A Study of the Spacing Effect in Memory of Pictorial and Word Lists

Two experiments were carried out to examine the relationship between pictorial superiority effect and the effect of massed versus distributed repetition on free recall. 74 students（Exp.1）and 39 students（Exp.2）studied list items successively presented as a function of type of presentation（distributed vs. massed repetition）. In exp.1 ,the lists were composed 32 items, 12 pictorial and 12 word items, 4 buffer pictures and 4 buffer words. Immediately after a study period, they were given free recall test followed by two word- identification tests during six minutes. The distributed presentation led to better recall than the massed presentation on both lists. But the spacing effects were not different from both list types. This results were attributed to the small numbers of intervening items on the basis of previous researches. So in the exp.2 , I increased the number of intervening items from 2 to 4 items. The list were composed 38 items, 12 pictorial and 12 word items, 4 buffer pictures and 4 buffer words and new six filler items （3 pictures and 3 words）. Experimental procedure was almost same as the exp.1. As expected the spacing effect in pictorial list was larger than the spacing effect in word lists. These results were discussed with related theories, the pictorial superiority effect by the mechanism of "within item elaboration" and "encoding variability and retrieval cues" hypothesis on spacing effect in memory