Imagery versus meaningfulness of nouns in paired-associate learning.

Investigated effects of noun imagery (I) and meaningfulness (m) on paired-associate (PA) learning using 3 PA lists. In 1 list, I was varied on stimulus and response sides in a factorial design while m was held constant; in another, m was similarly varied while I was controlled; in the 3rd, I and m were covaried. 33 undergraduates served as Ss. 4 study-test trials with each list showed that I was alone had strong positive effects, more so on the stimulus than response side of pairs, whereas m alone showed negative effects attributable mainly to superior learning of low m-low m pairs. The covarying attributes had intermediate effects, suggesting again that the contribution of m was negative. Exp. II yielded insignificant effects for m when varied on stimulus and response sides using homogeneous lists. 68 Canadian Forces trainees served as Ss. The patterns of learning data and post learning reports of learning strategies are consistent with an interpretation of the effects of I in terms of mediating imagery. The negative effect of m suggests associative interference. (French summary) (22 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Incidental learning, noun imagery-concreteness and direction of associations in paired-associate learning.

Examined the effect of imagery-concreteness pairs in incidental learning. In Exp. I with 96 undergraduates, intentional learning was superior to incidental learning. Recall of concrete-concrete noun pairs was significantly better than recall of all other pairs, while concrete-abstract and abstract-concrete nouns did not differ from each other but did differ from abstract-abstract recall. In Exp. II with 64 Ss, instructions to use imagery during the orientation task resulted in similar performance for incidental and intentional learning Ss. Concreteness yielded a greater effect on the stimulus side than on the response side of pairs, particularly for stimulus-response recall. Associative directionality had no reliable effects in either experiment. Results are discussed in terms of A. Paivio's conceptual peg hypothesis and 2-process theory of verbal and imaginal memory. (French summary) (17 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effects of age in four alternative forced-choice item and associative recognition tasks.

Seventy-three young and 84 older adults were taught interactive imagery as a strategy for learning word pairs. In the control condition, participants viewed word pairs 1 at a time and formed an interactive image for each. In the experimental condition, participants first formed individual mental images for both the cue and the target and then formed an interactive image for the pair. Participants in both conditions then completed 4 alternative forced-choice item and associative recognition tasks that avoid influences of age differences in retrieval strategies such as recall-to-reject. Unlike findings with typical yes–no recognition tests, associative recognition was superior to item recognition in the control condition. This effect was attenuated in the experimental condition. Older adults had poorer recognition memory for both associative and item tests, with a larger age difference for recognizing new associations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Noun and adjective imagery and order in paired-associate learning by French and English subjects.

Varied rated noun imagery (I), rated adjective I, and noun-adjective order in a paired-associate (PA) learning task. 98 10th graders learned 2 PA lists, 1 with noun-adjective (N-A) pairs and 1 with adjective-noun (A-N) pairs. Within each list rated I of both nouns and adjectives was varied factorially. Both English- and French-speaking Ss learned the lists in their own languages. Results support the predictions from an hypothesis based on mediating imagery. N-A recall was superior to A-N recall for all combinations of word I, except when nouns were low and adjectives high in I. In the latter case, A-N recall was higher. This pattern was the same for both English- and French-speaking Ss. Results are interpreted as further evidence of the important role played by imagery in verbal learning. (French summary) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Associative learning of abstract and concrete nouns and their subject-drawn pictorial representations.

Conducted 2 experiments to examine undergraduates' associative learning and pictorial representations of 48 concrete and 48 abstract noun pairs. In Exp. I, 24 Ss drew their own pictures of each noun. In Exp. II, another 24 Ss chose S-drawings that best represented their subjective meaning of the word referents. These Ss also received pretraining in labelling the S-drawings. Results from both experiments show that recall of noun pairs was superior to recall of S-drawn picture pairs. These findings conflict with the literature on picture and word paired-associate learning. In addition, concreteness of items facilitated recall. In Exp. I, concrete S-drawings were significantly better retrieval cues than abstract S-drawings. Results are discussed in terms of Pavio's theory of verbal and imagery processes of memory. (French summary) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Elaborative interrogation facilitates acquisition of confusing facts.

