Naming, rehearsal, and interstimulus interval effects in memory processing
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Updated: Oct 20, 2026

Examining Recall Memory in Infancy and Early Childhood Using the Elicited Imitation Paradigm
Published on: April 28, 2016
A A Wright1, R G Cook, J J Rivera
1Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston.
Abstract:
Recognition memory was tested for lists of 6 briefly (0.08 s) presented pictures at different interstimulus intervals (ISI) of 0.08, 1, and 4 s. Experiment 1 showed a 16% performance increase (ISI effect) for increasing ISI for travel slide but not kaleidoscope pictures. Experiment 2 showed that learning names for the kaleidoscope pictures then resulted in a substantial (20%) ISI effect, not attributable solely to the added exposure to the pictures. Experiment 3 required names, color evaluations, or blank stares during list-memory presentations. Interviews established that the most effective memory strategy was chaining the names together, followed by repeating the most current name, and in turn followed by reliance upon only the sensory experience. All groups in Experiments 2 and 3, independent of ISI effects, showed U-shaped serial position functions. Rehearsal is shown to be nonessential and cannot be the general cause of the primary effect of the serial position function.
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