Individual Differences in Memory Decay and Retention

摘要

For nearly forty years the generally held belief has been that there were noindividual differences in forgetting which were not the result of differences in original learning. This rather surprising conclusion was based on Underwood's 1954 article in which he looked at the retention of 'fast' and 'slow' learners. Initially, there were large differences between the retention of fast learners and slow learners. As might be expected, the fast learners recalled what they had learned at a much higher level than did the slow learners. But when Underwood then equated for initial learning, an interesting thing happened--the large difference in retention previously observed now disappeared. That is, when the probability of calling out an item was equated for fast and slow learners, the differences in retention between the fast and slow learners also disappeared. Several studies over the years confirmed Underwood's basic findings and it did indeed appear to be that there were no individual difference in forgetting or memory--only individual differences in initial learning.