A Re-examination of the Interrelations among Measures of Retention

Abstract

The interrelations among measures of anticipation, recognition and savings are examined. It is shown that (a) the difficulty level of a recognition task can be above or below that of anticipation for the same material, and (b) the slope of retention curves based upon recognition measures may be more or less steep than the slope of curves based upon recall measures of the same material. Previous contrary conclusions reflect the exclusive use of easy recognition tests, and experimental designs in which the degree of learning is much greater for the recognition than for the recall task.