SHORT-TERM-MEMORY AS A FUNCTION OF PERSONALITY AND IMAGERY

The present experiment studied the effect of personality and imagery upon short-term memory among 160 school children selected on the basis of their scores on a junior personality inventory and an individual difference questionnaire. A 2 × 2 × 2 × 2 experimental design for digit span task was adopted. The findings were in accordance with the hypothesis framed earlier. Extraverts performed better than introverts. The performance of a high imagery group was better as compared to low imagers. Similarly the with-instructions group performed better than the no-instruction group. The interaction between personality × imagery was found to be significant and it depicts that imagery ability boosts the performance of introverts more positively than that of extraverts. The findings suggest that the experimental variable of instruction to imagery seems to be a very potent factor in improving the short-term retention of school children irrespective of personality and imagery differences. © 1991.