Abstract
Nineteen undergraduates individually learned a list containing 30 words subdivided in two distinct categories (birds and cities). Triads of respective 15 words within the categories were visually presented against the one of two background colors (BGCs), which were presented in a random order. After 30-sec filled retention interval, the participants were presented one of the BGCs shown at encoding, and then orally free recalled the words. There was no significant difference in recall between the condition in which the color presented at study and test was the same and that in which the colors at study and test were different. The ARC score was calculated to analyze the clustering by screens and BGCs. The clustering by colors was significant but not for the clustering by screens. The present results suggest that semantic relationship among words suppressed BGC context-dependent recall and enhanced clustering by colors but not that by screens.
