Item versus associative information: Further comparisons of forgetting rates.

Four experiments are reported that extend previous research and firmly demonstrate that item information is more susceptible to decay or interference than is associative information. The forgetting rate for single words is shown to be greater than the forgetting rate for associations between random pairs of words in a continuous recognition paradigm using both yes-no (Experiment 1) and forced-choice (Experiments 2 and 3) test procedures. Item recognition is also shown to decline more than associative discrimination between an immediate and an end-of-session delayed test in the study-test paradigm