Differences between retrieval cues in effectiveness as recall aids

Abstract

Ss learned a single list of words to which two sets of cues were relevant. For both sets of cues, number of items per cue ranged from 2 to 16. Cues for which relevant items were relatively high-frequency free associates (conceptual cues) led to higher recall than did cues to which list items were relatively low-frequency responses (alphabetical cues). Free-recall instructions led to higher recall than did alphabetical cues to which more than six items were relevant, but recall from large conceptual categories was not inferior to free recall of the same items. The results suggest that rather than sharing a common limit on the number of items they can retrieve, cues vary in effectiveness. Thus, free-recall performance will be affected by the particular S units into which S organizes a set of words, as well as by the number of such units he uses.