Abstract

In Experiment 1 changing the modality (auditory or visual presentation) between repeated occurrences of target words at study reduced the size of the repetition priming effect but did not modulate the spacing effect in a subsequent unexpected yes/no recognition memory test. Experiment 2 confirmed that the spacing effect was the same for items repeated in the same modality (AA, VV) or in different modalities (AV, VA). These results are consistent with the view that the spacing effect for words in cued-memory tasks relies exclusively on semantic representations. Manipulations of perceptual processing that disrupt perceptual repetition priming leave the spacing effect intact.