Psychology, 2020, 11, 1975-1990 https://www.scirp.org/journal/psych ISSN Online: 2152-7199 ISSN Print: 2152-7180 DOI: 10.4236/psych.2020.1112124 Dec. 29, 2020 1975 Psychology Auditory and Visual Versions of the WMS III Logical Memory Subtest: The Effect of Relative Importance of Information Units on Forgetting Rate Bar Lambez, Eli Vakil * Department of Psychology and Leslie and Susan Gonda (Goldschmied), Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel Abstract Background: The Logical Memory (LM) subtest of the WMS III is a fre- quently used clinical assessment measure of memory. The goal of the present study is to evaluate three ways of improving the diagnostic utilization of the LM: First, taking into account the importance of the units of information in scoring the test; second, introducing a visual version in addition to the auditory version of the test; and third, by testing the feasibility of group administration of the test. Methods: We compared the effect of importance of information on the forgetting rate of visual and auditory versions of the test. Sixty-nine partici- pants were randomly allocated into Auditory and Visual groups. Recall was tested immediately, 40 minutes later and after a one-week delay. Results: We found that the forgetting rate was steeper for the less, compared to the more, important units of information. The pattern of findings was similar but not identical in the auditory and visual versions of the test. Conclusions: The present results indicate that utilization of the LM could be improved by tak- ing into account the relative importance of the information units, adding a visual modality and applying group administration. These advantages need to be validated in clinical populations with memory impairment. Keywords Logical Memory, Importance of Information, Forgetting Rate, Memory Assessment, Auditory Memory, Visual Memory 1. Introduction The Logical Memory (LM) subtest of the Wechsler Memory Scale (WMS) How to cite this paper: Lambez, B., & Vakil, E. (2020). Auditory and Visual Ver- sions of the WMS III Logical Memory Subtest: The Effect of Relative Importance of Information Units on Forgetting Rate. Psychology, 11, 1975-1990. https://doi.org/10.4236/psych.2020.1112124 Received: November 16, 2020 Accepted: December 26, 2020 Published: December 29, 2020 Copyright © 2020 by author(s) and Scientific Research Publishing Inc. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution International License (CC BY 4.0). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Open Access