Abstract
A retroactive inhibition design was employed to study the role of rules in paired-associate learning and retention. Subjects first learned one of three unmixed lists of paired nonsense syllables. A rule applied to all items in two of the lists: Pair members changed first letter (rhymed) or changed middle letter. In the third list, pair members were not related. A common second list was learned, and either a first-list recall test or a four-alternative forced-choice recognition test followed. First-list learning and recall were superior for lists with rules. Recognition, which did not show a ceiling effect, was not superior for lists with rules when both target and distractors followed a rule. The results supported the hypothesis that rules facilitate retrieval rather than storage, and that they do so to the extent that they reduce response-set size.
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