Abstract: An experimental study on memory was carried out with poems and essays, selected from readings of junior middle school as materials. The results showed: 1) In the beginning, forgetting proceeds faster for essays than for poems, but at a later period the trend shifted to the reverse, i. e., forgetting for poems proceeds quicker than essays; 2) Differences in the components of materials forgotten, which are related to the difference in rate of forgetting, between poems and essays are also observed. Omissions and alterations occur more frequently in essays than in poems, whereas displacements and reversals occur more frequently in poems than in essays.

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