The blocked-random effect in pictures and words

Picture and word recall was examined in conjunction with list organization. 60 subjects studied a list of 30 items, either words or their pictorial equivalents. The 30 words/pictures, members of five conceptual categories, each represented by six exemplars, were presented either blocked by category or in a random order. While pictures were recalled better than words and a standard blocked-random effect was observed, the interaction indicated that the recall advantage of a blocked presentation was restricted to the word lists. A similar pattern emerged for clustering. These findings are discussed in terms of limitations upon the pictorial superiority effect.