Two more incidental tasks that differentially affect associative clustering in recall.

Abstract

Presented a word list comprised of pairs of highly associated words in the same random order to 5 groups of undergraduates (N = 158). Groups 1 and 2 were told to write a rhyming word, Groups 3 and 4 wrote appropriate modifiers or nouns, and Group 5 (control) simply "took dictation." Groups 2, 4, and 5 were prewarned of the recall task, while Groups 1 and 3 were not. All groups were required to recall the stimulus words immediately after the list presentation. Both associative clustering and amount of recall were significantly greater for Groups 3, 4, and 5 than for either rhyming group. It is concluded that the rhyming task inhibited the assignment of meaning to words by Ss, thereby reducing the amount of clustering and recall. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved)