Continued Word Associations and Free Recall

Abstract

Two experiments on the short-term free recall of 12-word associated and non-associated lists are reported. Degree of association (derived from norms obtained by continuous controlled association) and word frequency were varied. Significant facilitation as a result of the associative manipulations was obtained and clustering of the responses was positively related to this. Clustering was also affected by the method of presentation of the associated words; this occurred more often when they were grouped in presentation than when they were presented randomly arranged among other words in the list. Low frequency associated word lists were generally found to be more efficiently recalled than those of comparable association values but consisting of high frequency words.