Mixed-list Design Research Articles

Sensory factors in memory for subject-performed tasks

Action phrases such as “lift the pen” are recalled better when they are enacted by subjects in subject-performed tasks (SPTs) than when only listened to during verbal tasks (VTs). This SPT effect is usually attributed to the good item-specific information provided by enactment. A series of experiments investigated what role the use of real objects and the perception of the action play in the good recall of SPTs. For this purpose, recall of action phrases with and without using real objects was studied in VTs, EPTs (experimenter-performed tasks) and SPTs. It was found that the perception of real objects improved recall equally in EPTs and SPTs, but more so in VTs. Furthermore there was a recall advantage of SPTs over EPTs. However, with short lists, this advantage depended on whether the encoding condition was varied within subjects or between subjects. It was concluded that perceiving the objects used as well as perceiving the action proper does not play a decisive role in the good SPT recall. It was further concluded that EPTs and SPTs differentially depend on item-specific and relational encoding, and that relational encoding suffers from using a within-subjects mixed list design.

A multinomial modeling analysis of the mnemonic benefits of bizarre imagery

A series of experiments was conducted to explore the cognitive processes that mediate the bizarreness effect, that is, the finding that bizarre or unusual imagery is recalled better than common imagery. In all experiments, subjects were presented with noun pairs that were embedded within bizarre or common sentences in a mixed-list design. None of the experiments produced a bizarreness effect for cued recall; however, for two of the experiments, the bizarre noun pairs were remembered significantly better than the common pairs for free recall. To determine if these differences were due to the storage or retrieval of the items, a multinomial model for the analysis of imagery mediation in paired-associate learning was developed and applied to the data from the experiments. The model revealed that bizarre sentences benefited the retrieval of the noun pairs but not their storage within memory. The empirical and modeling results are discussed relative to previous findings and theories on the bizarreness effect.

A test of resource-allocation explanations of the generation effect

Several current theories of the generation effect posit that generated items receive greater encoding resources than do read items in the same list. These theories were tested, by asking subjects to pay special attention to target items embedded in a list of background items. Targets were either read or generated, and received either normal or special attention. Background items were always read. Compared to memory for words in a list of read target and background items, memory for generated targets was enhanced and memory for surrounding read items was suppressed. These results paralleled the effects of the special attention instructions. It was suggested that generation is a controlled process requiring encoding resources that are taken from surrounding read items in a mixed-list design and from relational processing in a between-list design.

The role of visual similarity in picture categorization.

Categorization is usually assumed to require access to a concept's meaning. When pictures are categorized faster than words, they are assumed to be understood faster than words. However, pictures from the same category are more similar than pictures from different categories. The present article argues that the use of visual similarity as a cue to category membership may produce the picture advantage. The visual similarity hypothesis was tested in two experiments. In the first experiment, pictures showed a disadvantage for the visually similar categories of fruits and vegetables, but showed their usual advantage for the visually dissimilar categories of fruits and animals. In the second experiment, with a mixed list design, pictures were slower only for visually similar different decisions, but showed the usual advantage for all other decisions. The reliability of visual similarity as a cue to the decision accounted well for these results. Because visual similarity can be shown to have large effects on picture categorization, the use of categorization to compare speed of understanding of pictures and words is questionable.

An analysis of double-function lists

Double-function list acquisition was analyzed in three experiments which used mixed-list designs and forced-choice recognition tests. Findings showed that specific associative interference occurred both during learning and performance phases, that its source was limited to the immediate backward associate during the learning phase, but that it also involved items further removed in both the forward and backward directions during the performance phase, probably by way of mediated chaining.

Phonetic Mediation in A-B, A-B' Transfer with Young Children

60 4-, 5- and 6-yr.-old children learned two 3-item paired-associate lists. A mixed-list design was used. List 2 contained pairs representing A-B, C-D, A-B, A-B', and A-B, A-C transfer paradigms. Terms B and B' were related via rhyme. In second-list learning, more correct responses in the first two anticipation trials occurred on A-B' pairs than on A-C pairs and more correct responses on C-D pairs than on A-B' pairs. Age differences were nonsignificant. Conditions under which children might successfully utilize mediational rhyme strategies in paired-associate learning were suggested.

