STRONG ITEMS GET SUPPRESSED, WEAK ITEMS DO NOT - THE ROLE OF ITEM STRENGTH IN OUTPUT INTERFERENCE

An experiment is reported that examines the role of item strength in o utput interference. Subjects studied two types of categorized item lis ts: lists in which each category consisted of strong and moderate item s, and lists in which each category consisted of weak and moderate ite ms. Different degrees of item strength were accomplished by varying th e items' taxonomic frequency within a category. The subjects either re called a category's strong and weak items before its moderate items, o r vice versa. The prior recall of the moderate items impaired the late r recall of the strong items, but did not impair the later recall of t he weak items. This effect of item strength indicates that output inte rference is caused by a process of retrieval suppression. It additiona lly suggests that, in order to minimize output-interference effects in recall, a list's strong items should be recalled before its weak item s.