Abstract
In order to examine directly the relationship between rehearsal strategies and recall performance, a “read aloud” procedure was developed such that subjects could “rehearse” by reading aloud specially prepared rehearsal protocols. With this procedure, it was possible to vary the degree of rehearsal activity represented in rehearsal, as measured by the number of different items rehearsed together, while holding constant the actual frequency of item rehearsal. The data indicated that, even with rehearsal frequency equated, increases in rehearsal activity were associated with increases in recall. There was, however, a boundary condition to this rehearsal-activity/recall relationship, such that rehearsing six or seven items together did not result in performance superior to that obtained when three or four items were rehearsed together. In addition, the equivalence of the recall of control subjects who rehearsed themselves and of the recall of those who read the rehearsal protocols of others suggests that item retrieval is probably not an essential component of active rehearsal.
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The research reported in this paper was supported by Grant HD 08459 from the U.S. Public Health Service.
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Ornstein, P.A., Naus, M.J. “Rehearsing” according to artificially generated rehearsal patterns: An analysis of active rehearsal. Bull. Psychon. Soc. 21, 419–422 (1983). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03329997
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03329997