3)

In discussing why the best results were obtained when audio and visual stimuli were combined, Elliot states that tests have shown that a summation of stimuli, facilitation, and heightening effects are characteristic of the simultaneous stimulation of two receptor systems.

He notes that we hear better when we see as well, and that we see better with a combination of other sense stimuli—auditory, olfactory, and cutaneous.

This phenomenon is accounted for by the spread of energy in the cerebrum, flowing in two—or perhaps all—directions. It was found that under combined audio-visual stimuli accuracy improved as well.

The visual-auditory approach seems, Elliot finds, to reduce distractions, improve attentions, remove uncertainty, enhance accuracy, and reinforce memory impression.

In its own area, the sound of the human voice has been shown to be of great value. There is social satisfaction involved. Cantrill and Airport found that people prefer, two to one, to hear news on the radio rather than to read it in a paper and nine-to-one to hear a speech rather than read it. Elliot notes, however, that the role of habit must be considered in this argument of audio vs. visual, for people adapt to shifts.

Elliot found that memory was better after broken or serial presentation. The advantage, he concluded, seems to lie in the distribution of learning and in repetition. Another of his conclusions is that education shows in the difference in memory.

College groups usually remember more than non-college groups. The explanation offered is that they see more relations and their associational capacities are stronger. Tests to determine the differences in memory capacities between the sexes were inconclusive. In some areas men were shown to remember more than women, but the combined visual-auditory advantage was not so significant for men.

The possibilities that women listened to the radio more, or were less well educated, were offered as explanations. The impact of television since these tests were conducted may reveal different results.

Elliot suggests that perhaps the reason for the advantage of audio over visual stimuli lies in the fact that during audio experiences no time is spent examining. The stimulus is received as presented, so there is a more equal distribution of attention.

Early in the century a study of auditory memory consciousness was made by F. Kuhlmann. He used phonograph records to investigate recall of auditory material. As he saw it there were three modes of recall: auditory imagery of the words appeared at once without any process preceding it as an aid to recall; concrete visual imagery of the persons and things referred to appeared first as a means of recalling the words; or words were inferred from the contents as already recalled.

Kuhlmann found that the character of auditory imagery varied with reference to the completeness with which the sentence was recalled directly (in auditory terms material is remembered not in sentences but in fragments); that it varied with reference to the degree in which the words were imaged in the quality of the individual voice; that the imagery of the voice in its true character sometimes appeared without the recall of any words.