The idea that people can encode and use an extremely abstract and general form of a complex linguistic (proverb) input-a conceptual base-was examined in two experiments. In Experiment I, each proverb was accompanied by either a conceptually related (good, mediocre, or poor) or an unrelated interpretation. The related interpretations were more effective recall prompts than were the unrelated interpretations, but only for high-imagery proverbs. In Experiment II, subjects wrote interpretations of the proverbs imd then received either the proverb subject-noun or a brief story as a prompt. As was the case for the interpretations in Experiment I, the stories did not share any major vocabulary or propositional structure with their proverb source. NonethelesS, the stories were as effective as the nouns. Also, quality of proverb interpretation and of recall performance were positively related, with the correlations involving low-imagery proverbs, and stories, tending to be higher. Both experiments provided support for the conceptual-base notion, and underlined the importance of interpretive context, but more definitive evidence is needed.

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Each of 845 5s was required to learn a sequence of seven or nine consonants in one presentation. A group testing procedure was employed in which 5 recalled or recognized the first, middle, or last item in the list after either 0, IS, or 30 sec. In both retention measures, results revealed statistically significant effects associated with list length and serial position. No statistically significant effects were associated with interval or retention measures. The data were interpreted as supporting a list-discrimination view of recall and recognition and suggested that a memory loss over interval does not appear unless 5 experiences a sequence of memory tests.