Independent Storage and Decodability of Natural Language Mediators
Randolph A. Smith, Philip H. Marshall · Perceptual and Motor Skills · 1976
Underwood (4) has argued that natural language mediators may be epiphenomenal, with no real place among memory mechanisms. A preliminary step in disputing this claim and confirming their functional validiry in facilitating retention is to demonstrate that subjects have a memory of the mediators formed in acquisition. Previous attempts at such a demonstration (1, 2 ) appear faulry in char mediator +econr~ruction rather than recall may have taken place. This is due to the possibility rhat the original stimulus and response terms may have been available by rhe rime rhat recall of mediation was required. This study, therefore, attempted to show that subjects do have a memory for natural language mediators independent of specific stimulus and response terms. Thirty CVC pairs of medium associability ( 3 ) were seen by 37 undergraduates. Subjects provided a written mediator for each CVC pair and used this mediator to aid their learning of the pair. Two days later, subjects returned and saw 30 mediators; 15 selfgenerated and 15 of another subject. Subjects were asked to indicate which mediators were old (hislher own) and new (someone e!se's) and to try to recall the two components of the CVC pair using the given mediator. Confidence, from 1 (low) to 5 (h igh) , was measured on all three decisions. Subjects correctly recognized 87% ( S D = 1 1 % ) of their original mediators, with a mean confidence of 4.72 (SD = 0.27). Subjects were 90% ( S D = 9 % ) accurate in recognizing those mediators which were not theirs, with a mean confidence of 4.77 ( S D = 0.26). Also, subjects were more accurate ( p . l o ) in the number of left and right CVC components correctly decoded. Mean confidence in the correct decodings was also higher ( p < .001) when subjects used their own mediators (4.10; S D = 0.82) rather than someone else's (3.25; S D = 0.92). The data are consistent with the idea rhar representations of natural language mediators are formed during acquisition. Subjects do have a memory for the mediators, suggesting that they are, indeed. a part of the learning process and not epiphenomenal as has been argued.