The Effects of Categorization on Memory

The Effects of Categorization on Memory

The purpose of this study was to explore the effects of categorization on our ability to remember events and objects. This is an important question because little research has tested the notion that the ability to categorize helps produce better memory. Morris & Baker-Ward (2007) studied a similar question when they examined whether having the vocabulary to describe an experience affected the ability to remember that experience. Specifically, they tested whether infants who had learned their colors prior to participating in an experiment involving different colored bubbles would recall the experiment better than those who learned the colors after the experiment. Results showed that infants who learned the color labels after the experiment could apply those labels to the memory of the experiment as well as those who had prior knowledge. We directly tested questions of categorization and memory by examining participants’ memory for a number of symbols they were asked to draw in a drawing task. Some of the symbols had been learned before the drawing task and some were learned after the drawing task. If memory for the symbols is better when they were learned before the drawing task, this suggests the ability to name and categorize the symbols improves memory for the symbols.