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Retention as a Function of Repeated Learning
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stand the test of repetition or wider extension of research. I content myself by calling attention to it without emphasis.


Section 34. Influence of the Separate Repetitions

The problem of the present chapter is, as has already been pointed out, closely related to that of Chapter VI. In both cases the investigation concerns the influence of an increasing number of repetitions on the fixation of the series of syllables, a fixation made increasingly stronger thereby. In the former case the total number of repetitions immediately succeeded each other without regard to whether the spontaneous reproduction of the series was obtained through them or to how it was obtained. In this case the repetitions were distributed over several days and the attainment of the first possible reproduction was employed for their apportionment on the separate days. If, now, the results obtained in both cases have, at least for my own personality, any wider validity, we should expect that in so far as they are comparable, they would harmonise. That is, we should expect in this case as in the former that the effect of the later repetitions (therefore, those of the 2nd, 3rd, and later days), would at first be approximately as great as that of the earlier, and later would decrease more and more.

A more exact comparison is in the nature of the case not now possible. In the first place, the series of Chapter VI and the present ones are of different length. In the second place, the detailed ascertainment of the effect of the repetitions of the successive days taken solely by themselves would be possible only through assumptions which might be plausible enough on the basis of the data presented, but which would be easily controvertible on account of the insecurity of these data.

We found, for example, that nine 12-syllable series were learned on six successive days by means of 158, 109, 75, 56, 37 and 31 repetitions. The effect of the first 158 repetitions is here immediately given in the 109 repetitions of the succeeding day in the difference, 158―109. But if we wish to know the intrinsic effect of these 109 repetitions, namely the saving effected by them, on the third day, we could not simply take the difference, 109―75. We should need to know, rather, with how many repetitions (x) the series would have been learned