Comparisons of meaningfulness and pronunciability as grouping principles in the perception and retention of verbal material.

Abstract

Thresholds of visual perception and 2 measures of retention were obtained for trigrams varying in pronunciability and meaningfulness (semantic reference of the kind found in well-known initials), and for control items. The 3 types of trigrams contained the same letters rearranged anagram-wise. Perceptual thresholds were lowest for pronounceable items, and next lowest for meaningful ones. On the other hand retention, measured by both recognition and free recall, was best for the meaningful items and second best for pronounceable ones. Pronunciability was inferred to be the better grouping principle for reading or coding to speech units. Meaningfulness was inferred to have facilitated retention more than pronunciability by providing a category for grouping the initial items, thus aiding retrieval. (16 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved)