Abstract
The purpose of the present study was to determine the effect of familiarization of response terms on the forward and backward acquisition rate of a list of PAs, in which the response terms were rated on associative reaction time (RT) and meaningfulness (associative frequency—Mn). Thirty-two undergraduate Ss individually received 20 familiarization trials in which, for 16 of the Ss, the eight CVCVC units of the list were the response terms of a PA list which was subsequently learned. For the other 16 Ss, conditions were the same, except that the CVCVCs of the familiarization list were different from the units of the PA list. Both RT and Mn were significant response-term variables in the forward anticipation learning task, but Mn interacted with familiarization, while RT did not, i.e., familiarization increased the learning rate of low-Mn pairs but not of high-Mn pairs. In the backward learning task, high-Mn pairs were learned in fewer trials than low-Mn pairs, but neither RT nor familiarization had an effect.
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This research was supported in part by a State University of New York Research Foundation faculty research fellowship to the first author.
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Ley, R., Locascio, D. Effects of familiarization, associative reaction time, and meaningfulness of response terms in forward and backward paired-associate learning. Psychon Sci 21, 97–99 (1970). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03335784
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03335784