Effects of the organization of text on memory: Tests of retrieval and response criterion hypotheses.

Abstract

Retrieval and response criterion explanations of the effects of text organization on memory were tested in four experiments. The text materials were constructed so that the same target information was high in the content structure of one passage and low in another passage. In all experiments, the results showed that more target information was free recalled when it was high than when it was low in the content structure. In three experiments, it was found that three types of retrieval cues reduced the recall differences between information high and low in the structure, consistent with a retrieval hypothesis. In a fourth experiment, it was shown that manipulation of the subjects' response criterion had little influence on the effects of text organization on memory.Previous studies (Britton, Meyer, Simpson, Holdredge, & Curry, 1979;Meyer, 1975) have shown that free recall of information high in the content structure of a text is superior to recall of information low in the structure. Three mechanisms have been proposed for this result: selective attention, retrieval, and changes in the response criterion. The selective attention hypothesis, intuitively the most appealing, claims that information high in the content structure is selected for extra attention and processing at the time it is read. This extra processing leads to a higher probability of encoding than when the information is low in the content structure. However, some previous tests (Britton et al., 1979) did not support the hypothesis. Another possibility, considered more fully in the General Discussion section, is that the number of retrieval paths is increased by selective attention.The studies reported in the present article are concerned with the retrieval and response criterion mechanisms. According to the retrieval hypothesis, the effect of the Requests for reprints should be sent to

Selective attention and prose learning: Theoretical and empirical research

“…Britton and his colleagues conducted several studies in which text element salience was manipulated by text variables (Britton, Meyer, Simpson, Holdredge, and Curry, 1979;Britton, Meyer, Hodge, and Glynn, 1980a;Britton, Zegler, and Westbrook, 1980b). Britton et al (1979) constructed two experimental passages that each contained an identical paragraph.…”

A Review of Research in Revising Instructional Text

“…Other studies, however, have found that the presence of details enhanced the recall of main ideas (Phifer, McNickle, Ronning, & Glover, 1983). Britton et al (1980) found that low-content information was remembered as well as high-content information (even though it was missing from recall protocols); it simply was not as easily retrieved from memory. Retrieval cues helped make the low-content information more accessible.…”

“…In addition, most studies have found that information high in the text's structure is more likely to be recalled than information low in the text's structure (Britton, Meyer, Hodge, & Glynn, 1980;Britton, Meyer, Simpson, Holdredge, & Curry, 1979;Duffy, Higgins, Mehlenbacher, Cochran, Wallace, Hill, Haugen, McCaffrey, Burnett, Sloane, & Smith, 1989;Kintsch & Yarbrough, 1982;Meyer, 1975Meyer, , 1977Meyer et al, 1980;Richgels et al, 1987). High-level information is also more likely to be retained over time, for example, when the delay in the free recall protocol is as long as one week (Meyer 1975(Meyer , 1977.…”

Attentional strategies for studying scientific texts

“…The Kintsch and van Dijk (1978) model of comprehension attributes the effect to the repeated reprocessing received by high-level content as readers integrate low-level content with the high-level information. Additionally, Britton (Britton, Meyer, Hodge, & Glynn, 1980;Britton, Meyer, Simpson, Holdredge, & Curry, 1979) proposed several accounts of the levels effect which rely on retrieval mechanisms. It may well be the case that all of these phenomena contribute to levels effects in recall.…”