Recall termination in free recallJ. F.MillerauthorChristoph T.WeidemannauthorM. J.KahanaauthorAlthough much is known about the dynamics of
memory search in the free recall task, relatively little is
known about the factors related to recall termination. Rean-
alyzing individual trial data from 14 prior studies (1,079
participants in 28,015 trials) and defining termination as
occurring when a final response is followed by a long
nonresponse interval, we observed that termination proba-
bility increased throughout the recall period and that retriev-
al was more likely to terminate following an error than
following a correct response. Among errors, termination
probability was higher following prior-list intrusions and
repetitions than following extralist intrusions. To verify that
this pattern of results can be seen in a single study, we report
a new experiment in which 80 participants contributed recall
data from a total of 9,122 trials. This experiment replicated
the pattern observed in the aggregate analysis of the prior
studies.
Cognitive Psychology2012Journal (Paginated)