Effects of retention interval and modality on sensory and semantic trace information

Subjects studied a long list of individual words that were presented either visually or auditorily. Recall was tested immediately or after a filled delay by using either word endings or taxonomic categories as extralist retrieval cues. Two interactions were of particular interest. First, word ending cues were just as effective as taxonomic cues on the immediate test. On the delayed test, however, ending cues were less effective. This result suggests that sensory information encoded about a word decays at a faster rate than semantic information. Second, although modality had no observable influence on the taxonomic cues, word ending cues were more effective when all items were shown visually than when they were presented auditorily. Taken together, these findings indicate that the visual features of words are encoded at study and that this information can be accessed during test if it is recapitulated by the retrieval cue shortly after acquisition.