| Abstract: | ![]()
Hypermnesia (increased recall levels associated with increasing retention intervals) is examined, along with the related phenomenon of reminiscence (the recall of previously unrecallable items). A historical survey of the reminiscence literature is presented, and it is concluded that the decline in interest in the phenomenon during the 1930s and 1940s was partly attributable to changes in how reminiscence was defined and conceptualized. Recent experimental work that has renewed interest in the hypermnesia phenomenon is reviewed, along with two theoretical explications of hypermnesia and the attempts to test them. However, neither theoretical interpretation provides a complete account of hypermnesia. Finally, the experimental literature on repeated testing is examined in order to ascertain which factors affect the likelihood of obtaining hypermnesia. Among the primary factors that apparently affect hypermnesia are the type of study items (pictures produce greater hypermnesia than words) and the length of the recall periods used, with longer recall periods being more likely to produce hypermnesia than shorter periods. Because hypermnesia in the repeated test paradigm depends on both the rate of item recovery and the rate of intertest forgetting, future research should consider more closely the factors that affect intertest forgetting and the recovery of new items. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved) |
