Verbal-discrimination learning: Familiarization of common and uncommon words.

Conducted a verbal-discrimination (VD) study with 96 undergraduates. VD acquisition of 30 pairs of high-frequency (H) or low-frequency (L) English words was compared following 1, 3, or 9 relevant (R) or irrelevant (I) familiarization exposures. L lists were learned more quickly than H lists. Performance was poorer in H-R than H-I, but L-R and L-I did not differ significantly. Results suggest that R familiarization training for L lists stabilized encoding of items and thus offset detrimental effects of accrued frequency. Free recall following VD learning showed different patterns of variable effects than VD acquisition; learning which permitted recall of items did not facilitate VD performance. (French summary) (19 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Verbalization effects in discrimination learning of pictures and words.

Compared discrimination learning of pairs of pictures (line drawings) and their verbal labels as a function of various verbalization conditions in a study with 128 undergraduates. Ss either (a) verbalized each item of a pair once (condition C1) or twice (condition C2), (b) verbalized the right item 3 times and the wrong item once (condition R), or (c) verbalized the right item once and the wrong item 3 times (condition W). The R and W conditions affected discrimination learning of both pictures and words in a way predictable from frequency theory, but pictures were easier to discriminate than words in conditions C1, R, and W. It is suggested that the results reflect the joint operation of verbal frequency and visual encoding processes in picture discrimination. (French summary) (17 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Intrapair imagery effects in verbal discrimination and incidental associative learning.

Administered 4 study-test trials to 80 17-38 yr. Old students on a verbal discrimination learning (vdl) task where the items varied in imagery (i) value. Ss were then tested for incidental associative learning. The 32-pair mixed list consisted of 8 pairs of high-i and 8 pairs of low-i nouns, and 16 pairs in which 1 item was high-i and the other low-i. For 1/2 of the latter pairs the high-i word was correct. Significantly more errors occurred during vdl with homogeneous low-i pairs than with the other 3 pair types, which did not differ reliably from each other. Incidental associative learning was highest for homogeneous high-i pairs, and stimulus i was more effective than response i when the stimuli had been wrong but not when they had been right during prior vdl. The latter condition was characterized particularly by sharply depressed performance on high-i-low-i pairs. The vdl results are discussed in terms of imagery and frequency hypotheses, and the associative memory data in terms of the effects of the experimental conditions on the amount of attention devoted to 1 or both members during vdl. (french summary) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Associative strength and word frequency as related to stages of paired-associate learning.

Conducted a study with 240 undergraduates to examine the contribution of response-word frequency and associative strength of paired-associates (PA) on the 2 stages of PA learning. 2 levels of word frequency and 2 associative strength levels were used to form 4 PA lists. 4 study-test trials were provided, with separate groups being given matching or free-recall test trials on either the 2nd, 3rd, or 4th trials, and a conventional PA test on all other trials. Overall PA learning revealed the influence of both variables. Associative strength played a significant role on both the matching and free-recall tests; word frequency, however, did not. Matching trials revealed superior learning to that obtained by free-recall. Results suggest the need for some revision of the 2-stage analysis of PA learning. (French summary) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Encoding processes and memory for categorically related words by schizophrenic patients.

Hypothesized that schizophrenics display a deficit in recall relative to recognition (as well as other memory deficits) because they encode the conceptual attributes of to-be-remembered items less frequently than normals. An experimental procedure consisting of 2 phases, incidental learning and long-term retention, was used to test 30 schizophrenics and 26 normal adults. During incidental learning, Ss were presented with 36 short word lists. After each, they recalled a single word that was detectable (i.e., encoded) on the basis of its conceptual category. Two variables were manipulated orthogonally: the probability that items were encoded conceptually and the number of times items were presented. Long-term retention of all items presented during incidental learning was tested in free-recall, category cued recall, and recognition tests, administered in that order. Results show an overriding similarity of schizophrenics to normals in patterns of response to the major variables, providing no support for the hypothesis. Data are consistent, however, with the hypothesis that schizophrenics encode items less elaborately than normals do. (26 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Verbal-discrimination learning: Varied familiarization on correct and incorrect items.

80 Ss in 4 groups were given 12 trials on a 30-pair verbal-discrimination (VD) list of very low-frequency words. The groups received different familiarization training prior to the VD task. Differential familiarization, given on correct and incorrect items, was initially beneficial, but more so when the correct item received the greater familiarization. More familiarization of incorrect than correct items resulted in a slower rate of improvement across trials than occurred when equal familiarization was given on correct and incorrect items, or when Ss received irrelevant familiarization. Equal familiarization of correct and incorrect items led to faster VD acquisition than irrelevant familiarization. (French summary) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Differential roles of frequency and meaningfulness in free recall.

Performed 2 experiments with 91 experimentally naive high school students to study the comparative influence of frequency and meaningfulness (m) on free recall. In Exp. I, the free-recall scores of 3 lists of words matched for m but varying in frequency levels were compared. In Exp. II, free recall of 3 lists of words matched for their frequency but varying in their m values were compared. Findings reveal that it is the frequency and not m of the words that influences free-recall, and that the influence of frequency is noticeable in the early trials of free-recall learning. Findings are discussed in terms of the existing theories of verbal learning. (French summary) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cued recall and free recall as a function of the number of items per cue.

