The spacing effect in cued-memory tasks: Semantic priming re-examined

Avons, Stephen Edward (2017). The spacing effect in cued-memory tasks: Semantic priming re-examined. [Data Collection]. Colchester, Essex: Economic and Social Research Council. 10.5255/UKDA-SN-850075

Data description (abstract)

When a person tries to remember materials such as words, repeated items are remembered better if they are separated by other items, rather than being presented together. This spacing effect seems to occur in several ways, but in some circumstances it appears to reflect the influence that the perception of the first presentation has on perception of the second presentation, referred to as priming. In previous ESRC-funded research we established that when unfamiliar materials are used, changing the physical form of the item (eg by changing typefont) reduces the spacing effect, and also reduces priming. This suggests that with these materials, priming and the spacing effect are both tightly tied to the physical form of the stimulus. However, with meaningful materials such as words, changing the physical form has little effect. The reason for this is probably that familiar items are remembered in terms of their meaning, not their physical form. We can test this by investigating the influence of the meaning of one item on another, what is known as semantic priming. If this manipulation influences the spacing effect for familiar materials, it will show that parallel mechanisms operate when the spacing effect is observed with familiar and unfamiliar materials.

Data creators:
Creator Name Affiliation ORCID (as URL)
Avons Stephen Edward University of Essex
Contributors:
Name Affiliation ORCID (as URL)
Russo Riccardo
Sponsors: Economic and Social Research Council
Grant reference: RES-000-22-1404
Topic classification: Psychology
Project title: The spacing effect in cued-memory tasks: Semantic priming re-examined
Grant holders: Dr. Stephen Edward Avons, Professor Riccardo Russo
Project dates:
FromTo
30 September 20059 December 2007
Date published: 26 Jan 2009 18:25
Last modified: 10 Jul 2017 09:47

Available Files

Data

Documentation

Downloads

data downloads and page views since this item was published

View more statistics

Altmetric

Edit item (login required)

Edit Item Edit Item