PATTERNS IN THE RECALL OF PERSONS IN A STUDENT COMMUNITY

This paper reports on the patterns in the recall of persons in a conte mporary, socially bounded community. The associative, serial order, an d frequency response patterns in the free recall of persons' names amo ng students in a graduate academic program were found to be based on t he program's cohort structure. Several observations on patterns in the recall of persons' names in this community paralleled findings from r esearch on the recall of lexical items. The results suggested that ind ividual informants' different positions in the cohort structure produc ed systematic variation in social knowledge of fellow students.