Paired-associate Training Research Articles

Learning the two translations of translation-ambiguous words: Simultaneous vs. consecutive presentation

Some words have more than one translation across languages. Such translation-ambiguous words are harder to learn, recognize, and produce for individuals across the language learning spectrum. Past research demonstrates that learning both translations of translation-ambiguous words on consecutive trials confers an accuracy advantage relative to learning them on separate sessions. We tested the proposal that presenting the two translations of translation-ambiguous words simultaneously on the screen could facilitate the formation of a more integrated mapping, because this would enable learners to make direct comparisons between them, whether implicitly or explicitly. We predicted that this facilitation would especially hold for translation-ambiguous words with related translations. Fifty native English speakers learned 48 German words with one or two translations that varied in the meaning similarity of their translations. Paired associate training took place on a Monday, and a first language (L1) to second language (L2) translation production test took place on Wednesday and Friday. Generally, higher translation similarity facilitated translation speed. In accuracy, training condition interacted with the similarity of the translations; translation accuracy was more affected by translation similarity in the simultaneous condition and went up as similarity increased. Overall, the consecutive condition demonstrated higher accuracy and faster reaction times than the simultaneous training condition, suggesting that learners may have been unable to successfully divide their study time between multiple words on the screen without explicit instruction.

The declarative system in children with specific language impairment: a comparison of meaningful and meaningless auditory-visual paired associate learning.

BackgroundIt has been proposed that children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) have a selective deficit in procedural learning, with relatively spared declarative learning. In previous studies we and others confirmed deficits in procedural learning of sequences, using both verbal and nonverbal materials. Here we studied the same children using a task that implicates the declarative system, auditory-visual paired associate learning. There were parallel tasks for verbal materials (vocabulary learning) and nonverbal materials (meaningless patterns and sounds).MethodsParticipants were 28 children with SLI aged 7–11 years, 28 younger typically-developing children matched for raw scores on a test of receptive grammar, and 20 typically-developing children matched on chronological age. Children were given four sessions of paired-associate training using a computer game adopting an errorless learning procedure, during which they had to select a picture from an array of four to match a heard stimulus. In each session they did both vocabulary training, where the items were eight names and pictures of rare animals, and nonverbal training, where stimuli were eight visual patterns paired with complex nonverbal sounds. A total of 96 trials of each type was presented over four days.ResultsIn all groups, accuracy improved across the four sessions for both types of material. For the vocabulary task, the age-matched control group outperformed the other two groups in the starting level of performance, whereas for the nonverbal paired-associate task, there were no reliable differences between groups. In both tasks, rate of learning was comparable for all three groups.ConclusionsThese results are consistent with the Procedural Deficit Hypothesis of SLI, in finding spared declarative learning on a nonverbal auditory-visual paired associate task. On the verbal version of the task, the SLI group had a deficit in learning relative to age-matched controls, which was evident on the first block in the first session. However, the subsequent rate of learning was consistent across all three groups. Problems in vocabulary learning in SLI could reflect the procedural demands of remembering novel phonological strings; declarative learning of crossmodal links between auditory and visual information appears to be intact.

Centre-embedded structures are a by-product of associative learning and working memory constraints: Evidence from baboons (Papio Papio)

Influential theories have claimed that the ability for recursion forms the computational core of human language faculty distinguishing our communication system from that of other animals (Hauser, Chomsky, & Fitch, 2002). In the present study, we consider an alternative view on recursion by studying the contribution of associative and working memory processes. After an intensive paired-associate training with visual shapes, we observed that baboons spontaneously ordered their responses in keeping with a recursive, centre-embedded structure. This result suggests that the human ability for recursion might partly if not entirely originate from fundamental processing constraints already present in nonhuman primates and that the critical distinction between animal communication and human language should more likely be found in working memory capacities than in an ability to produce recursive structures per se.

