Multitrial Free Recall and Sequential Ordering of Items Having High Variance of Meaningfulness

Abstract

Two matched lists of 10 CVCs of high variance in meaningfulness (M) were presented to Ss for 21 input-output trials of MTFR. While the lists elicited differing recall and sequential ordering, ITR, other analyses indicated consistencies in the two sets of data. Thus item-pairs, ITR-units, ordered in recall tended to have similar M-values. Furthermore, the tendency of individual items to serve as anchor points for individual ITR-units was positively related to their memorability. of special interest was the nature of the relationship between the M-values of items and errors of non-recall. Along with a negative relationship between M-value and non-recall there was an error peak for items with intermediate M-values. The tentative theoretical explanation of this result was based mainly upon Murdock's theory of varying distinctiveness of quantitatively ordered items.