Conceptual Encoding Categories in Free Recall

Abstract

49 female students were administered a randomized list of 60 words, 15 from each of 4 different kinds of conceptual categories, 1 of which was from an exhaustive category and 3 from nonexhaustive categories. Results support the hypotheses that some conceptual categories are more powerful in facilitating free recall and a higher degree of clustering occurs in the more powerful conceptual categories. Contrary to expectations, an exhaustive category, such as all 3-letter words rhyming with “a,” is not necessarily as powerful as a more nonexhaustive category, i.e., clothing words.