Delayed Recall of Verbatim Information from Text

Abstract

Undergraduate students read two 225-word narrative passages and were asked to recall one immediately and both, unexpectedly, after 7 days. Delaying recall reduced the verbatim recall component substantially, whilst leaving less accurate material relatively unaffected, and even after 7 days some verbatim information persisted in the absence of rote learning. These findings suggest that verbatim recall may be qualitatively different from the recall of gist.