Retention of item attributes in free recall

A free recall experiment using mixed-modality lists was conducted to assess retention of information about presentation format of to-be-remembered words. Lists consisted of items presented once only, auditorily or visually, or twice, either in the same modality or once in each modality. Ss were required to remember items only (standard free recall) or to remember items as well as their modality and frequency attributes. With all recall from secondary memory, there were no effects of the modality variable (auditory, visual, or mixed) on recall of repeated items, although Ss were able to retain a considerable amount of information about the modality and frequency characteristics of recalled items. Processing this additional information had the effect of lowering word recall scores relative to the standard free recall test. It is argued that recall of modality attributes is based on some direct representation of this information in memory, and is not solely the result of a “tagging” process.