A beneficial effect of part-list cuing with unrelated words

Abstract

Previous experiments have found no beneficial effect of providing some list items as retrieval cues for other words in the list. This finding contradicts organizational theory, which predicts a positive effect of intralist cues on recall. The hypothesis tested in the present study was that intralist cues would increase recall when the following conditions are met: (1) subjects form integrated subjective units during learning, (2) not all of these units are recalled in the absence of cues, and (3) appropriate retrieval cues are selected to access these units. University students sorted a list of 64 unrelated words into subjective categories and then attempted to recall the words. For cued recall trials, one word from each subjective unit was chosen as a cue. More target words were recalled in cued recall than in free recall. This finding is consistent with organizational theory and indicates that experiments that found no beneficial effects of intralist cues did not employ optimal organization and cuing conditions. © 1988, The Psychonomic Society, Inc.. All rights reserved.