Effects of phonological and tactual similarity on serial object recall by blind and sighted children.

Two experiments tested 30 blind and 60 sighted children on serial recall of easily named objects, differing (1) in name sound and tactual characteristics; (2) in name sound, but similar in feel; and (3) in feel, but similar in name sound. Significant recall decrements were found for tactually similar relative to dissimilar series for both blind, and sighted subjects able to cope with set-sizes of up to 5 items, but not for subjects under a set-size of 6. Blind and sighted children tested under set-sizes of 4 and 5 or 6 items showed recall decrements for phonologically similar compared to dissimilar lists, but subjects under a set-size of 2 or 3 did not. It was argued that the results demonstrate both tactual and phonological encoding of tactually presented material by children.