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.