Stress grouping improves performance on an immediate serial list recall task

Five experiments investigated whether perceptual patterning afforded by imp osing a recurrent stress pattern on auditorially presented fists has a posi tive effect on list recall. The experiments also addressed whether the reca ll advantage reflected the salience that the stress pattern created for cer tain items or whether the recall advantage arose from the distinct grouping configurations that were produced by the stress pattern. The authors explo red these issues by examining immediate serial-recall performance for spoke n lists that either did or did not have a stress pattern imposed on them. L ists had an anapest or dactylic stress pattern or were monotone and consist ed of two stimulus types, either digit names or common English nouns. Resul ts showed that stress patterns enhanced serial-recall performance and that the recall benefit derived primarily from the perceptual grouping afforded by the stress patterns. Results also showed that the grouping benefit deriv ed from stress patterning generalizes to monotone lists. In contrast, salie nce effects are attached to the stimulus per se and do not transfer.