Subjective Organisation in the Recall of Abstract Body Movements

Abstract

Subjective organisation is a well known characteristic of verbal free recall in that items are recalled in groupings known as “chunks” or “clusters.” This organisation is indicative of a memory strategy and has been used to derive the cognitive structure of particular areas of knowledge. Clustering might also occur in the free recall of body movements. Subjects attempted to learn unfamiliar abstract body movements over five learning and recall trials. Analysis showed that subjective organisation occurred and increased with additional recall trials. This extends the clustering effect to the free recall of body movements. It is suggested that this effect can be used to probe the cognitive structure of motor memory.