Semantic similarity and immediate serial recall: Is there a detrimental effect on order information?

Four experiments investigated the disruptive effect of semantic similarity on short-term ordered recall. Experiments 1 and 2 contrasted immediate seri al recall performance for lists of semantically similar items, drawn from t he same semantic category, with performance for lists that contained items from different categories. Experiments 1 and 2 showed the usual similarity advantage for item information recall, but, contrary to expectations, there was no similarity disadvantage for the recall of order information, even w hen the level of item recall was controlled. Experiments 3 and 4 replicate and extend these findings by using an order reconstruction task or a limite d word pool strategy both of which yield alternate measures of order retent ion. These findings clearly contradict the widespread belief stating that s emantic similarity hinders the short-term recall of order information. Resu lts are discussed in the light of a retrieval-based account where the effec ts of semantic similarity reflect the processes called upon at recall: It i s suggested that long-term knowledge is accessed to support the interpretat ion of degraded phonological traces.