Evaluated the potency of an elaborative procedure (elaborative interrogation) for fact learning. In particular, we compared it to another elaborative method (constructing imaginal representations) that is usually effective in mediating associative learning. Thus in 4 experiments, adults were presented sets of facts. The 1st 2 experiments involved sentences containing arbitrary information, essentially random pairings of subjects and predicates; the latter 2 experiments involved materials representing real-world associations, ones not known by Ss before the study, but ones that Ss might be able to rationalize on the basis of prior knowledge. In each of the experiments, Ss in the elaborative-interrogation condition constructed a reason why each fact made sense; Ss in the imagery condition constructed an internal imaginal representation of each facts; and reading-control Ss read the facts under an instruction to make certain that they understood each fact. Memory of the facts was consistently much better in the elaborative-interrogation and imagery conditions than in the reading-control condition; there were no reliable performance differences between the elaborative-interrogation and imagery conditions. Elaborative interrogation seems to be a powerful learning procedure that is generally useful during fact learning. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Bizarre imagery: The misremembered mnemonic.

Conducted 2 experiments with 56 undergraduates to measure the effects of bizarre imagery and image interaction on the brief and long-term memory of word pairs. Ss in Exp I performed an incidental learning task and were administered free- and cued-recall tests either 5 min or 1 wk after the task. Ss in Exp II received more intensive training in the learning task and completed 2 cued-recall tests in the same session and another cued-recall test 1 wk later. In both experiments, bizarre imagery did not improve memory more than plausible, interactive imagery. The degree of interaction in the image was a strong determinant of cued-recall performance at both retention intervals. Most Ss in Exp II believed that they had remembered more bizarre than plausible pairs, even though this was clearly not the case. Possible reasons for the acceptance of the notion that bizarre imagery improves memory are discussed. (23 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A reexamination of the role of imagery in learning and memory.

Five experiments were conducted to examine whether the superior recall of concrete over abstract words might be better accounted for in terms of relative differences in the processing of relational and distinctive information rather than redundant verbal and imaginal memory codes. Concrete and abstract word pairs were presented in the standard paired-associated learning task or under conditions intended to affect the nature and extent of relational processing between pair members. Concreteness effects were attenuated or eliminated when relational processing was prevented at encoding (Experiments 3, 4, and 5) or when the use of encoded relations within pairs was prevented at recall (Experiments 1, 2, and 3). The results indicated the viability of an account of concreteness effects in paired-associate learning based on the joint functions of distinctive and relational information. They also remove theoretical constraints imposed on imagery theories by the incorrect assumption of a uniform presence of concreteness effects in memory for word lists. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mediation and associative facilitation in neurotic, psychotic, and normal subjects.

The present investigation is a replication of previous work (see 30: 555; 27: 4925) utilizing Veterans Administration medical and psychiatric patients instead of college Ss. The previous findings indicated that associative relationship facilitates verbal learning. Ss learned 2 sets of syllable-word paired associates; ? of the pairs on the 2nd list had response terms which were associates of their responses to words on the 1st list. Although the responses of all Ss showed the effects of associative facilitation, this was more true for nonpsychotics. The results are discussed in terms of understanding the thinking of schizophrenics. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Pupillary dilation and mediation processes during paired-associate learning.

Describes 2 experiments with 54 undergraduates in which pupillary activity was continuously photographed during mediator-formation and paired-associate (PA) learning tasks involving nouns as items. Abstractness-concreteness of the nouns and mediation instructions (imagery, verbal, or none) were varied. The magnitude and latency of pupillary dilation as well as task performance were measured. The PA recall data confirm previous findings in showing strong positive effects of concreteness, especially as a stimulus variable. Learning was generally best under the imagery mediation set, its superiority over the verbal mediation condition being greatest in the case of pairs with abstract stimulus members. Pupil size during learning was largest when no mediation instructions were given and when stimulus members were abstract, supporting an interpretation of pupillary dilation as an index of cognitive task difficulty. (French summary) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Noun imagery and frequency in paired-associate and free-recall learning.

