The effects of test expectancy on quality of note taking and recall of text at different times of day

An experiment is reported which investigated how the type of memory test that subjects are expecting after listening to a short prose passage affects the quality of the notes they take and their subsequent recall. It also explored whether effects of test expectations are modified by the time of day at which the subjects are tested. The results of the recall test showed that subjects noted and recalled more of the high importance ideas in the text, relative to those of medium or low importance, and that, in the case of note taking, this selectivity was particularly marked for those subjects expecting a recall test. This finding supports the idea that subjects expecting different types of test prepare for them differently. The overall effects of test expectancy on performance were in line with the predominant pattern of earlier findings: subjects' recall was better if they were expecting a free-recall test than if they were expecting a multiple-choice test, but their performance on a multiple-choice test did not vary as a function of the type of test they were expecting. Although the effects of test expectancy did not vary with time of day, a main effect of time of day in the recognition test confirms earlier findings that memory for the exact wording of text, and in particular that of information of low importance, is superior in the morning.