Rehearsal Processes

This chapter reviews rehearsal processes in human memory. It considers the different types and functions of rehearsal, the different methods used to examine rehearsal, and considers the role of rehearsal in classic short-term and working memory tasks and theories, including the Brown-Peterson task, immediate free recall, immediate serial recall, and the complex span task. A variety of different types of rehearsal have been proposed, including: maintenance (or articulatory) rehearsal, elaborative rehearsal, attentional refreshing, covert retrieval, and short-term consolidation. Theorizing about rehearsal can be highly contentious and the chapter discusses theories that assume rehearsal enhances later accessibility, theories that assume rehearsal merely maintains items in a highly accessible state, and theories that propose that there is no causal link between rehearsal and recall. The chapter considers the relationship between rehearsals and later recall, the relationship between rehearsals and repetitions, and considers whether rehearsal and recall are underpinned by the same retrieval mechanisms. The chapter concludes with a summary of the current points of contention and a personal viewpoint: that rehearsal is most likely to enhance recall to the extent that retrieval enhances later retrieval, because rehearsal and recall are underpinned by the very same mechanisms.