Grouping operations in free recall

In free recall, Ss search for stable groupings of the list words, which groups become functional recall units. The experiments reported show that recall suffers if S is forced to adopt groupings differing from those used previously. Although such regroupings disrupt retrieval processes in recall, they do not reduce recognition memory for the list words, presumably because recognition depends on "occurrence information" which is independent of interitem associations utilized in retrieval. Another experiment showed that S's recall is facilitated by E explicitly aggregating S's functional recall units into larger groups over trials. A final experiment showed that recall was facilitated by arranging for structural linkages between groups via common words much as in a sausage chain. More groups are recalled in such linked lists, and Ss clearly used the linkages in moving from one to another group in recall.