A Study of the Spacing Effect in Memory of Japanese Kanji with Japanese style reading（kun）and Chinese style reading（on）

The purpose of this study was to examine the supriority of spacing effects in the memory of two types of Kanji lists with the difference of relative appearance of Ondoku, having high （Onshu）and low（Kunshu）Kanji. 51 undergraduates studied list items successively presented as a function of type of presentation（spaced vs. massed repetition）. The Kanji lists were composed 24 items, 8 Onshu Kanji, 8 Kunshu Kanji, 4 buffer Kanji, and 4 filler Kanji. Immediately after a study period, they were given free recall test followed by a perceptual figure tests. The spaced presentation led to better recall than the massed presentation on both Onshu Kanji and Kunshu Kanji list. This indicated that spacing effects were observed in both Onshu and Kunshu Kanji lists, but the superiority of spacing effect was greater Kunshu Kanji than Onshu Kanji list. These results were discussed with related theories, the superiority of semantic coding in Kunshu Kanji and "encoding variability and retrieval cues" hypothesis on spacing effect in memory