Tested the generality of M. Earhard's (see record 1967-13073-001) findings that (a) the number of items/cue determines the rate of cued-recall learning, and (b) free-recall Ss perform as well as cued Ss under the conditions of 6 or 8 items/cue. Categorized materials consisting of English nouns were given to a total of 135 undergraduates in 2 free-recall and 7 cued-recall conditions. Differences were obtained between cued-recall Ss who had 6 or less and 8 or more items/cue. Free-recall Ss performed as well as 6.6 items/cue, which exactly replicates Earhard's result with alphabetized word lists. (French summary) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Is retrievability grouping good for recall?

Most theories suppose that during unconstrained retrieval easy-to-retrieve items will be accessed before hard-to-retrieve items. Recent free-recall studies have supported a different access order, the cognitive triage pattern, in which hard-to-retrieve items are accessed first. The present experiments demonstrated that this pattern enhances total recall. In Exps 1–3, clustering type measures of goodness of triage (grouping output according to items' levels of retrievability) predicted total recall in children and adults. In Exps 4 and 5, goodness-of-triage measures predicted total recall when they were derived from on-line information about retrievability (error–success histories), but not when they were derived from normative information about retrievability (frequency and meaningfulness ratings). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Interference effects in young children's long-term retention.

Classical interference effects were examined in preschool and kindergarten children's paired-associate recall (Experiment 1) and free recall (Experiment 2). Children in the control conditions learned a single picture list, whereas children in the experimental conditions learned 2 picture lists in succession. After 24 hr, children recalled items from the one list they had learned (control conditions), items from only List 1 (retroactive interference conditions), or items from both lists (modified free-recall conditions). Analyses based on the trace-integrity framework indicated that (a) children were susceptible to interference, (b) the locus of interference effects was at storage, (c) both younger (preschool) and older (kindergarten) children experienced similar amounts of interference, and (d) variations in trace strength generally did not modulate the magnitude of interference effects. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Serial organization and prior free recall.

Assessed serial recall and organization of a list after different levels of prior free-recall learning with the same list. Performance was expected to be impaired as a direct function of amount of free recall because of inappropriate organizational units formed during free recall. Recall on serial trials following 15 free-recall trials was inferior to 5 or 10 prior free-recall trials. 4 groups of 24 Ss each were tested. Serial organization on the 1st serial trial was inferior if prior free recall occurred, but did not vary with the amount of free recall. These results, and those of part-whole and whole-part free-recall transfer studies, were interpreted by a component analysis of free recall, including response learning/unlearning and organizational learning/unlearning. (16 ref.) (French summary) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effect of hypnotic time distortion upon free-recall learning.

Attempted, by using hypnosis to modify the perception of the passage of clock time, to alter the amount of effective time available to Ss for free-recall learning. 80 undergraduate and graduate students served as Ss, in 8 experimental groups of 10 each. It was hypothesized that if effective time is manipulated successfully by hypnotic instructions designed to produce time distortion, Ss receiving instructions designed to stretch 3 min into 10 should perform as well in a free-recall learning task as Ss allotted 10 min of nominal time and better than Ss allotted 3 min of nominal time for the task. This was found to be the case. Results are compared to those of previous studies, and limitations of the investigation are mentioned. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The influence of agenda-based and habitual processes on item selection during study.

Research on study-time allocation has largely focused on agenda-based regulation, such as whether learners select items for study that are in their region of proximal learning. In 4 experiments, the authors evaluated the contribution of habitual responding to study-time allocation (e.g., reading from left to right). In Experiments 1 and 2, participants selected items for study from a 3-item array. In Experiment 1, pairs were ordered by learning ease from left to right or in the reverse order. In Experiment 2, pairs were in a column with the easiest item either in the top or bottom position. Participants more likely chose to study the easiest item first when it was presented in the prominent position of an array, but when the difficult item was in the prominent position, it was more often chosen first for study. In Experiment 3, a 3 × 3 array was used. In 1 group, the 3 easy items were in the left column and the 3 difficult ones were in the right column; in another group, these columns were reversed. Participants largely chose items in a top-down or left-to-right order. In Experiment 4, items were presented sequentially for item selection, with either the difficult items presented first (followed by progressively easier items) or in the reverse order. Participants could choose half the items for restudy, and they were more likely to choose items presented earlier in the list, regardless of presentation order. These and other outcomes indicate that both agenda-based regulation (in terms of using the region of proximal learning) and habitual responding contribute to people's selection of items for study. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Drawing construction as a strategy for learning from text.

