No Benefit of Eye-Closure Rehearsal in a Unimodal Recognition Memory Test for Word Items

Recent studies have suggested that closing the eyes helps memory retrieval in recall tests for audiovisual clips that contain multimodal information. In two experiments, we examined whether eye-closure improves recognition memory performance for word lists presented unimodally (i.e., visually or aurally). In the encoding phase, participants saw or heard a list of unrelated, meaningful word items. After a fixed retention interval of 1 week (Experiment 1, n = 110) and 5 min (Experiment 2, n = 44), the participants were asked to mentally rehearse the items with their eyes open or closed, and then they performed a recognition test. The results revealed no effect of eye-closure rehearsal on recognition performance. We discuss the possible reasons why no eye-closure benefit was found in recognition memory tests for unrelated word items.