Does the Number of Categories Perceived or the Number Rehearsed Affect Recall.

摘要

Subjects were required to tally mentally the frequency of occurrence of a set of letters sequentially presented. In one condition, four different letters were presented repeatedly in a haphazard sequence and were tallied into four groups or categories. In the second, or combination condition, the identical four letters were tallied into only two categories. In the third condition, only two distinct letters were tallied into two categories. The poorest performance was observed with the use of four categories, while subjects in both two-category conditions performed nearly identically. The results were discussed in terms of imaginal processes involved in keeping track tasks and were compared with those found in memory organization tasks. (Author)