Related Experiment Video
Updated: Mar 24, 2026

Using Practice Testing, Public Speaking, and Source Monitoring to Examine the Influences of Learning Strategies and Stress on Episodic Memory
Published on: June 14, 2019
Practice makes perfect in memory recall
Sandro Romani1, Mikhail Katkov2, Misha Tsodyks3
1Janelia Research Campus, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Ashburn, Virginia 20147, USA.
Abstract:
A large variability in performance is observed when participants recall briefly presented lists of words. The sources of such variability are not known. Our analysis of a large data set of free recall revealed a small fraction of participants that reached an extremely high performance, including many trials with the recall of complete lists. Moreover, some of them developed a number of consistent input-position-dependent recall strategies, in particular recalling words consecutively ("chaining") or in groups of consecutively presented words ("chunking"). The time course of acquisition and particular choice of positional grouping were variable among participants. Our results show that acquiring positional strategies plays a crucial role in improvement of recall performance.
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