Abstract
It has been demonstrated that Ss high in subjective organization in multitrial free recall are better paired-associate learners than Ss low on the subjective organization variable. The results of that study were interpreted as supporting the idea that the advantage in free recall of the good organizer is the ability to form associations between verbal items more rapidly than the poor organizer. The present study employs the partial correlation technique to explore the relationship between subjective organization, paired-associated learning, and free-recall acquisition. Our analysis indicates that the interpretation of the relationship between subjective organization and paired-associate learning previously offered is invalid and based on a confounding of effects.
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References
EARHARD, M., & ENDICOTT, O. Why are there individual differences in subjective organization during free-recall memorization? Journal of Verbal Learning & Verbal Behavior, 1969, 8, 316–319.
NOBLE, C. E. Measurement of association value (a), rated associations (a’), and scaled meaningfulness (m’) for the 2100 CVC combinations of the English alphabet. Psychological Reports, 1961, 8, 487–521.
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Gorfein, D.S. Are good subjective organizers good paired-associate learners?. Psychon Sci 22, 340 (1971). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03332611
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03332611