Detrimental Influence of Contextual Change on Spacing Effects in Free Recall.

Abstract

Two experiments were conducted to determine the mechanism underlying the spacing effect in free-recall tasks. Participants were required to study a list containing once-presented words as well as massed and spaced repetitions. In both experiments, presentation background at repetition was manipulated. The results of Experiment 1 demonstrated that free recall was higher for massed items repeated in a different context than for massed items repeated in the same context, whereas free recall for spaced items was higher when repeated in the same context. Furthermore, a spacing effect was shown for words repeated in the same context, whereas an attenuated spacing effect was revealed for words repeated in a different context. These findings were replicated in Experiment 2 under a different presentation background manipulation. Both experiments seem to be most consistent with a model that combines the contextual variability and the study-phase retrieval mechanism to account for the spacing effect in free-recall tasks.The term spacing effect refers to the phenomenon that repeated items induce better recollection if both occurrences are separated by time or other targets (i.e., spaced presentation), compared with a situation in which repetitions occur in immediate succession (i.e., massed presentation). Although the spacing effect has been demonstrated in a vast number of studies (e.g

Context-dependent repetition effects on recognition memory

“…(Parkin, Gardiner, & Rosser, 1995;Parkin & Russo, 1993). Accordingly, increased performance in a free recall task was observed with increased spacing between items irrespective of constant or changing repetition context (Verkoeijen, Rikers, & Schmidt, 2004;Verkoeijen & Delaney, 2008). In light of these findings one could speculate that the larger repetition lag for items repeated across different contexts might have fostered recollection based recognition.…”

Pushing typists back on the learning curve: Memory chunking in the hierarchical control of skilled typewriting.

“…These contextual cues serve as retrieval cues at test, and the study item is retrieved more successfully when the item is associated with a greater number of contextual cues. According to this account, spaced repetitions improve learning because the contexts associated with the memory trace are more variable when there are longer lags between repetitions (Bower, 1972;Kahana & Greene, 1993;Landauer, 1968;Raajimakers, 2003;Verkoeijen, Rikers, & Schmidt, 2004 Verkoeijen, & Spirgel, 2010;Dempster, 1989;Hintzman, 1974, for reviews) that emphasize the role of attention. Study items receive more attention when there are lags between repetitions than when there is no lag, which results in more elaborated encoding and consolidation of the study items into long-term memory at the second presentation of the same study item (Bahrick & Hall, 2005;Bjork & Allen, 1970;Braun & Rubin, 1998;Delaney & Knowles, 2005;Elmes, Greener, & Wilkinson, 1972;Hintzman, 1974;Metcalfe & Xu, 2015).…”

Correcting false information in memory: Manipulating the strength of misinformation encoding and its retraction

“…This is especially true if repetition occurs with some temporal spacing or in different contexts (cf. Chabot, Miller, & Juola, 1976;Verkoeijen, Rikers, & Schmidt, 2004). This in turn suggests that repetition unfolds its effects by associating information with various contexts or sources, which could serve as retrieval cues and/or lend more credibility to a repeatedly encoded piece of information.…”