Effect of Material Organization on Memory in an Incidental Learning Task Performed under Repeated Maintenance

Abstract

The present paper investigates the effect of organizational variables on long term retention of material recycled under maintenance rehearsal. Subjects repeated a series of words as a distracting task, expecting to be tested on the recall of numbers (GLENBERG & ADAMS, 1978). An unexpected test on the recall of words showed the superiority of the recall of organized words, and a significant interaction of organization by time spent in repetition of the distractor material. The present experiment, because of the requirement of written, and not oral, repetition of the distractor material, is a more stringent test of the postulated consequences of type I rehearsal according to leve1 of processing theory. The usefulness of the clear-cut distinction between type I and type II processing is put into question.