Abstract
Previous work indicates that when appropriate methods are used, recognition memory for words does not differ as a function of the length of the study list (Schulman, 1974). There are theoretical reasons for believing that recognition errors and length of study list should be directly related. In Schulman’s study, only the first 25 words in the study lists of different lengths were tested. In the present study, only the last 20 words in the lists of different lengths were tested. Recognition errors increased as length of study list increased. The theoretical reasons for expecting this outcome were not supported by internal analysis of errors. The discrepancy between the present finding and that of Schulman may indicate that the relationship between length of list and errors occurs only when proactive effects can influence the words tested, although just what these proactive effects might be is unclear.
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