Investigates the effects of rated imagery (I) and Thorndike-Lorge frequency (F) of nouns in paired-associate (PA) and free-recall (FR) learning. In the PA task, I and F were factorially varied on the stimulus and response sides of 16-pair mixed lists. Ss (77 male high school graduates) had 4 PA study and recall trials with each of 2 such lists. In agreement with previous findings, I was strongly related to learning, more so on the stimulus than on the response side of pairs. Weaker effects of F were positive on the response side but negative on the stimulus side under certain combinations of stimulus and response I revealed by interaction effects. The FR task involved factorial variation of I and F in 32-item lists. 52 undergraduates were presented 10 trials with 2 such lists. Recall was consistently better for high-I than for low-I nouns. Frequency had a consistent positive effect when the nouns were high in I, but its effect was negative on early trials when the nouns were abstract. I and F therefore were clearly differentiated empirically in both tasks. Findings are discussed in terms of such factors as stimulus-evoked mediating imagery and response availability. (French summary) (21 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

What is learned from artificial grammars? Transfer tests of simple association.

Ss were trained on letter pairs or letter strings in an artificial grammar learning paradigm to determine the extent to which implicit learning is driven by simple associative knowledge. Learning on strings resulted in sensitivity to violations of grammaticality and in transfer to a changed letter set. Learning on letter pairs resulted in less sensitivity and no transfer. Discrepancies in performance were later reduced, but not eliminated, by equating the task demands of the conditions during learning. A direct test of associative knowledge showed that training on letter pairs resulted in knowledge of legal bigrams, but this knowledge was only weakly related to violation sensitivity. The experiments demonstrate that knowledge of isolated associations is sufficient to support some learning, but this knowledge cannot explain the more abstract knowledge that results from learning on complete exemplars. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Human sequence learning under incidental and intentional conditions.

This research explored the role that dissociable associative learning and hypothesis-testing processes may play in human sequence learning. Two 2-choice serial reaction time (SRT) tasks were conducted, 1 under incidental conditions and the other under intentional conditions. In both cases an experimental group was trained on 4 subsequences (i.e., XXX, XYY, YYX, and YXY). To control for sequential effects, sequence learning was assayed by comparing their performance to a control group that had been trained on a pseudorandom ordering, during a test phase in which both groups experienced effectively the same trial order. Under incidental conditions participants demonstrated learning of the subsequences that ended in an alternation, but not of those that ended in a repetition. In contrast, under intentional conditions XXX showed the greatest evidence of learning. This dissociation is explained using a 2-process model of learning, with an associative process (the augmented simple recurrent network [SRN]) capturing the incidental pattern, and a rule-based process explaining the advantage for XXX under intentional conditions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Spatial association learning by rufous hummingbirds (Selasphorus rufus): Effects of relative spacing among stimuli.

Gestalt theory predicts that when cues are spatially separated from response locations, associative learning is faster when distance between cue–response location pairs is increased. This prediction was tested with 20 rufous hummingbirds that learned to select rewarding feeders signaled by a spatially separated light cue in 4 treatments in which distance between cues and feeders and between cue–feeder pairs was varied. As has been shown for other animals, the hummingbirds learned more slowly when the distance between cues and feeder was increased, and as predicted by Gestalt theory, they learned faster at a given distance when distance between cue–feeder pairs was increased. This result suggests that spatial association is influenced by the proximity of other stimuli in the visual field. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Aging and deficits in associative memory: what is the role of strategy production?

A new method was developed to investigate the degree to which age differences in strategy production mediate age differences in paired-associate recall. Participants were instructed to use imagery or any strategy and were to report the strategy produced for each item. Age similarities in reported strategy production were found for related (Experiment 1) and unrelated (Experiment 2) word pairs: Both age groups (a) reported using effective mediators (imagery and sentence generation) more often than using no mediators and (b) complied with instructions to use imagery. Although individual differences in strategy production were related to differences in recall performance, differential strategy production accounted for little of the age differences evident in associative memory.     

Repetition versus imagery instructions in the immediate- and delayed-retention of picture and word paired-associates.

