Influence of multiple-day temporal distribution of repetitions on memory: A comparison of uniform, expanding, and contracting schedules

• Published in: Quarterly journal of experimental psychology (2006) Vol. 65; no. 3; pp. 514 - 525
• Main Authors: Gerbier, Emilie, Koenig, Olivier
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London, England Psychology Press 01.03.2012; SAGE Publications
• Subjects: Adolescent; Analysis of Variance; Biological and medical sciences; Cues; Distributed practice; Female; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Human; Humans; Learning. Memory; Long-term retention; Male; Memory; Mental Recall; Motivation - physiology; Neuropsychological Tests; Paired-Associate Learning - physiology; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Reaction Time - physiology; Recognition (Psychology); Repetition schedule; Spacing effect; Study-phase retrieval; Time Factors; Vocabulary; Young Adult; Long-term retention; Spacing effect; Distributed practice; Repetition schedule; Study-phase retrieval; Human; Memory retrieval; Practice; Long-term memory; Cognition; Spacing; Experimental study; Distribution; Comparative study; Repetition
• ISSN: 1747-0218; 1747-0226
• DOI: 10.1080/17470218.2011.600806

Very few studies have examined the influence of schedules of repetitions across multiple days (e.g., Tsai, 1927 ). Three temporal schedules of four presentations of pseudoword/word pairs over a 7-day learning period were compared: a uniform (presentations on Days 1, 3, 5, and 7), an expanding (1, 2, 3, 7), and a contracting (1, 5, 6, 7) schedule. Schedule was a within-subjects variable. Experiment 1 was performed on the Internet and showed that cued recall on Day 9 led to higher scores for the stimuli of the expanding schedule. Experiment 2 was performed in the laboratory and showed that the expanding and the uniform schedules led to the highest scores on Day 9. A recognition task performed during the learning phase revealed that stimuli recognized at the time of their repetition were more likely to be retrieved later than the others. Our results are discussed within the framework of the study-phase retrieval and encoding variability theories.