This experiment investigated the effect of headings on memory as a function of the reader's preexisting knowledge about the passage topic. Fifty-five of the 116 college student subjects read a 1,760-word passage on human sexuality with headings present, and the other 61 subjects read the passage with the headings removed. An analysis of the scores on the multiple-choice retention test revealed that the only significant facilitative effect of the headings was in the answering of main-idea retention test questions by subjects with high preexisting knowledge about the topic, as assessed by a pretest, p <.05. Thus, the results suggest that headings facilitate recognition memory by activating schemas and that such an organizational effect of headings is more likely to benefit main-idea information than detail information.
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