Word sorting and free recall

Levels of processing in word recognition and subsequent free recall.

The present experiment explored a situation in which 5s were unexpectedly required to recall the target words from a perceptual decision-making task. The targets were denned with respect either to their phonemic or semantic attributes, and 5s held these attributes in "working memory" for varying time intervals prior to target presentation. Semantically defined targets were better recalled subse...

Recall termination in free recall.

Although much is known about the dynamics of memory search in the free recall task, relatively little is known about the factors related to recall termination. Reanalyzing individual trial data from 14 prior studies (1,079 participants in 28,015 trials) and defining termination as occurring when a final response is followed by a long nonresponse interval, we observed that termination probabilit...

Aerobic Exercise and Word Recall

Word length effect in free recall of randomly assembled word lists

In serial recall experiments, human subjects are requested to retrieve a list of words in the same order as they were presented. In a classical study, participants were reported to recall more words from study lists composed of short words compared to lists of long words, the word length effect. The world length effect was also observed in free recall experiments, where subjects can retrieve th...

Emotional episodes facilitate word recall

Dysphoric and nondysphoric college students described self-generated images of themselves interacting with the referents of neutral nouns; the nouns were paired with adjectives that changed their emotional meaning (e.g., cruise ship, cargo ship, sinking ship). On the subsequent unexpected test, the nouns from emotional pairings were more frequently recalled than were those from neutral pairings...