Sex effects on free recall of transforming orally and visually presented nouns into printed, picture, or imagery form.

Two experiments using male and female college students studied the effects on free recall of transforming auditory and visual stimuli by imagination or penciling. Experiment 1 (N = 152) presented nouns either auditorily by a tape recorder or visually as printed words, and Ss either drew them as pictures or printed them as words. Significantly more items were recalled as a result of drawing pictures during the presentation of stimuli (p less than .001). Female Ss recalled significantly more items than male Ss (p less than .01). There was no significant difference found between auditory or visual presentation. The procedure in Experiment 2 (N = 112) was similar, except that Ss transformed the nouns by imagination or penciling. Results were similar to those of Experiment 1. There was no significant difference between imagery and penciling.