The category access measure of relational processing

Increases in category access (CA) and items recalled per category (IPC) are associated with increases in relational and item-specific processing, respectively. However, it has also been shown that CA increases as recall level increases and that CA scores following relational processing are actually below CA scores for randomly recalled items. These results prompted M. D. Murphy (1979) to suggest that, after adjusting for recall-level differences, relational processing decreases CA scores. Results of Experiment 1, along with a reanalysis of previously published data, showed that relational processing produces lower CA scores than purely item-specific processing (or random recall), but an increase in relational processing produces an increase in CA scores even when the CA and IPC scores are adjusted for recall-level differences. These results suggest a curvilinear relationship between relational processing and CA scores.