Coordinate Organization: The Holistic Representation of Word Pairs

The proposition that the preferred mode of representing and storing word pairs is in a coordinate, holistic fashion was explored in free recall, cued recall, and recognition tests. Subjects were given randomly paired nouns and tested for free recall of whole pairs, cued recall of one member of a pair given the other member, and recognition of old and new pairs and single items. All three tests indicated that the originally presented pairs had been stored as coordinate, holistic units. The major part of free recall was of intact pairs, and additional analyses indicated that retrieval of one member of the pair implicates the retrieval of the intact pair. Recognition of old pairs also involves more than the recognition of their component members. The data are related to other results with the paired associate paradigm and to a more general view of different structures that may be used in the storage and retrieval of syntactically unrelated memory units.