EFFECTS OF BETWEEN-ITEM, WITHIN-ITEM, AND AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL ELABORATIONS ON INCIDENTAL FREE-RECALL

Effects of types of elaboration on incidental free recall mere investi gated. The subjects performed an orienting task involving three rating conditions followed by an unexpected free recall test. Three rating c onditions were designed to force between-item elaboration, within-item elaboration, and autobiographical elaboration. Between-item elaborati on led to better recall than autobiographical elaboration, which in tu rn led to better recall than within-item elaboration. The above result was discussed in terms of both generative and discriminative processe s in retrieval.