22 undergraduates learned 2 paired-associate lists each consisting of 18 picture pairs and 18 word pairs. 1/2 of the items in each list were studied by repetition, the remainder by imagery. Recall improved from List 1 to List 2 on the immediate test but there was no difference in lists on retest 1 wk. later. On both immediate and delayed tests picture pairs were recalled better than word pairs and imagery study proved superior to repetition study. Informing Ss of their study method for each stimulus at time of recall did not affect performance. Results lend further support to the superiority of pictorial memory over verbal memory and provide evidence supporting an hypothesis that imagery study is a more efficient learning strategy than is repetition study. (French summary) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Associative History Affects the Associative Change Undergone by Both Presented and Absent Cues in Human Causal Learning.

R. A. Rescorla (2000) noted that a number of influential theories of associative learning do not take the associative history of cues (i.e., the prior training that they have received) into account when calculating the associative change undergone by those cues. The authors tested this assumption in a human causal learning paradigm and found associative history to be an important determinant of the learning undergone by cues that are presented on a trial. Moreover, associative history was also found to influence the amount of retrospective revaluation undergone by absent cues. These findings conflict with models of causal learning in which the associative change undergone by an element of a cue compound is governed by a summed error term (e.g., R. A. Rescorla & A. R. Wagner, 1972). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

When Does Feedback Facilitate Learning of Words?

Some researchers have suggested that although feedback may enhance performance during associative learning, it does so at the expense of later retention. To examine this issue, subjects (N = 258) learned Luganda-English word pairs. After 2 initial exposures to the materials, subjects were tested on each item several times, with the presence and type of feedback varying between subjects. A final test followed after 1 week. Supplying the correct answer after an incorrect response not only improved performance during the initial learning session--it also increased final retention by 494%. On the other hand, feedback after correct responses made little difference either immediately or at a delay, regardless of whether the subject was confident in the response. Practical and theoretical implications are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Associative recognition of face pairs by younger and older adults: The role of familiarity-based processing.

Previous research suggested that older adults have a specific impairment in remembering verbal associative information, but it is unclear how elaboration and familiarity might influence this deficit in situations that involve perceptual processing. In the present experiments, younger and older participants studied male-female pairs of faces. Participants were then administered an associative recognition test consisting of previously studied pairs, pairs that contained previously studied items that were not studied together (i.e., conjunction pairs), and entirely new pairs of faces, and participants were instructed to identify pairs that had been presented together at study. Overall, participants were successful at recognizing previously presented pairs but were highly likely to mistakenly endorse conjunction pairs. This pattern was more pronounced for older adults, especially when items were repeated at encoding. Such data suggest that memory for face pairs relies largely on the familiarity of each face and not on a more precise recollection of associative information. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Interhemispheric communication is via direct connections

Two priming experiments, using normal university students as subjects, independently projected low imagery primes and concrete target words to the left or right visual fields (LVF or RVF) to examine the merits of three spreading activation models of interhemispheric communication: (i) callosal relay of a semantically encoded prime; (ii) transfer of products activated as a result of the spread of activation; and (iii) direct connections between the hemispheres. The first experiment temporally separated pairs by a stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) of 250 ms and obtained strong support for the direct connections model. Priming effects were obtained only when the prime was projected to the RVF and the target to the LVF. The pattern of priming effects suggested that low imagery words projected to the left hemisphere can activate concrete associates in the right hemisphere via direct callosal connections between the two. In the second experiment, the SOA was increased to 450 ms. This time, RVF-RVF priming was obtained along with RVF-LVF priming. The findings are interpreted within a modification of Bleasdale's (1987) framework, where abstract/low imagery words and concrete/high imagery words are represented in separate subsystems in the left hemisphere lexicon. Support was also found for the view that the left hemisphere is comprised of a complex network of abstract and concrete words, while the right hemisphere operates as a subsidiary word processor, subserving linguistic processing with a limited, special purpose lexicon comprised of associative connections between concrete, imageable words (e.g., Zaidel, 1983a; Bradshaw, 1980). Interhemispheric communication in the priming procedure appears to occur at the semantic level, via direct connections between the hemispheres.