Effects on Category Clustering of Category-Name Cues and Frequencies of Occurrence and Familiarity Scale Values of Nouns

Abstract

The short-term organized recall (category clustering) of 756 Ss was measured with the repetition ratio for 40-word stimulus lists. Each list, which was presented once to each S, contained 10 nouns from each of the animal, articles of dress, occupation, and persons' names categories. Three independent variables were combined in a 3 × 2 × 2 arrangement: three levels of the frequencies of occurrence of the words, .22 < 1, 1–4 and 5–100 + words per million; two levels of familiarity scale values of the words, low or high familiarity; and two levels of administration of retrieval cues in the form of category name instructions, instructions or no instructions. The frequency of occurrence and familiarity variables produced clearly separable effects on the category clustering of the nouns; the repetition ratio was an increasing function of each variable. The greatest effects of frequency variations were found at the highest frequency level. Retrieval cues did not influence category clustering. Comparison with previous work suggests that the inclusion of categorical intrusions in the repetition ratio inflates that ratio when words have low familiarity and are of low- and intermediate-frequencies of occurrence.