Organizing factors in the comprehension and recall of connected discourse

This experiment is based on the theory that, in reading, one uses cues in order to activate an organizing system as an aid in reading the material. The variables introduced into the experiment include (1) the form of oragnization (meaningful, scrambled, and pseudo) and (2) the choice of material (descriptive, abstract, and technical). Having read a paragraph, subjects read a list of words including some from the paragraph and some not and were asked to check those words that they remembered as belonging to the paragraph. Accuracy is highest when subjects have been most successful in activating an appropriate organizing system.