Free Recall of Items Presented after Massed- and Distributed-Practice Items
David G. Elmes, William I. Greener, W C Wilkinson · The American Journal of Psychology · 1972
When critical items were presented after items receiving either massed or (at repetition lags of 3 or 10 events) distributed practice, free recall was better on the distributedthan massed-practice items, but worse on the critical items after distributedthan after massed-practice items. Differential encoding, rather than consolidation, better accounts for the differences with the two kinds of practice.