The Spacing Effects in Incidental Memory and Type of Font

The present study examined the effects of type of presentation ( massed vs. spaced ) and type of font Textbook vs. Gothic) on incidental memory. Participants were 41 undergraduates. They were divided into two groups, namely the Kanji and the Hiragana character groups. In the orienting task, 41 participants in both groups were asked to rate the graphemic image of each character of target on a scale of complexity, formality or stability. In each orientng task list, all targets were presented twice, the number of interpolated words between the first and the second presentation was fixed at five for the spaced presentation, but there were no interpolated words in the massed presentation. For both groups, the orienting tasks were followed by the interpolated task and the unexpected free recall tests. The result indicated the spacing effect, namely the superiority of the spaced presentation to the massed presentation in free recall performance, were found in all the combinations of types of font in the first and the second presentation, and that the type of font in the second prsentation had effect on recall performance and the size of spacing effects. Namely targets presented in Textbook font in the second presentation ( Textbook-Textbook, Gothic-Textbook) were recalled more often than those presented in Gothic font in the second presentation (Textbook-Gothic, Gothic-Gopthic). However, no differences in the size of the spacing effects were not found between the same font presentation (Textbook-Textbook, Gothic-Gothic)and the different font presentation (Textbook-Gothic, Gothic-Textbook). These results were interpreted as showing that the perceptual priming did not determine the size of spacing effects in incidental free recall of Kanji and Hiragana characters. The possibility that the semantic activation determined the spacing effects was discussed