THE EFFECT OF TYPE ASSOCIATIVE RELATION ON WORD RECOGNITION TIMES

Abstract

The effect of free association strength and associative directionality on the tachistoscopic recognition times of children in grades 4, 8, and 12 was investigated. At each grade level, 36 Ss were presented with the response member of normatively associated word pairs as the word to be recognized, while the stimulus member of the pair was employed as the fixation point. Each S received bidirectional, unidirectional, and nonassociated word pairs. Recognition times for the 3 types of pairs decreased significantly from grade 4 to grade 12. At each grade level, the recognition times for the associated pairs were significantly lower than that for the nonassociated pairs. The bidirectional pairs had significantly lower recognition times than the unidirectional pairs at grade 4, but no such difference was found at grades 8 and 12. These results provide further evidence for the influence of free association strength on the performance of children. Recent studies have indicated that tachistoscopic recognition of words is facilitated when word pairs with known normative association strength are presented such that the stimulus member of the pair is in the fixation field and the response member is in the exposure field (O'Neil, 1956; Rouse & Verinis, 1962; Verinis & Cofer, 1964). While none of these studies has employed children as Ss, several investigators have demonstrated that an associative linkage between words facilitates performance of children in various learning situations, for example, clustering in free recall (Wick