Establishing Validity of Anagram Verbalization

Underwood's (1965) false recognition procedure was adapted to validate the method of anagram verbalization. Overt anagram verbalizations collected from 10 Ss during an earlier study were presented with varying frequency as sound stimuli to a second sample, after the same anagrams were attempted covertly. Following the stimulus list, the second sample of Ss ( N = 29) estimated the number of times each sound had been read. Frequency judgments of sounds which had occurred commonly among Ss in the previous study were significantly greater than judgments of sounds occurring only once in the first sample. It is concluded that sounds which appeared frequently on an overt basis also occurred covertly, inflating subsequent estimates of list occurrence. The findings are interpreted as validating the method of anagram verbalization.