Twenty-four schizophrenic and 24 normal Ss, 8 in each group being overinclusive and 16 non-overinclusive, were presented with two 20-word lists, one for free recall and one for recognition. The recognition alternatives were rhymes, synonyms, and synonym-rhymes of the various target words. Schizophrenics were poorer than normals in recall but not in recognition, and the ratio of recall over recognition was significantly greater for schizophrenics than for normals. The results of an analysis of the recognition errors suggested that the recall deficit of schizophrenics may be due to an inability to organize information for retrieval.

No abstract

An experiment is reported in which a matrix of 12 cells containing 3 shapes was presented for recall either immediately or at a retention interval of up to 20 sec. It was found that if the retention interval was filled with a visual task such as copying, forgetting was particularly of the location of the shapes; whereas if the retention interval was filled with a verbal task such as counting, forgetting was particularly of the shapes themselves. This result is viewed as further evidence for at least 2 types of coding in short-term memory, visual and verbal.. Modality-specific interference would also appear to have been demonstrated.

No abstract

There is some conflict in the existing literature over the question of whether paired associate episodic memory improves systematically with the "associability" of the word pairs in question. In the present study associability was measured by ratings. Using the materials so obtained, it was shown that under certain circumstances episodic memory performance is affected by ceiling effects such that a simple relationship between episodic memory for paired associates and the rated associability of the pairs is difficult to demonstrate; but when ceiling effects are avoided, either by having subjects study a great many pairs at once, or by using unusually long lists, episodic memory is monotonically related to rated associability. Experimental evidence is also advanced which suggests that word frequency should be considered as a variable additional to rated associability in this context.