Effects of rehearsal and cuing when testing for recall of printed news

This thesis examined if a combination of variables would yield a higher recall for printed news than previously recorded. Some subjects, after reading a printed news story were exposed to rehearsal (a discussion), a cue (aided recall), a combination of both, and neither variable. It was hypothesized that subjects exposed to a combination of rehearsal an a cue would record the highest net recall, or hypermnesia effect, over subsequent testing and that subjects exposed to either one would record higher net recall than those exposed to neither variable.Subjects exposed to rehearsal and/or a cue did not record a higher net recall, gross recall, or correctly recalled details for the printed news story than those who were not exposed. However, rehearsal and a cue were found to have a significant effect on the amount of errors made by subjects: those exposed to a cue made significantly less errors on the recall test. Suggestions for future research include increasing rehearsal time and using a stronger episodic cue than employed in this study.