Are Pronounceability and Effort Ratings Psychologically Equivalent?

Abstract

Is Underwood and Schulz's (1960) pronounceability scale psychologically equivalent to Ryan and Smith's (1954) effort scale for work? CVCs with high or low m′ values (Noble, 1961) were rated on both scales. Judgments of equivalence were inconsistent over Ss and CVCs. The scales are not parallel by Gulliksen's (1950) criteria. They correlate .99 and over-all have nearly equal means, variances, and covariances. Differential effects of work on rates of learning of CVCs were attributed to the diversion of attention from retention on initial learning trials plus high difficulty and effort of reproduction from imperfect retention on these trials.