Mixed-list manipulations of implicit associative responses in verbal discrimination learning: II. Strategies and interactions with rate of presentation

Implicit associative responses were manipulated in a verbal discrimination task involving a mixed list of intrapair, interpair, interitem-AR, and control conditions in combination with three rates of presentation (1:1, 2:2, and 4:4 sec). The intrapair condition was significantly superior to the control at all three presentation rates. The interpair condition was inferior to the control at the 1:1 sec rate, equal to the control at the 2:2 rate, and superior at the 4:4 rate. The interitem—AR condition was equal to the control at the 1:1 sec rate, but superior at the 2:2 and 4:4 rates. The results were interpreted as consistent with the hypothesis that multiple higher order strategies may be invoked in such a mixed list design and that these strategies differ in levels of complexity, resulting in a complex interaction with rate of presentation.

Stimulus Encoding and Retroactive Inhibition

Summary Stimulus selection in the A-B, A-C paradigm was examined in a mixed-list design. Half of the pairs in the A-B list were followed by A-C pairs which used the same stimulus element selection strategy, while the other half were followed by A-C pairs with a different selection strategy. These within-list manipulations occurred for four groups formed by the factorial combination of interpolated activity (work or rest) and meaningfulness of stimulus terms (high or low). Following the interpolated learning, Ss received a cued recall test. The rest groups showed no differences in recall; in the work groups, stimulus meaningfulness had no reliable effect, but stimulus selection strategies did. Of particular interest was the fact that keeping the same stimulus selection strategy across both lists led to poorer recall than using a different one.

Free-Pairing, Imagery, and Proactive Inhibition in Multilist Paired-Associate Learning

Three groups of Ss ( n = 45) learned and recalled five paired-associate lists which differed in terms of the pair construction procedure: one group constructed pairs for learning, another served as a yoked control for the S-generated pairings and, in the other, pairs were randomly constructed by E. The mixed-list design also included two levels of stimulus imagery. All groups demonstrated decreased recall as the number of lists learned increased; however, the magnitude of proactive inhibition observed was significantly less for Ss who generated their own pairings than for Ss in the remaining two groups.

A developmental comparison of verbal and pictorial mnemonics in paired-associate learning

Using a mixed-list design, two types of E verbalization (verb and conjunction) were varied factorially with three types of depiction (side-by-side line drawings, interactive line drawings, and interactive photographs) in a picture PA task. Ss were kindergarten and third-grade children. Both recall and recognition procedures were employed. Verbs produced more facilitation than conjunctions, interactive drawings were superior to photographs, but both produced greater learning than noninteractive drawings. These effects did not vary significantly across ages or procedures. The recognition procedure elicited more correct responses overall than the recall procedure only for the elementary group. An error analysis supported the conclusion that imagery is an important mechanism underlying both sentential and pictorial facilitation of learning.

Effects of Semantic and Acoustic Relatedness on Free Recall in a Between-Subjects Design

Independent groups of Ss were presented with a list of semantically related, acoustically related, or unrelated words for 3 free-recall trials. While semantic relatedness induced significant amounts of clustering and facilitated recall, acoustic relatedness had no effect. These results are consistent with those found by Forrester and King (1971) for a mixed-list design.

Paired-associate learning of children with mixed list designs.

Paired-associate learning of children with mixed list designs.

Reinforcement-test-blank acquisition programming under the unmixed-list design in paired-associate learning

Two experiments, with 64 university students, were conducted under the unmixed-list design with various repetitive reinforcement (R)-test (T)-blank (B) acquisition programming: Conditions RT, RTT, RTB, and RBT. The major empirical findings did not differ, generally, from those obtained under the mixed-list design, indicating that the main effects overcame procedural artifacts embedded in the mixed-list design. Other things being equal, the learning of verbal pairs was a function of RTB acquisition programming. Unreinforced test trials in paired-associate learning prevented retention losses and, at the same time, increased the conditioning power of the later reinforcement trials.

BACKWARD ASSOCIATIONS IN PAIRED-ASSOCIATE LEARNING OF RETARDATES AND NORMAL CHILDREN

2 investigations were conducted to examine bidirectional learning of normal children and retardates in a paired-associate task. The original learning list, in both studies, consisted of 6 pairs of pictures of common objects. In Experiment I, following mastery of the original list, Ss were assigned to 3 groups. 1 group was asked to relearn the original items in a direction (B-A). A second group learned a new list of items (C-D). The third group was exposed to the items as originally presented (A-B). In Experiment II, all Ss learned a second list containing B-A, C-D, and A-B items. This procedure is commonly referred to as a mixed-list design. Controls were included to assess stimulus and response availability and intrinsic difficulty of pairing direction. Considerable backward association was observed for both retardates and normal children. In the mixed-list study, the retardates were found to be relatively inferior in backward recall. This deficit is probably related to contextual factors inherent in mixed-list designs.

