Does the Repeated Use of Loci Create Interference?

Abstract

It has been argued that the repeated use of the same pathway with the same loci may create both proactive and retroactive interference in subjects using loci mnemonics. In the present research the possible interference effects for university students learning three lists of pairs of nouns using the same loci are explored. Loci mnemonics improved performance on free-recall tasks, both during learning and on a final task, but performance was affected by retroactive interference. Lastly, the recall of concrete-abstract pairs is higher than that of abstract-concrete pairs for control group but not for the group using loci mnemonics. This result is interpreted using the idea that loci, by creating a general imaginal medium, are powerful concrete cues.