3 experiments involving category clustering in lists composed of highfrequency (HF) and low-frequency (LF) associates of the category names are reported, (a) Block presentation augments clustering in both lists and augments word recall in HF but not in LF lists, (b) Word recall and clustering are higher in HF lists than in LF lists, (c) Duration of item-presentation interval augments both clustering and word recall within limits, (d) An immediate recall augments or maintains clustering and word recall on a second recall, obtained after a short delay, (e) It is concluded that a coding hypothesis cannot do justice to all the findings. Associations between the category names and their instances or among the instances themselves are suggested as supplemental or alternative mechanisms.
When adults are asked to report and date personal memories of their pasts, they show childhood amnesia, that is, diminished recall of experiences over the childhood years. This way of demonstrating the phenomenon was supplemented in the present study with a more direct approach: Participants reported events of early childhood that they knew they had experienced (because of family stories, photographs, etc.) but did not actually remember. The resulting cumulative relative frequency distributions produced by the two methods were substantially different, with the median age of remembered events being 6.07 years and of known events, 3.20 years. We suggest that the mean of these two ages, 4.64 years, gives a good indication of when childhood amnesia is eclipsed by personal memories in adults' recall of their personal pasts.
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