Very rapid forgetting: Reply to Muter

We reply to the commentary in which Muter (1995) disputes the findings and arguments of Cunningham, Healy, Till, Fendrich, and Dimitry (1993) concerning the rate of forgetting from primary memory. Although Muter (1980) had reported very rapid forgetting when secondary memory processes were minimized, Cunningham et al. found that the rate of forgetting from primary memory was no more rapid when secondary memory processes were minimal than it was when secondary memory processes were substantial. We locate the discrepancy between the two studies specifically at recall performance on the 0-sec retention interval, and we argue that the very rapid forgetting found by Muter (1980) can be attributed in large part to the fact that although subjects in his experiments did not expect to recall the letters after a filled retention interval, at the time of encoding and after an unfilled delay they did have a high overall expectancy to recall the letters.