Wrong Items Research Articles

Developmental trends in item recognition following a verbal discrimination study trial

Age-related changes in the processes mediating verbal discrimination learning were investigated by a procedure in which right, wrong, and new items were tested individually for oldness after a single study trial on right-wrong pairs. Sixth-grade children displayed higher hit rates than fourth-grade children for both right and wrong items, suggesting that increasing age is accompanied by both increasing rehearsal responses to right items and increasing perceptual responses to wrong items. The increase with age in responses to wrong items serves to compensate for the gain in responses to right items, thus accounting for the absence of pronounced age increments in verbal discrimination learning proficiency.

Translations as Interpair Right and Wrong Items in Double-Function Verbal Discrimination Learning

60 subjects learned one of five verbal discrimination lists, a Spanish single-function, an English single-function, a mixed double-function, a Spanish double-function, or an English double-function. The results indicated superior performance on the single-function lists, intermediate performance with the mixed list, and poor performance on the two double-function lists. The results indicated that translations are of intermediate similarity when used as interpair right and wrong items in verbal discrimination learning.

Differential processing of bilingual right and wrong items in multiple-item recognition learning.

Differential processing of bilingual right and wrong items in multiple-item recognition learning.

Differential processing of bilingual right and wrong items in multiple-item recognition learning.

Differential processing of bilingual right and wrong items in multiple-item recognition learning.

Schematic exemplars as items in multiple-item recognition learning

Schematically related dot patterns (i.e., distortions of a common prototype) were employed as either the right items or the wrong items of a multiple-item recognition learning task. Relative to a control list containing unrelated items, the presence of related right items yielded facilitated performance, but only early in practice. By contrast, the presence of related wrong items yielded an inhibitory effect early in practice. The results suggested that shared features are more likely to be extracted from the information present in right items than from the information present in wrong items.

Item recognition following a multiple-item study trial for young and middle-aged adults

The presence study contrasted young and middle-aged subjects on two components of a recognition memory task (a modified verbal discrimination task) that differed in level of difficulty. No age decrement was found for the easier component requiring discriminability between the oldness and newness of items. In addition, age was not a factor in determining the effects of prior relevance or irrelevance of item information on old-new discriminability. An age decrement was found for the more difficult component requiring discriminability in terms of an old item's prior function in the study list. The decrement occurred for the identification of prior function of both right and wrong items.

Learning to Learn and Interitem Associations in Verbal-Discrimination Learning

Each subject learned four lists under condition AR (interitem associations among the right items of each list), condition AW (among the wrong items), or condition C (no associations), the first and fourth lists being run to a criterion of two successive errorless trials and the second and third lists for five trials. The results failed to support either frequency theory or the hypothesis that subjects learn higher-order approach or avoidance strategies with the presentation of successive, functionally equivalent lists. There was significant learning to learn in all conditions, but no main effect of condition and no interaction of condition by list (i.e., first, second, third, or fourth) on a measure of errors over five trials.

The Effect of Imagery on Rehearsal Strategies in Verbal-Discrimination Learning

Subjects' rehearsal strategies in learning a 32-pair mixed list of highand lowimagery pairs of nouns during the four study trials in an alternating study/test presentation were measured. In Experiment I, the subjects were asked to press one of two buttons to indicate their attention to right and wrong intrapair items; in Experiment II, to give their rehearsals aloud; in Experiment III, to press buttons to indicate covert rehearsals. Substantially more rehearsals were given to right than to wrong items, but this difference was not affected by the imagery of pairs, even though high-imagery pairs were consistently easier to learn. Experiment IV suggested that a rehearsal strategy is used more for low-imagery pairs and an imagery strategy is used more for high-imagery pairs. Contrary to recent findings of Wallace, Murphy, and Sawyer (1973), the results suggest that the effect of imagery in verbal-discrimination learning is not readily explained in terms of differential rehearsal processes.

Single-item recognition following a verbal discrimination study trial

A verbal discrimination (VD) study phase was followed by a single-item (i.e., one item at a time) test phase. Prior right (R) items from the VD list were found to have higher old-new hit rates on the test phase than prior wrong (W) items. However, prior W items had higher hit rates than prior R items in terms of recognition of their intrapair function. These results were interpreted in terms of a high criterion model whereby an old test item must prossess a large number of frequency units before it is identified as being R. In addition, false recognition effects were demonstrated for new test items that were homophones of prior R items, but not for new test items that were homophones of prior W items. These results were interpreted in terms of a feature analytic extension of frequency theory.