Leadership selection under differing feedback conditions

The influence of normative-response word frequency upon paired-associates performance was studied. An unmixed-list design was employed in contrast to earlier reports which employed mixed-list designs. The results indicated that performance on high response frequency pairs was significantly superior to performance on low response frequency pairs, thus paralleling previous findings with mixed-list designs. The effect is therefore not simply due to priority habits. A replication experiment with unmixed-lists confirmed the results of the earlier experiment.

Learning of content, function, and nonsense words: An extension of Glanzer's experiment

Two experiments, using a mixed-list design, assessed the implications of Glanzer's (1962) “Unit” analysis and the grapnel interpretation of associative learning. The experiments compared the associative learning of content, function, and nonsense words. In Exp. I, the words were learned when they appeared alone either as stimuli or as responses in the paired-associate lists. In Exp. II, they were learned when presented in nonsense-syllable frames. In Exp. I the content words were learned better than both the function and the nonsense words. The learning of the function words was not different from that of the nonsense words. In Exp. II, the superiority in the learning of the content words disappeared, but the function words gained superiority over the nonsense words. The results are consistent with Glanzer's unit analysis and reveal the inadequacy of the grapnel model.

Interpresentation effects in paired-associate learning

Three experiments on PA learning investigated the effects of number and learning state of items interpolated between successive presentations of a pair on learning rate for the pair. In Exp. I, pairs were presented twice per trial with 0, 1, 2, or 3 interpolated items, or once per trial—Conditions 0, 1, 2, 3, and N respectively—in a mixed list design. Fewer presentations to criterion were required as spacing was increased. Condition 0 pairs took as many trials (twice as many presentations) as Condition N items, confirming Greeno's (1964) result. Conditions 1 to 3 took fewer presentations than 0 but more than N. In Exp. II, massed items were distributed over training, to avoid an artifact in Exp. I. In two replications of the same design, no reliable effects of spacing were found. In Exp. III, during a preliminary series Ss received PA training on a 12-item list (Group L) or free-recall training on the same 12 stimulus items (Group U). Both groups then learned a 16-item PA list, 12 items from the preliminary series and four new items. In two replications, acquisition of the new items was significantly faster in L than U. It was concluded that the number of unlearned items being concurrently processed had a significant effect on acquisition rate, and that when this variable was taken into account, spacing of presentation was relatively unimportant with one exception, viz., when an item was presented twice in immediate succession, the second presentation was a waste of time.

Transfer effects of synonyms and antonyms in mixed and unmixed lists

Recent experiments employing unmixed-list designs have shown high positive transfer for antonym response relationships. This experiment investigated the effects of this relationship along with synonym and unrelated (A-C) response relations in a mixed-list design. Antonym response interlist relationships were shown to produce significant facilitation effects in an unmixed-list design, but mild inhibitory effects in a mixed-list design.

Associative strength and degree of interference in children's verbal paired-associate learning

This study explored the effects of associative interference on the acquisition of pairs of common words by sixth-grade public school children. A mixed-list design was employed to explore the hypothesis that motivation produced by response competition might either facilitate or impair performance as a function of the associative strength of the items involved. Four types of “training” pairs were combined with two types of “test” pairs to form a total of 8 conditions. The hypothesis was supported with strongly associated test pairs in that performance on these pairs improved as training-pair interference increased. A corresponding decrement on weakly associated test items as interference increased was not obtained, however

Supplementary report: Transfer as a function of meaningfulness

This study attempted to replicate the Merikle and Battig (1963) findings with respect to the effects of meaningfulness and paradigm upon transfer in a mixed-list design. In close agreement with their data, the A–B, A–Br paradigm produced negative transfer when the learning materials were highly meaningful, no transfer under conditions of medium meaningfulness, and significant positive transfer when the meaningfulness of the materials was low. Although no significant transfer was obtained in an A–B, A–C situation, the difference between the A–B, A–C paradigm and an A–B, C–D control situation decreased, as it did in the Merikle and Battig study, as meaningfulness decreased.