Recognition and recall of words with a single meaning.

Abstract

Twenty-four subjects were tested for recognition of famous surnames and then were tested for cued recall of the same surnames. For common names (e.g., Cooper), the usual pattern of recognition failure of recallable words (Tulving & Wiseman, 1975) was found. For unique, single-node names (e.g., Kierkegaard), virtually no recognition failure (1.4%) of recallable words was obtained. These results fit well with generation-recognition theory.