Is it easier for people to remember longer words than words mixed with symbols? I'm doing a study on why it is difficult to remember passwords. I would imagine that it would be easier for people to remember a password like "strawberryhouse" than "$tr@wb3rr!", even though the former has more characters.

Is there any research that backs up that idea?
One basic explanation would be a chunking one -- that it's easier to combine several words into a single memory unit than letters and numbers. In 2000, Alan Baddeley proposed the episodic buffer as an important component of the working memory (WM) system. According to Baddeley, the episodic buffer imbues WM with the ability to join information together, even when that information is of different modalities (e.g., sight and sound). Even though "$tr@wb3rr!" may be as memorable as the word "strawberry," with enough practice "strawberryhouse" can be just as facile (and a stronger password to boot).

Another concern is that while you'll likely always remember "strawberryhouse," only remembering the gist of the alphanumeric password ("I remember it sounds like 'strawberry'") can lead to verbatim errors of recall ("Was it '$tr@wb3rr!,' '$tr@wb3rri,' or "$tr@wb3rry?'"). I can find some empirical support on this track if it's useful, too.


  Baddeley, A. (2000). The episodic buffer: a new component of working
  memory? Trends in Cognitive Science, 4, 417-423.