Abstract
The purpose of the two experiments reported here was to observe the effects of degree of learning, interpolated tests, and retention interval, primarily on the rate of forgetting of a list of words, and secondarily on hypermnesia for those words. In the first experiment, all the subjects had one study trial on a list of 20 common words, followed by two tests of recall. Half of the subjects had further study and test trials until they had learned the words to a criterion of three correct consecutive recalls. Two days later, half of the subjects under each learning condition returned for four retention tests, and 16 days later, all the subjects returned for four tests. Experiment 2 was similar, except that all the subjects had at least three study trials followed by four recall tests on Day 1, intermediate tests were given 2 or 7 days later, and they all had final tests 14 days later. The results showed that rate of forgetting was attenuated by an additional intermediate set of tests but not by criterion learning. Hypermnesia was generally found over the tests that were given aftera retention interval of 2 or more days. The best predictor of the amount of hypermnesia over a set of tests wasthe difference between overall cumulative recall and net recall on the first test of the set.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
References
Allen, A. G., Mahler, W. A., &Estes, W. K. (1969). Effects of recall tests on iong-term retention of pairedassociates.Journal of Verbal Learning & Verbal Behavior,8, 463–470.
Brainerd, C. J., Howe, M. L., &Kingma, J. (1982). An identifiable model of two-stage learning.Journalof Mathematical Psychology,26, 263–293.
Glenberg, A. M. (1979). Component-levels theory of the effects of spacing of repetitions on recall and recognition.Memory & Cognition,7, 95–112.
Harrison, N. S. (1979).Understanding behavioral research. Belmont, CA: Wads worth.
McDaniel, M. A., &Masson, M. E. J. (1985). Altering memory representation through retrieval.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition,11, 371–385.
Payne, D. G. (1986). Hypermnesia for pictures and words: Testing the recall level hypothesis.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition,12, 16–29.
Payne, D. G. (1987). Hypermnesia and reminiscence in recall: A historical and empirical review.Psychological Review,101, 5–27.
Roediger, H. L., Payne, D. G., Gillespie, G. L., &Lean, D. S. (1982). Hypermnesia as determined by level of recall.Journal of Verbal Learning& Verbal Behavior,21, 635–655.
Rose, R. J., & Howe, M. L. (1989, lime).Effects of spacing, modality, and categorization on acquisition and retention. Poster presented at the annual convention of the Canadian Psychological Association, Halifax, N.S.
Runquist, W. N. (1983). Some effects of remembering on forgetting.Memory & Cognition,11, 641–650.
Runquist, W. N. (1986a). Changes in the rate of forgetting produced by recall tests.Canadian Journal of Psychology,40, 282–289.
Runquist, W. N. (1986b). The effect of testing on the forgetting of related and unrelated associates.Canadian Journal of Psychology,40, 65–76.
Slamecka, N. J., &Katsaiti, L. T. (1988). Normal forgetting of verbal lists as a function of prior testing.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, dt Cognition,14, 716–727.
Slamecka, N. J., &Mcelree, B. (1983). Normal forgetting of verbal lists as a function of their degree of learning.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition,9, 384–397.
Underwood, B. J. (1964). Degree of learning and measurement of forgetting.Journal of Verbal Learning & Verbal Behavior,3, 112–129.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Additional information
Preparation of this article was supported by Challenge '90 Grant 332830 to the author from the Department of Employment and Immigration Canada.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Rose, R.J. Degree of learning, interpolated tests, and rate of forgetting. Mem Cogn 20, 621–632 (1992). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03202712
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03202712