Effects of Organization on Recognition Memory

The effect of organization on recognition memory was investigated in two experiments. In both experiments, a categorized list was presented for study with instances of a given category being either blocked or distributed randomly throughout the list. The order of items in the recognition test was of varied similarity to their order within the blocked study list. Results indicated that the effect of blocked versus random presentation tended to be dependent on the order of recognition test items. In the first experiment, blocked presentation enhanced recognition only when test items were grouped on the basis of category membership and the order of old items within a category was the same as it had been in the study list. A similar trend was observed in the second experiment. Results were discussed with reference to the role of retrieval in recognition memory.