Effects of sentence ordering on thematic decisions to remember and forget prose

Abstract

Sentences from each of two different passages were intermixed and presented to subjects auditorily. During each intersentence interval, the subjects made a to-be-remembered (TBR) vs to-be-forgotten (TBF) decision on the basis of theme membership and then selectively rehearsed the TBR sentences for later recall. Presenting either the TBR or TBF sentences in a logical order facilitated sentence recall of both types but had little effect on recognition. The within-subject relationships between decision time and recall were consistent with the between-subject effects of presenting either passage in a logical order on the recall of the remaining passage. Shorter decision times were associated with greater TBR recall but longer decision times were associated with greater TBF recall. It was concluded that processing during the decision phase was different from the maintenance rehearsal found during the TBR-TBF cue-delay interval in directed-forgetting tasks. Ordering of the TBF message did not affect processing if its general theme was not known.