Investigation of the Effectiveness of Traffic Sign Training in Terms of Training Methods and Sign Characteristics

Objective: This research investigated whether different training methods had any effect on the effectiveness of traffic sign training and whether there were any relationships between traffic sign characteristics and effectiveness of the training. Methods: Thirty-six participants were randomly assigned into 4 equal-sized groups (control, paired-associate learning, recall training, and recognition training) to study the learnability of Mainland China traffic signs. In paired-associate learning, participants studied each traffic sign along with a referent describing its meaning. In addition to being informed of the meaning of traffic signs, both recall training and recognition training provided participants with questions and feedback. For recall training, the questioning process was a recall task in which participants had to produce a meaning for a given traffic sign from memory. For recognition training, the questioning process was a recognition task that required participants to identify the most appropriate referent corresponding to a given sign. No traffic sign training was given to the control group. Results: Each training method significantly improved comprehension of the meaning of traffic signs. Participants from recall training performed better in a posttraining test than those from paired-associate learning and recognition training, indicating that the recall training elicited a deeper level of learning. In addition, questioning and feedback had a positive influence on training effectiveness. Performance in the posttest was found to be better when the questioning process matched the test process. Regarding the traffic sign characteristics, semantic closeness had a long-lasting effect, in terms of the timescale of this experiment on traffic sign comprehension, and traffic signs were perceived as more meaningful after their intended meanings were studied. Conclusions: Recall training is more effective in enhancing comprehension of traffic signs than paired-associate learning and recognition training. The findings of this study provide a basis for useful recommendations for designing symbol-training programs to improve road safety for road users.

Effects of sign characteristics and training methods on safety sign training effectiveness

This study investigated whether or not training methods affected the effectiveness of symbol training and if there were any relationships between sign symbol characteristics and training effectiveness. Altogether, 26 Mainland China industrial safety signs were used and 60 participants were randomly assigned into four equal-sized groups of control, paired-associate learning, recall training and recognition training. The result was that participants from all the training groups showed significantly greater improvement in comprehension performance than those in the control group, indicating that the training methods improved comprehension of the meaning of safety signs. Participants from the recall training group performed better in the post-training test than those from other training groups. It seems that the recall task elicited a deeper level of learning than the recognition task and that questioning and feedback had a positive effect on training effectiveness. The results also showed that sign characteristics had no significant influence on training effectiveness. It was concluded that recall training is more effective in enhancing comprehension of industrial safety signs than paired-associate learning or recognition training. The findings of this study provide a basis for useful guidelines for designing symbol-training programmes and for designing more user-friendly safety signs. Statement of Relevance: The present study shows that recall training was more effective in improving comprehension of industrial safety signs than paired-associate learning or recognition training and cognitive sign features did not influence training effectiveness. They provide a basis for useful guidelines for designing symbol-training programmes and for designing more user-friendly safety signs.

The associative-memory basis of cognitive skill learning: Adult age differences.

It has been established that memorizing common problems and their solutions underlies cognitive skill development, and that there are substantial age deficits in the rate of this learning. In a between-groups design, the authors compared learning rates for the same set of problems in skill (SK) training and paired-associate (PA) training. The authors found main effects due to condition (PA problems were acquired earlier) and to age (older adults' learning was delayed), but no condition-by-age interaction. The authors concluded that the age deficit in SK can be accounted for by the age deficit in associative memory; no further explanation is needed. The authors also analyzed fast and slow retrieves in SK and PA, and found that the frequency of fast retrieves did not differ in the two conditions. The overall advantage of PA was due to the occurrence of slow retrieves, which were absent in SK presumably because the skill algorithm displaces slow, explicit memory search in SK, but not fast, familiarity-based retrieval.

The effects of recoding and presentation format on recency and suffix effects

The primary linguistic theory of Shand and Klima (1981) hypothesizes that stimuli that cannot be directly processed without recoding are not in the primary linguistic mode of the subject and thus should lead to lesser recency and associated suffix effects. In three experiments, different normal hearing subjects learned to pair American Sign Language (ASL) stimuli, visual "quasivocables" (QVs), word-like letter strings, and auditory QVs with common English words. In the first experiment, the subjects were given sequences of ASL or QV stimuli and required to recall the associated words in strict serial order. In two other experiments involving auditory and visual presentation, respectively, subjects who had never been given paired associate training were required to recall the English words that had previously been associated with the ASL and QV stimuli, in a standard suffix paradigm. The results showed recency and suffix effects to be present only with auditorily presented QVs and words. Contrary to the predictions of the primary linguistic hypothesis, greater recency and larger suffix effects were present with the auditory QVs than with the auditory words, although the QVs were not primary linguistic and the task involved forced recoding. Previous results showing recency with ASL stimuli in normal subjects were not replicated. It is concluded that recency and suffix effects are not related either to the primary linguistic mode of the subject or to stimulus recoding, as we and Shand and Klima have defined them.

