Sex Differences in Semantic Clustering in Free Recall of Words and Pictures

Abstract

Two free-recall tasks, one utilizing words and the other utilizing pictures, were presented to 15 male and 18 female high school students. While no significant sex differences were observed for total recall on either task, boys exhibited significantly greater semantic clustering in their order of recall for both tasks. In the recall of words, girls showed a significantly greater tendency to retain presentation order than did boys; however, this difference did not exist for picture recall. Inconsistencies between these results and those of other studies may be explained by the age differences in the sample: the present study involved adolescents while previous studies involved younger children.