Recall tests are used in cognitive psychology to measure memory, including prompted recall, free recall, and serial recall. These tests reveal how the brain learns, stores, and retrieves information, and how factors such as attention, motivation, and environment affect memory. Guided recall involves memorizing a sequence of information and recalling it with a retrieval clue. Free recall involves memorizing a sequence of information and recalling it in any order. Serial recall tests a person’s ability to recall information in a precise order or to recall circumstances as they occurred over a period of time.
A recall test is often used in cognitive psychology as a means of measuring memory. Doctors often use a prompted recall test, free recall test, or serial recall test to evaluate various aspects of short-term memory—a person’s ability to recall recently learned information. Through years of developing and using such tests, scientists have a better understanding of how the brain learns, stores and retrieves information.
Guided recall, also known as stimulus/response, involves memorizing a sequence of information, using any desired method. After 15 to 30 minutes, the researchers ask subjects to recall a specific piece of information or all of the information in the correct order once a specific retrieval clue is provided. The clue could be divulging half of a paired sequence or an image, word, or clue associated with a particular piece of information. This type of recall test not only shows how the brain uses association to encode memories, but also how it makes logical inferences when the clue is based on a general interpretation of the information.
Free recall is a memory test in which subjects are asked to memorize a short sequence of pictures, numbers, or words during a set amount of time. After another predetermined amount of time, the subjects transmit the information in any sequence. This recall test reveals how individuals use particular types of encoding to store sets of information. People might group similar data together or remember information using mnemonic methods. The researchers also learned that people usually remember the beginning and end of sequences more easily, which is referred to as primary and recent memory.
Serial recall generally tests a person’s ability to recall information in a precise order or to recall circumstances as they occurred over a period of time. Researchers believe that this type of learning and memory reflects the human ability to create and use language along with the ability to recall past events in chronological order. People in a given culture learn the sequences of words that form sentence structure, which provides a means of communication. Remembering life events or particular steps required to complete a task generally requires serial learning and memory.
Cognitive psychology researchers use recall tests to show how many factors influence learning and memory. For example, the more attention a person pays to the process of coding or storing learning new information, the more information is accurately learned and remembered. Motivation is also a strong factor in learning and memory recall. Whether it’s a tangible reward or a general fear of defeat, people who employ some type of self-motivation generally produce a higher level of performance. The researchers also found that using the same environment, or state of being, to recall information that was used to initially learn the information typically allows people to retrieve information more effectively.
Protect your devices with Threat Protection by NordVPN
