Ward Geoff, Woodward Graham, Stevens Anna, Stinson Clare
Department of Psychology, University of Essex, Colchester, England.
J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn. 2003 Mar;29(2):186-210. doi: 10.1037/0278-7393.29.2.186.
Three experiments examined the word frequency effect in free recall using the overt rehearsal methodology. Experiment 1 showed that lists of exclusively high-frequency (HF) words were better recalled, were rehearsed more, and were rehearsed to more recent serial positions than low-frequency (LF) words. A small HF advantage remained even when these 2 variables were equated. Experiment 2 showed that all these effects were much reduced with mixed lists containing both HF and LF words. Experiment 3 compared pure and mixed lists in a within-subject design and confirmed the findings of Experiments 1 and 2. It is argued that number of rehearsals, recency of rehearsals, and strength of interitem associations cause the word frequency effect in free recall.
三项实验采用外显复述方法检验了自由回忆中的词频效应。实验1表明，与低频（LF）词相比，纯高频（HF）词列表的回忆效果更好，复述次数更多，且复述到更新近的序列位置。即使将这两个变量等同，仍存在较小的高频优势。实验2表明，对于同时包含高频词和低频词的混合列表，所有这些效应都大大减弱。实验3在被试内设计中比较了纯列表和混合列表，并证实了实验1和实验2的结果。有人认为，复述次数、复述新近度和项目间联想强度导致了自由回忆中的词频效应。
