Two experiments tested predictions derived from R. R. Hunt and M. A. McDaniel's (1993) relational/item-specific account of hypermnesia. According to this framework, participants encoding relational information should show greater hypermnesia on early test trials than on later test trials. In contrast, participants encoding item-specific information should show greater hypermnesia on later test trials than on early test trials. These predictions were not anticipated by other accounts but were confirmed by the results. Further, the patterns of reminiscence and intertest forgetting supported the theoretical underpinnings of these predictions. A 3rd experiment examined some factors by which item-specific encoding might enhance reminiscence (and thus hypermnesia) on later test trials. These results suggested that a richer set of encoded attributes rather than a fluctuating retrieval plan supported the beneficial effects of item-specific encoding on reminiscence.
Four experiments examined whether the recovery of an item's position in a sequence taps processes similar to recognition and/or recall. Across the experiments, subjects either recalled, recognised, or made position judgements about list items that differed in word frequency. Typical word frequency effects were found in recall and recognition, but frequency failed to affect measures of position memory consistently across the four experiments. Despite the apparent procedural similarities across tasks, it appears that the recovery of position information may tap mnemonic processes that are different from those tapped by recognition and recall. Implications of these findings for current models of position memory are discussed.
In two experiments, we examined whether hypermnesia occurs in cued recall when response bias is controlled by instructing subjects to generate more responses than they normally produce under standard cued recall instructions. Subjects processed 36 pairs of words using a relational processing, item-specific processing, or intentional learning strategy. A well-categorized list was presented in Experiment 1, whereas a loosely categorized list was used in Experiment 2. Three standard or forced cued recall tests were then administered. Hypermnesia was observed even when subjects were forced to guess. Furthermore, as in previous studies, relational processing resulted in greater net improvement than item-specific processing or intentional learning. We conclude that cued recall hypermnesia is a genuine phenomenon.
T hree experiments examined the shor t-ter m retention of order in a modi® ed Brown±Peter son task. O ur intent was to examine the loss of order memory, unconfounded by item m em or y, under conditions in wh ich interference from prior trials is kept low. In previous work on the shor t-ter m for getting of order, experimenter s have tended to repeat the same items across trials or to draw from a restricted set; in our experiments, we changed the to-be-recalled items from trial to trial and used reconstr uction as the retention measure. In all three exp eriments, ver y little forgetting was obtained across retention intervals that have traditionally produced dr amatic and systematic loss. Ou r results are reminiscent of those obtained in the Brown± Peterson task wh en per for mance is assessed after only the ® r st experimental trial.In the typ ical Brown±Peterson experim ent (Brown, 1958; Peterson & Peterson, 1959), su bjects are presented with a shor t list of item s (e.g. th ree words or a conson an t trigram), followed by a distractor-® lled retention interval of varyin g d ur ation . At th e p oint of recall, the task is to rem ember th e list items in their correct serial order. U nder these conditions, forgetting is often dramatic. In one condition, for exam ple, Peterson and Peter son (1959) found that subjects respon d ed correctly over 70% of the tim e following 3 sec of distraction. After 18 sec, the percentage of correct responses had drop ped to 15% .One advan tage of requiring serial recall is that separate estimates of forgetting can be obtained for recall based on an ord ered or free-scoring criterion. D irect comparisons of these measu res reveal that ordered recall shows much more forgetting than does free recall, in wh ich items are scored with ou t regard to or igin al serial position (e.g. M arsh, Sebrechts, H icks, & L an dau, 1997;M uter, 1980; Sebrechts, M arsh, & S eam on , 1989 Sebrechts, M arsh, & S eam on , ). M uter (1980 found, for example, little difference between or dered and unordered scoring on immediate tests, bu t there were advantages for unordered scoring of 20±30% at retention intervals of 2, 4, and 8 sec. O ne might in terpret these results as suggesting that order in for m ation is lost rapidly from mem ory, bu t serial recall has the disadvan tage of confounding mem ory for order with m emor y for the item s themselves. A scoring criterion based on ord ered recall therefore measu res not on ly the loss of or der infor m ation , bu t the loss of item in for m ation as well.A m or e accurate assessm ent of the rate at wh ich ord er infor mation is lost comes from experiments using order reconstruction as the retention measu re. In reconstruction tasks, T H E QUART ERLY JOU RN AL O F EXPERIM EN T AL PS YCH OL OG Y, 1999, 52A (1), 241±251Requ ests for rep rints and cor respondence sh ou ld be sent to James S. N air ne, D epartment of Psychological Sciences, P urd ue U n iver sity, West L afayette, IN 47907±1364, U.S.A.
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