To investigate organizational strategies of educable mentally retarded (EMR) and normal boys, the performance of 30 normal boys (mean IQ 105.1) and 30 EMR boys (mean IQ 69.9), ages 7-12 years, was compared on various free recall learning tasks. Three measures of input organization employed were category clustering, associative clustering, and…

The effects of interspersed trials on prompted (P) and confirmation (C) paired associate learning were studied in 64 institutionalized educable mental retardates. Subjects were instructed to learn eight pairs of pictures which were presented by a slide projector. There were four groups in both the P and C condition. The treatment for these groups…

Letter-letter, letter-number, and number-letter paired associates were used in this A-B, B-C, A-C study. There were two A-C lists, the positive-transfer stimulus-items of one became the negative-transfer stimulus-items of the other, and vice versa. Twenty subjects were included and each learned one A-C list. The main effects included, among…

The purpose of the eight experiments was to assess the role which associations between two words played in recognition decisions. The evidence on weak associations established in the laboratory indicated that association was playing a small role, but that the recognition performance on pairs of words was highly predictable from frequency…

Evidence regarding children's incidental learning has been derived largely from tasks in which the incidental stimulus features have been independent of the task-relevant information. The present study examined children's incidental learning with compound pictorial stimuli under conditions in which the relevant and incidental features were: (a)…

One of a series of original statements on a central concept, principle, theory, or problem in the social sciences, this module presents a definition and some illustrations of paired associate (PA) learning and a summary of the procedures used in PA learning. Many of the important research findings on PA learning are briefly recounted and a basic…

Two studies investigated characteristics of verbal elaborations (length and number of relations provided by the syntactic construction) to determine what makes them effective mediators for young children. Study I treated the role of an elaboration's length in facilitating paired associate learning in 22 nursery school children. Data indicated that…

Nelson, Brooks, and Wheeler (1975) found that interference effects produced by physical similarity among word stimuli in paired associates result from the disruption of contact with the functional stimulus and that interference with associative retrieval is minimal. Data in this research challenge their conclusion on several grounds. (Author/RK)

Noun pairs were learned by younger and older adults. Anticipation and presentation intervals were manipulated, and there were no-imagery, experimenter-provided imagery, and self-generated imagery instructions. Older subjects generated and used imagery with the same facility as younger subjects, although retrieval time was longer. (GO)

Examined whether reading disabled children differed in the utilization of rules in a paired associate learning task. In two experiments, children were assigned to one of three conditions: (a)nonrule, (b)consistent rule, or (c)inconsistent rule. When present, the rule was based on semantic opposites. (Author/NH)

Describes a paired-associate learning experiment in which American Sign Language signs of high and low translucency and high and low cheremic similarity were presented to sign-naive subjects. One hypothesis, that translucency would facilitate learning, was confirmed; a second, that cheremic similarity would retard sign learning, was not.…

Compared the effects of methylphenidate, pemoline, and a placebo on learning and retention in 36 hyperactive children. Results showed both methylphenidate and pemoline improved learning and relearning performance on spelling and produced a similar but less clear enhancement of learning on the paired-associate learning task. (JAC)

A group of young and elderly females were tested on a paired-associate task. The results indicated that older individuals made more intrusion errors on the CVCs high in AV on the Glaze norms but low on the Archer norms. (Author)

Subjects were given tests of visual memory using stimuli which were similar, but not identical, to those used in a subsequent paired-associate learning task. Scores on the visual memory and the paired-associate tasks were then used for analysis. (Author/RK)