Von Restorff effect in the context of Mnemonic link system

⭐ Core Definition: Von Restorff effect

The Von Restorff effect, also known as the "isolation effect", predicts that when multiple homogeneous stimuli are presented, the stimulus that differs from the rest is more likely to be remembered. The theory was coined by German psychiatrist and pediatrician Hedwig von Restorff (1906–1962), who, in her 1933 study, found that when participants were presented with a list of categorically similar items with one distinctive, isolated item on the list, memory for the item was improved.

The study utilized the isolation paradigm, which refers to a distinctive feature of an item in a list that differs from the others by way of dimension. Such distinctiveness, leading to the von Restorff effect, can be generated from changing the meaningfulness or physical nature of the stimulus in some way, such as in size, shape, color, spacing and underlining.

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👉 Von Restorff effect in the context of Mnemonic link system

A mnemonic link system, sometimes also known as a chain method, is a method of remembering lists that is based on creating an association between the elements of that list. For example, when memorizing the list (dog, envelope, thirteen, yarn, window), one could create a story about a "dog stuck in an envelope, mailed to an unlucky thirteen black cat playing with yarn by the window". It is argued that the story would be easier to remember than the list itself.

Another method is to actually link each element of the list with a mental picture of an image that includes two elements in the list that are next to each other. This would form an open doubly linked list which could be traversed at will, backwards or forwards. For example, in the last list one could imagine their dog inside of a giant envelope, then a black cat eating an envelope. The same logic would be used with the rest of the items. The observation that absurd images are easier to remember is known as the Von Restorff effect, although the success of this effect was refuted by several studies (Hock et al. 1978; Einstein 1987), which found that the established connection between the two words is more important than the image's absurdity.

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Von Restorff effect in the context of Mnemonic link system

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⭐ Core Definition: Von Restorff effect

👉 Von Restorff effect in the context of Mnemonic link system