Compared the effects of contextual constraint and list length on short-term recall of word lists by 24 chronic schizophrenics (aged 23–62 yrs) and 120 normal males (prison inmates and firemen). One subtest consisting of relatively short lists of low constraint and 1 subtest consisting of longer lists of high constraint were matched on mean, variance, and shape of the distribution of item difficulties, variance of subtest scores, shape of the distribution of subtest scores, and subtest reliability. These psychometrically matched subtests were used to compute a difference score of accuracy on low-constraint lists minus accuracy on high-constraint lists. On this difference score, schizophrenics scored lower than normals with the same total accuracy scores. The direction of this difference was opposite to that found in 4 previous studies of the effects of contextual constraint on recall by schizophrenics. It is concluded that the findings of the previous studies are probably artifacts of the use of unmatched tasks and that schizophrenic deficit in recall is not increased more by an increase in contextual constraint than by a shortening of word lists. In fact, the data suggest that precisely the opposite may be true. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved)