Ms. Weldon et Kd. Bellinger, COLLECTIVE MEMORY - COLLABORATIVE AND INDIVIDUAL PROCESSES IN REMEMBERING, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition, 23(5), 1997, pp. 1160-1175
Two experiments compared collaborative and individual recall. In Exper
iment 1, participants encoded pictures and words with a deep or shallo
w processing task, then recalled them twice either individually or col
laboratively. Collaborative groups recalled more than individuals, but
less than nominal groups (pooled individuals), thus exhibiting collab
orative inhibition. However, group recall appeared to be more stable o
ver time than individual recall. Groups and individuals both showed a
picture-superiority effect, a level-of-processing effect, and hypermne
sia. In Experiment 2, participants recalled the story ''War of the Gho
sts'' (from F. C. Bartlett, 1932), and again collaborative groups reca
lled more than individuals, but less than nominal groups. Both the ind
ividual and collaborative recalls were highly organized. There was evi
dence that the collaborative groups tended to rely on the best individ
ual to a greater extent in story than in list recall. Possible social
and cognitive mechanisms are considered.