Why hierarchical retrieval schemes do not facilitate recall: A cue overload explanation

Compared recall using single- vs dual-level retrieval schemes and predicted that the dual-level (hierarchial) scheme would be used more. 30 college students were induced to encode 128 words using either a single-level organizational scheme consisting of 32 categories, or a multilevel organizational scheme consisting of 8 superordinate categories each divisible into 4 subordinate categories. Subsequent recall was quite high and did not differ in …