Memory for directly and indirectly experienced events

Abstract

AbstractRetention was examined for an event that was experienced either directly or indirectly. In the first experiment, subjects witnessed a staged event in their classroom involving an argument between two students concerning ownership of a textbook. Subjects in a second study indirectly experienced the event as they heard an account of the book dispute. Immediately following the episode and 2 weeks later both a free‐recall test and recognition questionnaire were administered. In free‐recall those who witnessed the event remembered nearly as much on the delayed test as they had on the immediate task. For the auditory modality, however, a greater decrement in recall over the retention interval was observed. A similar pattern of results was found in recognition. Additional analyses indicated that actions were retained better than conversation and physical description, and suggested that the type of experience influences how well these aspects of the event are remembered. Interpretations of the overall findings are offered within the context of dual‐coding theory and in terms of modality differences in both encoding elaboration and selective attention.