Response-ternl predictability and stinlulus-response conceptual sitnilarity in paired-associates learning*
J. Don Read, Sam C. Brown · 1972
The organizational bases of the storage and retrieval of information in memory have recently taken on much importance in verbal learning, and particularly paired-associates learning. For example, investigators have used a variety of techniques from the standard paired-associates task to a free-pairing procedure (Brown & Read, 1970) in order to gain information about the possible organizational strategies employed by S while learning a set of verbal items. In paired-associates learning, the effects of formal, conceptual, and meaningful similarity have been weIl researched and, in general, it has been found that the higher the level of similarity, the slower the learning (e.g., Underwood, Ekstrand, & Keppel, 1965). Whereas the majority of the investigations have been confined to manipulations of similarity among stimulus or response terms, Thompson & Fritzler (1968) have shown that high formal similarity between the stimulus and response terms may facilitate learning if such similarity is located within rather than between pairs. Moreover, the effect of simiIarity was modified by the degree of list organization, Le., the predictabiIity of the position of a repeated letter in the stimulus and response terms. That is, depending upon the list structure, some component of a response term was highly predictable for S on the basis of the stimulus-term spelling alone. As yet, the effects of such list organization on paired-associates learning has not been extended to ei t her conceptual or meaningful similarity. However, as part of a study concerned with a comparison between m ass e d and distribu ted practice, Underwood & Schulz (1961) constructed two 16-pair Jists of low