The free and serial recall of lists of monosyllabic English words was compared over the course of 6 trials. The curve for serial recall is linear, the curve for free recall is negatively accelerated. This difference results from the fact that fewer new words are learned on each successive trial when recall is free, while an approximately constant number are learned when recall is serial. Free recall was not found to depend in any way on whether the words to be learned were scrambled before every trial or were presented in the same order on all trials. Thus contiguity does not appear to be an important variable. (19 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved)