Hypermnesia and the Role of Delay between Study and Test

Wallner, Lisa A. and Bauml, Karl-Heinz T. (2018) Hypermnesia and the Role of Delay between Study and Test. MEMORY & COGNITION, 46 (6). pp. 878-894. ISSN 0090-502X, 1532-5946

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Abstract

Hypermnesia is increased recall across repeated tests in the absence of any further study opportunities. Although over the years many factors have been identified that influence hypermnesia, to date not much is known about the role of delay between study and test for the effect. This study addressed the issue in four experiments. Employing both words and pictures as study material, we compared hypermnesia after shorter delay (3 min or 11.5 min) and longer delay (24 h or 1 week) between study and test. Recall occurred over three successive tests, using both free recall (Experiments 1, 2, and 4) and forced recall testing (Experiment 3). In forced recall tests, subjects are instructed to recall as many items as possible, but if unable to remember all studied items, to fill in the remaining spaces with their best guesses. With free recall testing, hypermnesia increased with delay and the effect was driven mainly by reduced item losses between tests. These results suggest a link between hypermnesia and the testing effect, which shows that demanding retrieval practice, as it happens after longer delay, can improve recall by reducing the forgetting of the practiced items. In contrast, with forced recall testing, hypermnesia decreased with delay and was even absent after longer delay. The findings indicate that recall format can influence hypermnesia and different mechanisms may mediate the effects of repeated testing in the two recall conditions.

Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: ITEM RECOVERY; RECALL LEVEL; RETRIEVAL; MEMORY; PICTURES; TIME; REMINISCENCE; RECOGNITION; GENERATION; GENERALITY; Hypermnesia; Multiple tests; Retrieval practice; Delay; Testing effect
Subjects: 100 Philosophy & psychology > 150 Psychology
Divisions: Psychology and Pedagogy > Institut für Psychologie > Lehrstuhl für Psychologie IV (Entwicklungs- und Kognitionspsychologie) - Prof. Dr. Karl-Heinz Bäuml
Depositing User: Dr. Gernot Deinzer
Date Deposited: 10 Mar 2020 10:43
Last Modified: 10 Mar 2020 10:43
URI: https://pred.uni-regensburg.de/id/eprint/14169

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