High and low scorers on the Hidden Figures Test were compared on a free recall task that involved word triads having both an associative and a rhyming relationship. The words were presented either one at a time or in a simultaneous rlisplay, with the triad members either blocked or randomly arranged in the input sequence. Field independence had little effect on total recall, and any effect on organization seemed to favor field-dependent subjects.Field independence has been characterized as the ability to overcome perceptual context effects by using an internal frame of reference rather than the external context (cf. Davis & Frank, 1979;Goodenough, 1976). In contrast, field dependence occurs when the organization of the external field is accepted as a given and used without modification. Field dependence is generally accompanied by a more global, passive, and intuitive approach to learning, with particular attention to social cues. In contrast, field-independent people tend to be more active participants in a learning task, restructuring the external frame of reference and generating organization when it is not readily apparent.Previous research has led to the conclusion that field independence may not affect the amount recalled as much as it affects organizational strategies (Goodenough, 1976). For example, Fleming (cited by Goodenough, 1976) compared field-dependent and -independent subjects on a word list that could be hierarchically structured. Field-dependent subjects did worse than field-independent subjects when the words were presented in a subordinate-to-superordinate sequence (e.g., man, vertebrate, animal), but there was no difference with the reverse order. Presumably, early presentation of a subordinate provided no initial external structure, so field-dependent subjects suffered relative to the fieldindependent subjects, who generate their own internal structure, whereas early presentation of the superordinate provided organization for the items to follow for both field-dependent and -independent subjects alike.The present experiment examined how grouping related items in input affected recall of field-dependent and field-independent subjects. Generally speaking, recall and clustering are enhanced when related items are presented together, compared with random presentation. If field-independent subjects ignore external Requests for reprints should be sent to John Mueller, Psychology Department, 210 McAlester Hall, University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri 65211. Helpful comments on an earlier draft were provided by Carl Bennink and Ronald Schmeck. field constraints, they should be less affected by the blocked-random manipulation than are field-dependent subjects, whereas field-dependent subjects would presumably be more reliant on spatial-temporal contiguity as a basis for grouping items.The blocking aspect was our major interest, but we examined this factor for two modes of presentation and two types of intralist relationships. First, single-item presentation was compared with whole-list (simultane...