Effects of pictorial instruction on paired-associate recall in first-graders

Twenty male and 20 female first-graders were trained in a paired-associate (PA) learning task to test the hypothesis that instructions to generate interactive mental images of word referents and interactive imagery training administered prior to PA learning facilitate cued recall. Subjects were assigned randomly to one of the following five conditions: (1) separative imagery instructions with prior picture training; (2) interactive imagery instructions with picture training; (3) separative imagery instructions with no prior training; (4) interactive imagery instructions with no prior training; and, (5) a control rote-repetition group. Results of a 2 (pretraining condition) x 2 (imagery instructions) analysis of variance on number of trials to criterion indicated that instructing first-graders to generate interacting images and providing them with interactive pictures prior to PA training facilitated cued recall relative to subjects instructed to generate separate images, subjects not provided with pictures prior to training, and subjects instructed to learn word pairs in a rote manner. It was concluded that imagery instructions facilitate PA recall in first-graders only when such instructions are made highly explicit.

Acquisition and retention of verbal associations to olfactory and abstract visual stimuli of varying similarity.

The similarity among a set of stimuli used in a paired-associate (PA) task was controlled by psychological scaling. Three lists of odorants and two lists of abstract figures (forms) with six stimuli in each list were constructed to have varying degrees of intralist similarity. Independent groups learned to associate digit responses with one stimulus list in a PA training session. Recognition of training stimuli presented among 12 distractor stimuli and recall of the associations was tested after 7 days. Within each modality, increased intralist similarity impaired PA acquisition. Between modalities, acquisition was inferior with the odor stimuli. During recognition testing, the olfactory modality supported inferior performance. In recall testing, equivalently learned responses in the two modalities were equally well retained. There appears to be a perceptual limitation in olfaction relative to vision that influences stimulus encoding and stimulus retrieval processes but that does not affect retrieval of associated responses.

Memory Confusions and Memory Codes: A Simulation of the Acoustic Similarity Effect

It is hypothesized that items are coded for short-term storage in the language of the modality through which the customary responses to these items are normally monitored. This Response Monitoring Modality Hypothesis may account for the acoustic similarity effect in short-term memory for verbal items. The hypothesis was tested using non-verbal material. After paired-associate training subjects were found to confuse, in retention tests, items sharing similar previously trained responses to a greater extent than items that were directly similar to one another. The experiment simulates under controlled conditions the natural phenomenon of acoustical confusions in short-term memory, and provides strong support for the Response Monitoring Modality Hypothesis.

Degree of training and the novelty transfer effect

Four groups of 40 Ss were given transfer tests following 2.4, 6, or 8 14-trial blocks of paired-associate training with unequal stimulus frequencies and then retested after a further training period in which the same compound stimuli were presented at equal frequencies. The novelty effect, in which Ss respond to new combinations of training components by giving the response associated with the least frequent component, was obtained in every transfer test. It was concluded that the novelty effect is a mode of responding that is produced by differential frequencies during early learning and which, once adopted, is retained by Ss regardless of whether the frequency differential is maintained.

Partial information and choice behavior in differential reward magnitude learning

Ss were first trained on a word-number paired-associate list and then given testing on a two-choice differential reward learning paradigm. One of the two words in each pair had been used in the paired-associate training, and the number of points associated with the word was the same as during paired-associate learning. The other member of each pair was new and could have either more or fewer points than the known member of the pair. Speed of learning to choose the higher valued member in these pairs was directly related to amount of reward.

