Depth of comprehension and sentence memory

Effects of comprehension depth upon sentence recall are examined. Three language information-processing tasks were performed on semantically heterogeneous sentences. In a within-subjects condition, subjects (a) judged sentence meaningfulness, (b) judged whether a sentence followed from context, (c) invented a sentence to follow a stimulus sentence. Tasks (b) and (c) have previously been shown to induce deeper comprehension than Task (a). Between-subjects conditions were size of recall cue; group versus individual administration; and incidental versus intentional learning. Meaning recall and exact word recall were used to assess sentence memory. Both measures warranted essentially similar conclusions. Most importantly, deeper comprehension leads to better recall; this outcome supports use of memory measures as an estimate of comprehension. Size of cue substantially affects recall; group versus individual administration and incidental versus intentional learning do not.

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