The aim of this study was to verify whether, in the normal and retarded subjects (aged 11.7 yr.), the isolation effect is less evident the lower the meaningfulness of the material to be recalled. 12 groups were tested, six normal and six retarded, each of 25 subjects. The retardation was diagnosed with Raven's Progressive Matrix ′38. Three series each of 9 CVC trigrams were used at 15–20%, 50–55% and 85–90% of associative value, respectively. Each trigram was exposed for 3 sec. As the level of meaningfulness increased so did the isolation effect for both normal and retarded subjects. For the retarded, however, the isolation effect only appears when the level of meaningfulness is very high.
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