Dynamic changes in hypermnesia across early and late tests: a relational/item-specific account

Two experiments tested predictions derived from R. R. Hunt and M. A. McDaniel's (1993) relational/item-specific account of hypermnesia. According to this framework, participants encoding relational information should show greater hypermnesia on early test trials than on later test trials. In contrast, participants encoding item-specific information should show greater hypermnesia on later test trials than on early test trials. These predictions were not anticipated by other accounts but were confirmed by the results. Further, the patterns of reminiscence and intertest forgetting supported the theoretical underpinnings of these predictions. A 3rd experiment examined some factors by which item-specific encoding might enhance reminiscence (and thus hypermnesia) on later test trials. These results suggested that a richer set of encoded attributes rather than a fluctuating retrieval plan supported the beneficial effects of item-specific encoding on reminiscence.