Pronunciation in Verbal-Discrimination Learning and Transfer

The experimental subjects were asked to pronounce both R and W items, or only R items, during the test trials on acquisition of list 1; these W items then appeared with new R items on list 2. Pronouncing both items did not significantly affect list 1 performance, but it did increase positive transfer early in practice-and delay negative transfer later in practice--on list 2. A basic assumption of the frequency theory of verbal-discrimination learning (Ekstrand, Wallace, and Underwood, 1966) is that the cue for discrimination is based on the relative frequency of responding to the right (R) and wrong (W) items in the list. The theory assumes that frequency units are added to an item whenever subjects perceive, pronounce, or rehearse an item during practice, and furthermore, that at least a 2:1 frequency difference in favor of the R items occurs when standard methods are used. As an example, the exposure of a single verbal-discrimination pair (involving an R and a W item) is assumed to add a 'frequency unit' to each item, with the R item receiving additional frequency units during the feedback exposure and whenever a rehearsal of the R item occurs. The theory also implies that discrimination learning will be retarded under any conditions that restrict the development of frequency differences among R and W items. A number of studies (Underwood and Freund, 1968; Goulet and Hoyer, 1969) have been concerned with this issue and have manipulated frequency differences in single-list acquisition by varying pronunciation requirements. Underwood and Freund employed separate study and test trials with pronunciation of both the R and W items on the study trials. Goulet and Hoyer used the anticipation procedure and required subjects to pronounce both items during the feedback exposure. The results of both studies indicated inferior performance when subjects pronounce the R and W items relative to a control where no pronunciation is required. The deleterious effect of such procedures may be attributed to two

Imagery and meaningfulness of right and wrong items in verbal discrimination learning

The effects of variations in the rated imagery (I) and the meaningfulness (m) of the right word (R) and the wrong word (W) on a verbal discrimination (VD) task were examined by factorial manipulations of the I and m values of the R and W words within VD pairs. Results indicated that I was a more potent variable than m in the VD task.

Taxonomic Instances as Right or Wrong Items and Selection Strategies in Verbal-Discrimination Learning

Instances of a single taxonomic category served as either the right (R) or wrong (W) items of a verbal-discrimination list. Relative to a control condition having unrelated items on the list, learning was markedly accelerated when the instances were R items, but it was only slightly accelerated when the instances were W items. Additional evidence provided by the free recall of R and W items supported the conclusion that a general selection strategy mediated the verbal-discrimination learning only when the positive instances defining class membership occurred as R items. According to the frequency theory of verbal-discrimination learning, intrapair discriminations between wrong (W) and right (R) items are based on the rote accrual, during practice, of a greater response frequency to R items than to W items, and on the subsequent selection of intrapair items with the greater frequency (Rule 1 of frequency theory).' However, the rote accrual of response frequencies as a prerequisite for intrapair discriminations may be largely abrogated by the activation of a general selection strategy. A selection strategy is likely to be activated whenever the list is structured such that either the R items or the W items are members of a discriminable class. Selection of R items may then be made on the basis of class membership alone (i.e., choosing or avoiding class instances, contingent upon the W-R locus of the class). The efficacy of a selection strategy in mediating verbal-discrimination learning was demonstrated previously, by Kausler and Farzanegan, for lists in which preexperimental word frequency provides the attribute for class membership.2 The present study tested further the efficacy of a Received for publication April 22, 1970. The authors wish to thank Sylvia Kollasch for her assistance in data collection and analysis. 1 B. R. Ekstrand, W. P. Wallace, and B. J. Underwood, A frequency theory of verbal-discrimination learning, Psychol. Rev., 73, 1966, 566-578. 2 D. H. Kausler and F. Farzanegan, Word frequency and selection strategies in verbal-discrimination learning, J. verb. Learn. verb. Behav., 8, 1969, 196-201.

Inter-item manipulations of implicit associative responses in verbal-discrimination learning

Two experiments were performed to test predictions from frequency theory regarding the role of implicit associative responses (IARs) in verbal-discrimination learning. Although list content was demonstrated to limit generalization, a list employing associatively related right (R) items and unrelated wrong (W) items was consistently found to be most difficult, while lists composed of associatively related wrong (W) items tended to be learned most readily. These results fail to replicate the findings of Ekstrand, Wallace, & Underwood (1966) and are inconsistent with the frequency theory. Methodological variables having possible implications for the obtained results were suggested for further investigation.

The effects of verbalization on verbal discrimination learning and associative recall in young children and adults

Groups of fifth-grade and college Ss learned a verbal-discrimination list consisting of 12-paired high-frequency words. The lists were learned under conditions where Ss were or were not instructed to pronounce the right and wrong items during the feedback exposure period. Following acquisition, Ss were given eight trials involving recall of Right-Wrong and Wrong-Right associations. Rate of acquisition was directly related to age and pronunciation during acquisition hindered learning for both fifth-grade and college Ss. Associative recall of both W-R and R-W associations was facilitated under the pronunciation treatment. However, W-R recall was greater than R-W recall for the college Ss, with the reverse being true for the fifth-grade Ss. The results were discussed in relation to the frequency theory of verbal-discrimination learning.

Effects of intrapair and interpair bidirectional associates on verbal-discrimination learning

The present study replicated a previous one by Eberlein and Raskin (1968) in finding that a verbal-discrimination list composed of bidirectional word associates as interpair wrong (W) and right (R) items is more difficult to learn than a list in which the word associates enter into intrapair W and R relationships. Moreover, the acquisition of the intrapair list did not differ in difficulty from the acquisition of a list composed of unrelated words, again in agreement with previous studies. Free-recall measures of W and R items indicated that the intrapair and interpair conditions differed primarily in the process employed to “tag and collapse” pairs of item for use in the recognition of R items during verbal-discrimination practice.

