Incidental learning of event frequency

Two experiments studied the effect of intentionality of learning on memory for the frequency of occurrence of words on a list. Subjects who learned the items intentionally in preparation for an unspecified memory test remembered frequency as accurately as did those who studied specifically for a frequency-estimation test. Both groups recalled frequency information more accurately than did a group that learned the words incidentally. These results. along with a review of the literature. suggest that there is no strong evidence for the automatic encoding of frequency information.