On Phonetic and Phonemic Mnemonic Systems: A Reply to M. J. Dickel

Abstract

Dickel (1983) compared the effectiveness of the phonetic and the phonemic systems in terms of his three stated principles of encoding mnemonics, namely, recoding, meaningfulness, and organization, and concluded that, in general, the phonetic system is more effective than the phonemic system. In this reply, recoding, involving the encoding-storage-decoding sequence, was considered a fundamental memory operation in mnemonics, whose effectiveness depends on reduction of representational redundancy, on meaningfulness, and on organization. It was shown that the effectiveness of the phonetic system is based primarily on the reduction of redundancy, while the meaningfulness and organization favor the phonetic system. If the recall measure of performance is considered, Dickel's claims have some merit though they are highly hypothetical. Because encoding pathways are multiple, the phonetic system was shown not to be applicable to memory-recognition tasks, while no such limitation is apparent in case of the phonemic recoding system. Some methodological problems of mnemonics testing were considered.