Word frequency and selection strategies in verbal-discrimination learning

Selection strategies for enhancing or hindering the establishment of functional stimuli related to the consistent selection of intrapair right items in verbal-discrimination learning were investigated by means of various transfer conditions. Specific item content of the two lists was unrelated. However, a strategy activated during List 1 practice that was based on the pre-experimental word-frequency attributes of wrong and right items in the list was found to transfer to performance on List 2.

Effect of visual feedback and application of skin potential response to detection of deception

In view of a possible theoretical formulation that the factor which produces the physiological response is not lying or guilt per se but rather something relative to the consequences of being detected, the information, which subjects perceive as to their detectability of deception when confronted with a device and test process, may be expected to play a major role in determining the results of detection.Thus, a motivational set plus continuous or immediate feedback from the activity of the autonomically influenced peripheral effector provides appropriate information concerning the lie detection situation, convincing the subjects that they will not be able to successfully deceive. Since the feedback the autonomic response via visual display was suggested to enable the subjects to modify their responses according to their motivation, it was preliminaly demonstrated that voluntary control of the skin potential response (SPR) with watching a visual display could not effectively prevent detection in the experimental situation where subjects were required to mask all his responses rather than responding voluntarily to wrong items. Then, a total of 30 college students participated in a detection of deception experiment designed to determine the effect of visual feedback from subjects own responses on the rates of detection, together with the feedback effect of psuedoresponses artificially induced. One of five cards was selected by each subject, and the SPR to the selected card was compared with the responses for (nonselected) cards in each of the 3 groups, consisting of 10 subjects. Subjects were motivated to deceive and withhold this response by means of the previous instructions which told the subjects that individuals with a great emotional control and superior intelligence were able to deceive successfully. One experimental (Feedback) group was provided with continuous visual feedback of their own SPR. The other experimental (feedback with psuedoresponse) group also received continuous feedback but was given a psuedo-response artificially induced for the first critical item. A control (Non-feedback) group received no feedback.The SPR used in all three groups were consistently found to discriminate deceptions better than by chance. As predicted, the results obtained from subjects who received feedback with psuedo-response were significantly superior in efficiency in discriminating deception to those of feedback group, and the lowest detection rates were found with non-feedback group. The feedback procedures were also found to yield some evidence to heighten the subject's autonomic reactions, and accordingly, the SPR's under the feedback procedures were free to some degree from an adaptation effect despite the successive presentation of items.In addition, the SPR produced more frequently diphasic wave-forms accompanied with large positive deflections to the critical items as opposed to the noncritical items. The findings conform to the “consequences theory of detection of deception” and suggest that the feedback procedure from the subjects' own record is a useful activation technique with which to drive the detection of deception.Furthermore, the use of the SPR may be recommended as a valuable indicator in detection of deception.

Unlearning of List 1 wrong items in verbal discrimination transfer.

Unlearning of List 1 wrong items in verbal discrimination transfer.

Direct and mediated transfer for right and wrong responses in verbal-discrimination learning

Verbal-discrimination learning was investigated under transfer conditions in which right and wrong items from List 1 entered into five different arrangements in a “mixed” List 2. Included in List 2 were new pairs (C or control), pairs with previous right items combined with new wrong items (R), pairs with associates of previous right items combined with new wrong items (R'), pairs with previous wrong items combined with new right items (W), and pairs with associates of previous wrong items combined with new right items (W′). As in an earlier study ( Underwood, Jesse, and Ekstrand, 1964 ), R and W generated positive and negative transfer, respectively, with respect to the C. The inhibitory effect for W supported the concept of discrimination of W items which is independent of the presence of R items. However, unlike the results found in the previous study, the inhibitory effect was apparent throughout List-2 practice, rather than in the later stages only. Mediated positive and negative transfer were demonstrated for R′ and W′ conditions, respectively, indicating the generality of mediated transfer to situations other than paired associates.

Knowledge of rights and wrongs in verbal-discrimination learning

Summary The purpose of this experiment was to determine what information S acquires about right and wrong items in verbal-discrimination learning. Following learning of one list, two groups of Ss were given a new list in which the right items from the first list were retained with new wrong items inserted (R. Cond.). For two other groups new right items were inserted with the wrong items remaining the same as in the first list (Cond. W). Two other groups served as controls, having completely new items on the second list. For each condition, two anticipation intervals were used on the second list (1.5 and 3 sec.). The results showed that under the R Cond. performance was essentially perfect on the second list; even with the short anticipation interval Ss averaged only slightly over one error across 10 trials. Under the W Cond. performance on the second list was initially very high but improvement beyond this point was very slow. With the short anticipation interval under the W. Cond., performance was inferior to the control on later trials although it was initially much superior. The results were interpreted by a frequency-discrimination hypothesis.