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The results of four experiments show that (a) recall superiority over recognition is reversed by the use of unrelated word pairs in the study list, and (b) the reversal of recall superiority leaves intact the phenomenon of recognition failure of recallable words. These results extend the generality of encoding specificity and suggest that although recall superiority is a sufficient condition for recognition failure of recallable words it is not a necessary condition.

Data are presented from 12 different previously published experiments to demonstrate a systematic relation between recognition of all studied list words and recognition failure of recallable words. This relation appears to be independent of many specific procedural details of the experiments analyzed. The data support the statement that recognition failure of recallable words appears to be a general phenomenon that, as far as is known, always occurs whenever recognition is imperfect.

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