Recall and recognition in intentional and incidental learning.

The results support the view that intention to learn is crucial for learning only to the extent that it generates adequate learning operations and different learning responses require somewhat different operations.

Abstract

Recall and recognition of a list of 36 words were studied in 3 groups: an intentional group (Group 1) instructed to remember the words; an incidental group (Group 2) instructed to respond to each stimulus word by indicating whether it was a noun, verb, or adjective; a 3rd group (Group 3) instructed to both remember the words and perform the orienting task. Group 1 showed superior recall, but Groups 2 and 3 recognized significantly more words than Group 1. The superior recall of Group 1 was attributable mainly to performance of those Ss reporting use of a memorizing strategy (e.g., grouping, rehearsing). These results support the view that intention to learn is crucial for learning only to the extent that it generates adequate learning operations. Furthermore, different learning responses (e.g., recall and recognition) require somewhat different operations.