Dual Coding Theory and Memory
25 The Dual Coding Theory (DCT), which was proposed by Allan Paivio in 1971, presumes
26 that there are two separate cognitive subsystems. One is specialized for dealing with language, and
27 the other deals with representation and processing of non-verbal objects (imagery). DCT is a
28 general theory of cognition that accounts for both verbal and nonverbal cognition (Paivio, 1971).
29 The non-verbal imagery deals with nonlinguistic understanding of the world. It is generally
30 referred to as imagery because its main function is the generation of mental images (Sadoski,
31 2003). The verbal code specifically deals with language. This provides the means for
32 communication, encoding, and decoding of messages. Paivio has
…show more content…
Although there were many contradictions over the past years, majority of research
114 supports the theory of dual coding. This theory is applicable in daily activities mainly in the
115 education sector where it has proven to improve skills such as reading and writing. It is also PeerJ Preprints | https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.2719v1 | CC BY 4.0 Open Access | rec: 13 Jan 2017, publ: 13 Jan 2017 116 applicable in remedial literacy education, where these principles were used to help those with
117 learning disabilities (Paivio, 2006). The present study on DCT was conducted using participants
118 from Asian ethnicity. 298 subjects were given a set of 30 words (either concrete or abstract) to
119 memorize in 60 seconds, and the total number of words recalled were recorded according to the
120 number of words given to the participants. We hypothesized that the participants were able to
121 recall concrete words better than the abstract words supporting the previous studies.
122
123 Method
124 Participants
125 298 Students enrolled in the bachelor of psychology undergraduate program took part in
126 this study. All participants (127 male, 171 female) were from Chinese ethnicity between 18 to