Memory Span, Organization, and Transformations in Recall of Pictures and Words

Abstract

Immediate memory span, category clustering, and reading comprehension scores accounted for approximately 60% of the variance in average free-recall performance across three trials given 30 high school Ss in special reading classes. Immediate memory span tended to correlate more highly with recall of words than pictures, while reading comprehension tended to correlate more highly with recall of pictures. Category clustering correlated only slightly more with recall of words than pictures. The findings were interpreted as supporting a model of recall in which pictorial stimuli are considered to afford a greater opportunity for simultaneous processing in an imaginal information-processing system.