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Memorability as a measure of processing: a unit analysis of prose and list learning.
Abstract
The percentage of subjects recalling each unit in a list or prose passage is considered
as a dependent measure. When the same units are recalled in different tasks, processing
is assumed to be the same; when different units are recalled, processing is assumed
to be different. Two collections of memory tasks are presented, one for lists and
one for prose. The relations found in these two collections are supported by an extensive
reanalysis of the existing prose memory literature. The same set of words were learned
by 13 different groups of subjects under 13 different conditions. Included were intentional
free-recall tasks, incidental free recall following lexical decision, and incidental
free recall following ratings of orthographic distinctiveness and emotionality. Although
the nine free-recall tasks varied widely with regard to the amount of recall, the
relative probability of recall for the words was very similar among the tasks. Imagery
encoding and recognition produced relative probabilities of recall that were different
from each other and from the free-recall tasks. Similar results were obtained with
a prose passage. A story was learned by 13 different groups of subjects under 13 different
conditions. Eight free-recall tasks, which varied with respect to incidental or intentional
learning, retention interval, and the age of the subjects, produced similar relative
probabilities of recall, whereas recognition and prompted recall produced relative
probabilities of recall that were different from each other and from the free-recall
tasks. A review of the prose literature was undertaken to test the generality of these
results. Analysis of variance is the most common statistical procedure in this literature.
If the relative probability of recall of units varied across conditions, a units by
condition interaction would be expected. For the 12 studies that manipulated retention
interval, an average of 21% of the variance was accounted for by the main effect of
retention interval, 17% by the main effect of units, and only 2% by the retention
interval by units interaction. Similarly, for the 12 studies that varied the age of
the subjects, 6% of the variance was accounted for by the main effect of age, 32%
by the main effect of units, and only 1% by the interaction of age by units.(ABSTRACT
TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)
Type
Journal articleSubject
AdolescentAdult
Aged
Aging
Child
Humans
Imagination
Memory
Mental Recall
Middle Aged
Paired-Associate Learning
Retention (Psychology)
Serial Learning
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David C. Rubin
Juanita M. Kreps Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience
For .pdfs of all publications click here My main research interest has been in long-term
memory, especially for complex (or "real-world") stimuli. This work includes the study
of autobiographical memory and oral traditions, as w

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