Classroom use of student-generated drawings has been encouraged for a number of purposes (e.g., R. Hubbard & K. Ernst, 1996). The present study examined the use of drawing as a learning strategy for 5th- and 6th-grade students reading science text. Three experimental drawing conditions and a reading control tested the hypothesis that drawing is effective only when students are supported during the construction process. Drawing (draw) participants constructed drawings only, whereas illustration comparison participants compared drawings with a provided illustration. Prompted illustration comparison (PIC) participants answered prompting questions to guide this comparison process. Dependent measures included a free-recall and recognition posttest, drawing accuracy, on-line self-monitoring behaviors, and time on task. PIC participants constructed the most accurate drawings and also scored significantly higher on the free-recall posttest. No differences were found on recognition posttest items. Although all drawing conditions spent significantly more time on task, these participants also engaged in significantly more self-monitoring events than did reading control participants. PIC participants also engaged in more events than did draw participants. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Coproduction of Regan isoenzyme and carcinoembryonic antigen in HCT-8 cells

Five groups of adult Ss were submitted to free-recall learning of 24 objects presented as written nouns for the control group and as pictures for experimental groups, as follows: schematic black and white, schematic colored, detailed black and white, and detailed colored drawings. Pictures were better recalled than nouns. Recall was significantly inferior for schematic black and white than for detailed colored drawings, with schematic colored and detailed black and white drawings at an intermediate level. These results support the so-called incidental-cues hypothesis according to which the best recall of pictures in comparison with that of nouns is partially the result of pictures having more distinctive cues likely to be encoded than do verbal items.     

Unmixing effects of spacing on free recall.

In 3 unmixed-list free-recall experiments, total recall was as high for lists that contained massed repetitions as for those containing spaced repetitions. This finding and differences between spaced and massed lists in the pattern of recall (notably serial position differences) indicate that displaced rehearsal (review of earlier list items) was more prevalent during study of the massed lists. These results imply that displaced rehearsal has a large role in producing the free-recall advantage typically observed for spaced compared with massed items in mixed lists and that unmixed-list designs generally are to be preferred for spacing experiments. They also imply that intentional free-recall experiments are not instructive concerning effects of spaced vs massed study, because rehearsal strategies for free recall result in the spaced study of massed items. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Generalization hypothesis of abstract-concept learning: Learning strategies and related issues in Macaca mulatta, Cebus apella, and Columba livia.

The generalization hypothesis of abstract-concept learning was tested with a meta-analysis of rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta), capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella), and pigeons (Columba livia) learning a same/different (S/D) task with expanding training sets. The generalization hypothesis states that as the number of training items increases, generalization from the training pairs will increase and could explain the subjects' accurate novel-stimulus transfer. By contrast, concept learning is learning the relationship between each pair of items; with more training items subjects learn more exemplars of the rule and transfer better. Having to learn the stimulus pairs (the generalization hypothesis) would require more training as the set size increases, whereas learning the concept might require less training because subjects would be learning an abstract rule. The results strongly support concept or rule learning despite severely relaxing the generalization-hypothesis parameters. Thus, generalization was not a factor in the transfer from these experiments, adding to the evidence that these subjects were learning the S/D abstract concept. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Initial recall, reminiscence, and hypermnesia.

A survey of data from free-recall experiments reveals a simple relation between initial recall level and reminiscence (recall of new items on a 2nd test). The percentage of new items recalled on a 2nd test is an increasing linear function of the percentage of items recalled on the 1st test. This was shown for 3 independent data sets representing a wide range of experimental conditions. The analyses also identified picture–word differences in the relation between initial recall and reminiscence and hypermnesia (gain in total recalled over tests) as well as in correlations of initial recall, reminiscence, and intertest forgetting. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Treatment of osteomyelitis with antibiotic-soaked porous glass ceramic

We have developed a new drug delivery system using porous apatite-wollastonite glass ceramic (A-W GC) to treat osteomyelitis. A-W GC (porosity, 70% and 20% to 30%), or porous hydroxyapatite (HA) blocks (porosity 35% to 48%) used as controls, were soaked in mixtures of two antibiotics, isepamicin sulphate (ISP) and cefmetazole (CMZ) under high vacuum. We evaluated the release concentrations of the antibiotics from the blocks. The bactericidal concentration of ISP from A-W GC was maintained for more than 42 days, but that from HA decreased to below the detection limit after 28 days. The concentrations of CMZ from both materials were lower than those of ISP. An in vivo study using rabbit femora showed that an osseous concentration of ISP was maintained at eight weeks after implantation. Osteoconduction of the A-W GC block was good. Four patients with infected hip arthroplasties and one with osteomyelitis of the tibia have been treated with the new delivery system with excellent results.     

Effects of meaningfulness on child free-recall learning.

Investigated the effects of experience (age) and stimulus meaningfulness on free-recall learning. In Study 1, meaningfulness values, assessed via the production method, were obtained on 40 trigrams for 120 kindergarten, second- and 6th-grade children. Employing these norms in a subsequent free-recall learning study (Study 2), it was found that trials to criterion and grade level were positively related when meaningfulness was free to vary in the same list stimuli. However, trials-to-criterion differences were equivalent across grade levels when meaningfulness was held constant. Implications for child learning research and theory are discussed. (20 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)