More on interpretive factors in forgetting

Subjects learned a list of paired associates and reported the elaborators actually used during learning. They also generated "second-choice" elaborators. Both first- and second-choice elaborators were classified as stimulus-related or response-related and given to independent groups of new subjects to use in learning a list of pairs. Over a 1-week retention interval, stimulus-related elaborators produced better retention than did response-related elaborators. There was also some indication that first-choice elaborators were superior to second-choice elaborators.