Forgetting after Simultaneous Learning: Retrieval Cues and Proactive Interference

Abstract

The rate of forgetting a verbal task learned simultaneously with other verbal tasks is lower than that of a task learned singly: this is known as the simultaneous acquisition retention phenomenon (SARP). Three tasks were learned simultaneously and recall of a critical task was taken after 24 hr. in Experiment 1. When items from the other two tasks were provided as cues during recall of a critical task, forgetting was essentially eliminated. The effect seemed to be all-or-none, since recall was not affected by the provision of cues from only one of the other tasks during recall of the critical task. However, when no cues were present during recall in Experiment 1, 24-hr. retention measured after simultaneous and single task learning did not differ: SARP was not replicated. The failure to replicate was shown to be the result of using subjects naive to list learning experiments in Experiment 1. Experiment 2 demonstrated SARP when subjects were given list learning experience (representing proactive interference) prior to the critical experimental conditions of Experiment 1. Proactive interference (PI) had little effect on the cueing effect after simultaneous learning. It was concluded that PI is critical to SARP and the cueing effect is not. This report concerns a recently discovered (Underwood & Lund, 1979) phenomenon in the study of forgetting: the simultaneous acquisition retention phenomenon (SARP). The phenomenon is defined as the difference in the rate of forgetting associated with a verbal task learned simultaneously with several other verbal tasks relative to the forgetting of a task learned singly. Measures of the forgetting of a common task acquired in the two situations indicate that less information is forgotten over a 24-hr. interval after simultaneous learning than after single-task learning. The importance of SARP to the study of forgetting can be viewed within the historical perspective of the attempts to understand longterm retention loss. Different generations of the interference theory of