The experience of fluency while learning might bias students' metacognitive judgments of learning (JOLs) and impair the efficacy of their study behaviors. In the present experiments, we examined whether perceptual fluency affects JOLs (1) when people only experience one level of fluency, (2) when item relatedness is also available as a cue, and…

Purpose: The purpose of the current study was to explore nonlinguistic learning ability in individuals with aphasia, examining the impact of stimulus typicality and feedback on success with learning. Method: Eighteen individuals with aphasia and 8 nonaphasic controls participated in this study. All participants completed 4 computerized,…

Learners typically allocate more resources to learning items that are higher in value than they do to items lower in value. For instance, when items vary in point value for learning, participants allocate more study time to the higher point items than they do to the lower point items. The current experiments extend this research to a context where…

Behavioral evidence concerning memory in forms of high-functioning autism (HFA) and in moderately low-functioning autism (M-LFA) is reviewed and compared. Findings on M-LFA are sparse. However, it is provisionally concluded that memory profiles in HFA and M-LFA (relative to ability-matched controls) are similar but that declarative memory…

Based on the author's Ph. D. dissertation submitted to the Department of Psychology at the State University of New York at Buffalo.

The purpose of this study was to gather evidence relative to the proposition that matching (recognition) performance for A-B pairs following an unlearning paradigm cannot be used to infer associative loss. The alternative was to assume that matching performance is based on frequency information which is independent of associative information. The…

This report covers a series of learning experiments utilizing lists of paired- associates (word pairs). Each experiment consists of three phases. In the first phase the subjects learn a list of paired-associates to a certain performance level. In the second phase (interpolated learning) other sets of paired-associates are learned. Finally, phase…

This summary of research performed during the past five and one-half years and dealing with different attributes in memory functioning is organized around four attributes of memory: "Frequency Attribute: Verbal Discrimination" explores the development of the theory dealing with verbal discrimination tasks and lists several papers prepared during…

Twenty four educable retarded males (eight gainers, eight non-gainers, and eight high scorers) were given an 18-item picture paired-associates task. Results showed that gainers learned more slowly than high scorers but the two groups together did not differ from nongainers. The following two interpretations were offered. With a minimal memory…

The relationship between complexity of learning strategy and performance of paired associate learning of 29 verbally gifted students (9-14 years old) was investigated. A comparison of strategies with those reported by nongifted students did not disclose qualitative differences. Gifted subjects did demonstrate great speed in acquiring and retaining…

Two procedures were investigated in an attempt to decrease the variability of overlearning response latencies in a study-test paradigm, paired-associate task matching CVC's with response keys: (1) self-pacing the task by presenting test trial stimuli whenever the subject pressed a "home" key; and (2) instructing and shaping subjects to keep home…

Three experiments examined the role of contingent associations in learning double-function, verbal-discrimination lists. Some 15-pair lists were constructed of category instances in such a way that the learning of three contingent associations based on category names would mediate correct performance for all 15 pairs. The first experiment gave no…

The effects of instructional variables and individual differences upon structural learning tasks were studied. Eighty college students were given pretasks to test mathematical problem solving and paired-associate (PA) learning skills. Each subject was then given two PA learning tasks presented in a study-test format. Kinship terms served as…