Recognition effects of study organization and test context.

Abstract

Effects of study list spacing of category instances and recognition test order were investigated in 2 experiments. Frequency of study and new test items as category name associates were also included as variables in Experiment II. In both experiments, grouping items by category on the recognition test enhanced performance if instances had also been grouped during study. In Experiment II, low-frequency study items were recognized better than highfrequency ones. The interfering effect of increasing the frequency level of new test items was maximal when old items were high frequency and not grouped by category on the recognition test. Results were discussed with reference to the role of organization and context in recognition memory. The problem in recall is often not one of storing information but rather one of finding the information in memory once it has been stored. There is now an abundance of research that demonstrates that recall failures are often due to failures in retrieval (e.g., Tulving & Pearlstone, 1966). Is a similar failure in retrieval a possible cause of recognition errors? McCormack (1972) recently reviewed the literature and concluded that there is no evidence of complex search processes operating in recognition memory. Recognition performance was viewed as a relatively pure measure of storage; the number of cues provided by a recognition test was considered to be such that search and retrieval are unnecessary or trivial. Several other investigators have drawn similar conclusions (e.g., Kintsch, 1970; Murdock, 1968). The distinction between storage and retrieval effects has been used quite often in attempts to specify the locus of organization effects. One possibility is that organization serves to aid retrieval without influencing the storage of individual items (Slamecka, 1972). The implication is that recognition performance should be uninfluenced by organization. A second possibility is that organization influences the storage of items without the influence being such that recognition is affected (Kintsch, 1970), Two major ques