Gordon Wood

Retrieval cues and the accessibility of higher-order memory units in multitrial free recall

All S s were presented 54 words for three (Experiments II and III) or five (Experiment I) alternating study and test free-recall learning trials. One half of the S s were given 18 words from the list as retrieval cues during the second stage of the last test trial. The major finding was that such cueing facilitated recall only when related words were presented consecutively during the learning trials. The failure to obtain a cueing effect when unrelated words were presented consecutively during the learning trials may be interpreted as negative evidence for the view that S s form discrete higher order memory units during free recall learning. Or, if S s from discrete higher-order memory units when unrelated words are presented consecutively, it seems they are unable or unwilling to form more discrete memory units than they can retrieve.

Category names as cues for the recall of category instances

Two experiments were conducted to extend the Tulving and Pearlstone (1966) finding that providing Ss with category names facilitates their recall of category instances. Experiment 1 demonstrated that this facilitation does not depend on the presence of the category names during the learning trial. Experiment 2 showed that the effectiveness of the category name as a cue for recall depends on the strength of the pre-established connection between the category name and the instance of the category to be recalled.

Predicting outcomes: Sports and stocks.

Many gamblers and most fans, players, and coaches offer causal explanations for long runs of good or bad performance in sports and financial analysts are quick to offer explanations for the daily performance of the stock market. The records of professional basketball and baseball teams and the Dow Jones daily closing average for a ten year period were evaluated for trends (streaks). The records of teams were also evaluated to assess whether the record against opponents, the home court or home field advantage, and—for baseball teams—the record of the winning and losing pitcher (excluding the current game) predicted the outcome of individual games. Recent performance is, at best, a very weak predictor of current performance and the three best predictors for baseball (pitching, home field, and record against opponent) together accounted for only 1.7% of the variance in the outcomes of individual games. We overestimate our ability to predict. This overconfidence is likely to play a role in maintaining gambling behaviors.

Instructions, ordering, and previous practice in free-recall learning

Two experiments replicated and extended Tulving’s (1966) finding that prior practice on part of a free-recall list can be detrimental to subsequent whole-list learning. Instructions concerning the nature of the lists influenced whole-list learning, but the influence of presentation order was unclear. The organization of the items acquired during part learning persisted during final list learning.

Organization, retroactive inhibition, and free-recall learning

Three experiments were conducted to assess the influence of organization on retroactive inhibition (RI). Earlier studies of organization and RI manipulated organization by constructing different word lists. In the present study the words to be recalled were the same for all conditions. Organization was manipulated by instructing S s how to organize their list (Experiment I), by having S s sort the words into designated categories (Experiment II), or by manipulating the presentation order of the lists (Experiment III). The major finding was that there is greater RI when both lists to be learned have similar organization than when the organizations are different. The procedure of holding the content constant and manipulating strategies or organization seems to be a promising way to study memory processes.

Organization, large memory units, and free recall

A whole-part transfer paradigm was used to asses the effect of “forcing” Ss to reorganize large memory units. List 1 contained 18 categories of three words each, and List 2 contained 9 categories of three words each. The experimental Ss received all 27 List 2 words in List 1. Even though the within-category organization established during List 1 learning was appropriate for List 2 learning, the negative effect due to the inappropriate between-category organization offset or overpowered the positive effect of within-category organization. The effect of forcing Ss to reorganize memory units does not appear to depend on the size of the memory unit. Moreover, it may be more accurate to conceptualize free-recall learning as the process of forming one large memory unit.

Activity, organization, retroactive inhibition, and free recall

The effect of encoding processes on retroactive inhibition (RI) was assessed by varying activity and list organization. The List 2 words could be classified into the same categories used for List 1 (same organization) or into a different set of categories (different organization). All S s received the same word lists. The different-organization S s had less RI than the same-organization S s only when the number of categories to be recalled was relatively small. Activity was manipulated by having the S s study the words or sort them into designated categories. The study S s had higher recall than the sort S s. The changed-activity S s had considerably less RI than the constant-activity S s. The large activity effect suggests that manipulating activity should be an effective way to study memory processes.

Free recall of nouns presented in sentences

The results of two experiments indicated that the presence of sentences as context has a deleterious effect on the recall and clustering of related nouns, even when the method of complete presentation is used and the nouns are underlined. There was weak evidence that the sentence-context effect was due to the presence of context words and not to the ordering of the context words as sentences.

Associations and recognition learning

A paired-associate- (PA) to-recognition transfer task was used to assess whether associations among words can influence recognition learning. Positive transfer was obtained when the correct words for recognition were presented for PA learning, and negative transfer was obtained when the incorrect words for recognition were presented for PA learning. The associations formed during PA learning did not influence recognition learning.

Implicit responses and conceptual similarity: A repetition

This study offers further evidence to support the prediction that words presented first in a series of conceptually related words will be better recalled than those presented later. The facilitation of the early items is probably due to events taking place during the learning trial rather than during recall.