ABSTRACT
In 1960 Tresselt and Mayzner published an interesting experiment that showed large effects of an independent variable on recall. They gave three groups of subjects 100 words such as “career” and “monopoly” and asked each group to perform a task as they examined each word. One group was told to cross out vowels in each word, a second group was told to copy the words over, and a third group was asked to rate the words on a 7-point scale as to how much they belonged to the concept of “economic.” (This rating task made sense in the context of the words selected.) Presentation of the words occurred under incidental learning instructions, so the 10-minute free recall test that occurred later came as a surprise to subjects.
