Effects of semantic and acoustic relatedness on free recall in normal children and retardates

Abstract

Third-grade children and matched-MA retardates were presented a list of semantically related, acoustically related, or unrelated words for free recall. Results showed that the normals recalled and clustered significantly more than the retardates. Although both groups of Ss showed a significantly greater tendency to cluster semantically than acoustically, only the normals given the semantic list clustered in amounts significantly above chance levels. Significant list differences in terms of amount recalled indicated an inhibitory effect of acoustic relatedness.