Signaling devices could undermine the recall of topics unrelated to the sigaling devices. So testing on the overall recall would not be accurate. 

University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

1. Meyer’s experiments tested the overall recall 
2. Text is too short and has a relatively simple structure 

Flaws of the experiments 

Lorch, R. F., Lorch, E. P., &amp; Inman, W. E. (1993). Effects of signaling topic structure on text recall. Journal of Educational Psychology, 85(2), 281–290. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.85.2.281 

Effects of Signaling Topic Structure on Text Recall

Why testing on overall recall is a problem 

Text with a simple text structure would be easy to recall, so the signaling devices would present little effects in improving the free recall. 

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