Experimentally acquired associations in memory encoding by preschoolers

Three- and 4-year-old children were given extensive paired-associate (PA) training in which response terms were highly familiar words and stimulus terms were words semantically related to response terms but relatively unfamiliar to the Ss. Subsequent recognition memory (RM) performance indicated, by an analysis of false recognitions, that the newly acquired associations functioned during the encoding of the RM items, i.e., the PA response terms occurred as implicit associative responses to the PA stimulus terms presented for learning. The feasibility of using an entirely verbal PA task with children as young as 3 years also was demonstrated.

Response factors in verbal learning and transfer

Two experiments investigated the role of responses in organizing unrelated stimulus materials and altering performance in shift paradigms. In Exp. I free recall tests given after paired-associate training involving unrelated stimulus words mapped onto single-digit responses in a 4:1 ratio showed significant clustering around the response members. For Exp. II S s learned unrelated word-number paired-associate lists (again mapped 4:1), whereupon the required responses were shifted, but the new pairings left the response-defined categories undisturbed. Subjects displayed positive transfer on the basis of response-created categories. Learning on the final word-letter list demonstrated response-defined within-category errors equal in magnitude to stimulus-defined within-category errors of control groups.

Facilitation of Paired-Associate Learning by Non-Verbal Mediators

80 Ss divided into 4 groups received paired-associate training under 1 of 4 mediational paradigms: stimulus equivalence, response equivalence, and 2 chaining paradigms. Different intensities of shock and tone were used as non-verbal mediators with each of 6 CVC pairs. Three other pairs were used as non-mediated controls. The use of non-verbal mediators facilitated paired-associate learning and the degree of facilitation was a direct function of the intensity of the mediators. Neither paradigms nor type of mediator were effective variables.

Shifts in associative hierarchies over time as a function of paired-associate training

In Stage 1, individual response hierarchies were assessed by obtaining eight responses to each of eight stimulus words. In experimental conditions, Stage-2 PA training consisted of learning the stimulus words paired with the respective sixth response (R6) from each of the hierarchies. Control conditions involved stimulus and response words which had not previously appeared in the experiment. The response hierarchies of the eight stimulus words were reassessed (Stage 3) at four time intervals after PA training. The results indicate R6 repetitions increased after PA training. Repetition of responses in Stage 3 also tended to increase as Stage-1 hierarchy position (HP) varied from HP8 to HP1. In addition, the R6 responses showed significant upward shifts in HP after PA training. There was some evidence that time influenced the degree of R6 shift, with maximum upward shift occurring when Stage 3 occurred immediately after PA training.

R-S recall as a function of presence or absence of successive pair repetitions in S-R learning

The hypothesis was examined that at least a part of backward (R-S) recall results from a type of forward practice termed intratrial repetition (ITR) in which S repeats each pair several times in succession before going on to the next pair (e.g., S-R-S-R-S-R). Part of the S s received paired-associate training in which ITR was “built in” by the use of trials on which each pair appeared three times in succession before S advanced to the next pair. The procedure on each trial for the remaining S s was identical except that the order of the pairs was changed so that the three repetitions of each pair were not successive. In both conditions, the rate of presentation was very rapid to reduce covert ITR. The S s in the ITR condition displayed more R-S recall in spite of the fact that all S s learned to the same S-R criterion.

Intercomponent association formation during paired-associate training with compound stimuli.

Intercomponent association formation during paired-associate training with compound stimuli.

Effects of pairing- and test-order constancy on performance during and after paired-associate training

The Ss were exposed to a list of 10 trigram-word pairs under conditions in which pairing order, test order, both or neither were constant throughout training and the pairing order was the same as (or differed from) the test order. Performance during training was facilitated only when the test order was the same as the pairing order and both remained constant throughout training; however, no between-treatment differences were observed in the number of pairs learned.

Response speed for easy- and hard-to-pronounce trigrams

Two experiments compared the time to spell aloud easy-to-pronounce (EP) and hard-to-pronounce (HP) trigrams. In Exp. I, 6 EP or HP trigrams were exposed at one time, and S read them aloud as fast as he could. In Exp. II, each trigram was presented alone. In each experiment EP trigrams took less time to spell than HP trigrams. The difference is probably not large enough to account for the effects of response-term pronunciability on performance during paired-associate training.