Abstract
Hypermnesia is an increase in recall over repeated tests. A core issue is the role of repeated testing, per se, versus total retrieval time. Prior research implies an equivalence between multiple recall tests and a single test of equal total duration, but theoretical analyses indicate otherwise. Three experiments investigated this issue using various study materials (unrelated word lists, related word lists, and a short story). In the first experimental session, the study phase was followed by a series of short recall tests or by a single, long test of equal total duration. Two days later, participants took a final recall test. The multiple and single test conditions produced equivalent performance in the first session, but the multiple test group exhibited less forgetting and fewer item losses in the final test. In a fourth experiment, using a brief delay (15 min) between the recall sessions, the multiple recall condition produced greater hypermnesia as well as fewer item losses. In addition, final recall was significantly higher in the multiple than in the single test condition in three of the four experiments. Thus, single and repeated recall tests of equal total duration are not functionally equivalent, but rather produce differences observable in subsequent recall tests.
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Notes
Some models of recall (e.g., the SAM model, Raaijmakers & Shiffrin, 1981) explicitly assume that already-recalled items are subject to subsequent covert retrieval. Even under this assumption, the requirement to overtly recall items multiple times is likely to induce more overt and covert retrieval than the single test condition. In addition, the multiple test condition requires the retrievals to be distributed over time whereas covert retrieval within a single test is more likely to be massed (e.g., Raaijmakers & Shiffrin, 1981). Distributed retrieval practice is more efficacious than massed retrieval practice (Bjork, 1988; Dempster, 1996).
The single and multiple groups were also comparable with respect to category clustering in the first 5 min of recall. An ARC score was computed for words recalled in the first 5 min of the single test (producing means of .77 and .32 for the blocked and random conditions respectively). These scores were compared with the ARC scores from the first test in the multiple test group (given in Table 3) using a 2 (test condition) × 2 (list organization) ANOVA. The analysis revealed a significant effect of list organization, F(1, 60) = 36.30, MS e = .0911, but no effect of testing condition (or interaction, Fs < 1), indicating that the testing conditions were initially (in the first 5 min) equivalent with respect to clustering.
In a pilot experiment, the story was presented a single time, but no hypermnesia was found in the multiple recall condition. To fully evaluate the equivalence of the single and multiple test conditions, I consider it as a prerequisite that hypermnesia be obtained in the first experimental session. As the results show, presenting the story twice during the study satisfies this requirement. Interestingly, in Wheeler and Roediger’s (1992, Experiment 2) experiment, participants were required to read the study story twice; this experiment produced hypermnestic recall of the story details.
The mean ARC score for words recalled in the first 5 min of the single test was .41, which was not significantly different from the mean ARC score from the first test in the multiple condition (.43, see Table 8), F < 1, indicating that the testing conditions were initially (in the first 5 min) equivalent with respect to clustering.
Alternatively, it might be said that the results relate to strong and weak versions of the equivalence assumption respectively. The strong version of the assumption claims equivalence with regard to subsequent forgetting and item loss, whereas the weaker version only assumes equivalence in accounting for hypermnestic recall proper. Thus, the results of Experiments 1–3 provide evidence against the strong version of the hypothesis, whereas Experiment 4 provides evidence against both the strong and weak versions. The cumulative recall hypothesis relies on the weak form of the assumption in accounting for hypermnesia. With regard to the strong version, the cumulative recall hypothesis is not entirely clear (Roediger et al., 1982; Roediger & Challis, 1989; Roediger et al., 1997); it neither explicitly endorses nor explicitly rejects the strong version of the assumption. Given that the cumulative recall hypothesis explicitly assumes equivalence between the single and multiple test conditions in accounting for hypermnesia (i.e., the weak version) and otherwise makes no mention of the equivalence issue, the hypothesis leaves the impression of a general equivalence between the two testing conditions (i.e., the strong assumption).
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I gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Cynthia Rodriguez, Chirene Boukkarroun, Sharon Chou, and Mike Steele.
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Mulligan, N.W. Total retrieval time and hypermnesia: Investigating the benefits of multiple recall tests. Psychological Research 69, 272–284 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-004-0178-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-004-0178-5