Spelling skill and the effectiveness of rhyme and semantic hints to anagram solutions

Sangerman, Cynthia J. (1998) Spelling skill and the effectiveness of rhyme and semantic hints to anagram solutions. Masters thesis, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

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Abstract

The present experiment was designed to investigate anagram solution as a function of spelling ability and type of hint. Forty-eight university undergraduates~ identified as good or poor spellers, were presented with anagrams until 15 were missed. Subjects then memorized a list of words for immediate recall in serial order. Words in the memory list were related phonetically and orthographically, semantically~ or were unrelated to the previously missed anagrams. Following the serial recall task, subjects were presented again with those anagrams previously missed. An interaction was predicted to occur between spelling ability and type of hint when solving anagrams. Rh)me hints were expected to facilitate anagram solving in good spellers, but not in poor spellers. The only significant finding was that good spellers solved more anagrams than did poor spellers. Both types of hints (rhyme and semantic) were ineffective and no interaction was found between spelling ability and type of hint. A possibility of serial order difficulty is discussed.

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