Intervening activity and the retention of meaningful verbal material

Abstract

Twelve Ss learned three lists of 17 paired-associate English vocabulary items, and then releamed each list following a period of normal activity, sleep, or sleep during which the lists were re-presented during the first hour of sleep. Retention scores were found to be significantly higher following sleep presentation than after sleep alone or after normal activity in two of the three measures of retention obtained, and all scores were higher than those usually reported. The meaningfulness of the situation together with the sleep re-presentation seemed to combine to induce a greater resistance to forgetting. © 1970, Psychonomic Journals, Inc.. All rights reserved.