Recall and recognition as a function of primary rehearsal

Abstract

Three free-recall experiments were motivated by the common-sense notion that an item should be better remembered and less easily forgotten the greater the rehearsal devoted to the item. In each experiment, four lists of words were presented and a cue to remember or to forget was presented after each word in a list in turn. Before each cue was presented, however, there was a variable blank period during which subjects were required to hold the current word in memory. Immediate and final recall of to-be-remembered and to-be-forgotten words were essentially independent of amount of rehearsal, whereas final recognition increased systematically with rehearsal. The results suggest the need for a distinction between rehearsal as a maintenance activity and rehearsal as a constructive activity.