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. M cDaniel's (1993) relational/item-specific account of hypermnesia. Acco rding to this framework, participants encoding relational information should show greater hypermnesia on early test trials than on later tes t trials. In contrast, participants encoding item-specific information should show greater hypermnesia on later test trials than on early te st trials. These predictions were not anticipated by other accounts bu t were confirmed by the results. Further, the patterns of reminiscence and interest forgetting supported the theoretical underpinnings of th ese 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 encod ed attributes rather than a fluctuating retrieval plan supported the b eneficial effects of item-specific encoding on reminiscence.