Recalling shared vs. unshared information mentioned during group discussion: Toward understanding differential repetition rates

University students participated in structured four-person group discussions in which they described to the group, and heard other group members describe, information pertaining to a to-be-made decision. Beforehand, participants had read all of the information that they themselves described, but only half of the information that they heard others describe. It was predicted and found that, following discussion, participants (a) better remembered the information that they heard others describe if they had already read that information prior to discussion, and (b) remembered best of all the information that they themselves described during discussion. These results suggest that the often-found tendency of groups to repeat more of the shared than unshared information that gets mentioned during unconstrained group discussions may be due in part to differences that exist in group members' ability to recall already-mentioned shared vs. unshared information.