Maintenance Rehearsal and Long-Term Recall with a Minimal Number of Items

Abstract

In an experiment using the procedure (1973) of Craik and Watkins, subjects were presented lists of words and instructed to retain only the last word on each list that began with a critical letter. When Craik and Watkins administered a surprise final free-recall test after 27 such lists, no effect of the duration with which an item had been maintained in short-term memory appeared. In the present experiment, the surprise final recall test was administered after only two lists. Although short-term memory had been cleared by 60 sec of backward counting, an effect of previous maintenance duration did appear in final recall.