Recognition hypermnesia with repeated trials: initial evidence for the alternative retrieval pathways hypothesis.

The alternative retrieval pathways (ARP) hypothesis of hypermnesia is here proposed. This hypothesis predicts hypermnesia (net improvements in recall or recognition after initial learning) whenever alternative retrieval pathways are provided leading to the original episodic trace. Initial evidence for this hypothesis was obtained in two experiments testing a non-obvious prediction of its format transformation assumption, namely that hypermnesia would be obtained in recognition and would not occur in recall if the former, but not the latter, condition requires obligatory format transformations between item encoding and retrieval. In the first experiment the same participants, exposed to identical items and having analogous encoding and retrieval conditions, showed recognition and did not show recall hypermnesia. With a between-participant design, the second experiment replicated the recognition hypermnesia findings, using a different recognition procedure and three instead of two test trials, whereas recall hypermnesia remained absent. Results are discussed comparing the heuristic value of ARP hypothesis to that of other current theories. It is concluded that recognition hypermnesia using individual words and pictures is a reliable phenomenon, provided ceiling effects can be prevented, and access to the original episodic information takes place using alternative retrieval pathways.

RCT Entities:   Population Interventions Outcomes