Stimulus Recognition And Response Recall Dependency In Paired Associate Learning

Author : Peggy Anne Runquist
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.:/5 (144 download)

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Download or read book Organizational Factors in Paired-associate Learning written by Peggy Anne Runquist and published by . This book was released on 1971 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This experiment investigated two aspects of response-term grouping in paired-associate learning: (1) the nature of the relationship among the responses that are grouped together, and (2) the effect of this grouping on acquisition performance. Eight groups of 24 Ss learned two 12-item categorized paired- associate lists to a criterion of 12/12 correct on a single trial. After a 2-min. interval filled with arithmetic problems, Ss were given two 1.5-min. free recall tests in which they were asked to recall as many of the response terms as possible. A cued-recall test for the stimulus terms followed immediately. A ninth group learned only the second list, then followed the same recall procedure. For all conditions, the paired-associate lists consisted of three instances of four different conceptual categories as stimulus terms and 12 unrelated adjectives as response terms. In the transfer conditions, the stimuli in the two lists were either identical, different instances of the same conceptual categories, or instances of completely different conceptual categories. The response terms in the two lists were always identical but were re-paired in the second list either with stimuli from the same first-list category (within- category re-pairing), with stimuli from a different first-list category (between-category re-pairing) or with stimuli from three different first-list categories (across-category re-pairing). The three re-pairing schemes were designed to disrupt different types of relationships that could exist among the response terms that were grouped together during first-list learning and hence to affect the amount of grouping of the same responses in second-list learning. Within-category re-pairing was not expected to disrupt any associations among the responses; between-category re-pairing was expected to disrupt associations mediated by stimulus categories and associations mediated by specific stimuli; and across- category re-pairing to disrupt both types of mediated associations that might have developed among the response terms themselves. The results of the experiment showed an increase in second- list grouping only when response terms were re-paired with stimuli from the same conceptual categories as in the first list, regardless of whether the specific stimuli in the two lists consisted of the same or new instances of these categories. Such a result indicates the importance of specific category-mediated associations among the grouped responses. No evidence was found that the responses within a category became directly associated with one another. The second major finding was that grouping of the response terms into sets did not facilitate the acquisition of specific associations in the second list. It was suggested, however, that this failure to find facilitation may be a result of the potency of the category name as a mediator.