The development of constancies in sequential organization during repeated free recall

A modified form of Tulving's method was used for appraising the development of subjectively determined sequential organization in free recall. Multiple randomizations were prepared for 10 stimulus words which were unrelated in the sense of lacking interitem associative strength according to free associational norms. Free recall was obtained after each presentation of the words. The unit of organization was the intertrial repetition which occurred whenever a pair of items recalled consecutively on trial n was repeated on trial n + 1. A formula was proposed for estimating the number of these units expected by chance. A monotonic increase in organization was found as the words were learned to the criterion of five consecutive errorless recalls.