Stimulus selection by the retarded: list length and response requirement

Institutionalized retardates learned paired associates of redundant trigrams and double digits (e.g., DLZ/10) and were given a transfer test to measure their stimulus selection. List length (four or six items) and response requirement (recall or recognition) were both manipulated during learning. The finding of most interest was that the retardates became more efficient at cue selection as the amount of information increased. This finding suggests that, at least to some extent, these retarded persons actively tended to choose a stimulus-processing strategy that puts a low load on memory as the overall memory requirements of the paired-associate task were increased.