Delay of incentive cues in paired-associate learning and its effect on organizing responses

Abstract

Studies of probability learning, incidental learning, short-term memory, and PA learning have shown that incentive to learn influences recall. In general, the effect is one of negative contrast: The recall of unrewarded materials suffers with no contrasting facilitation in the recall of rewarded materials. It was hypothesized that this incentive effect was due to S 's differential use of organizing responses while learning. The validity of the hypothesis was tested by determining the influence of incentive on recall with various degrees of delay in incentive cuing. Delay in cuing was expected to reduce differential use of organizing responses which, according to the hypothesis, would in turn reduce the incentive effect on recall. Measures of organizing responses conformed to the expectation that cuing delay would reduce differential responding. As predicted, the influence of incentive on recall decreased with degree of cue delay.