Two experiments employing the release from PI method were conducted to determine whether degree of release could be predicted by the amount of denotative attribute overlap between the control and experimental groups. This theory was very appropriate for predicting the results of the first experiment, but was less successful in the second unless a connotative attribute is also introduced. It is suggested that this class of attribute should be included in semantic memory conceptualization.

Sets of pairs for a multiple-item recognition (verbal discrimination) learning task varied in their number of presentations during a single extended study trial. The test phase required old-new and right-wrong (functional) identifications of individual items. Old-item identification increased with increasing exposure for both right and wrong items. However, an increase in functional identification with increasing exposures occurred for right items but not for wrong items. This pattern of results suggests that identifications of prior wrong items are mediated by frequency cues alone, whereas identifications of right items are supplemented by nonfrequency cues that are associated with right items through their elaborative rehearsal during the study phase.The ability of subjects to identify both the oldness and the prior function (i.e., whether they are right or wrong) of individual items following study trials on a multiple-item recognition, or verbal discrimination, task has been demonstrated in several recent studies (e.g., Kausler, Pavur, & Yadrick, 1975;Kausler & Yadrick, 1977). The means by which response-based frequency units may mediate such identifications have been described by Kausler et al. (1975) in terms of a signal detection model. Briefly, separate distributions of frequency units are presumed to be generated for right and wrong items during practice. Although these distributions are expected to be partially overlapping, the mean of the right-item distribution should exceed the mean of the wrong-item distribution, beginning with the first study trial (see Figure 1). The disparity between distributions is attribut-

Sets of pairs for a multiple-item recognition learning task varied in their number of exposures (one, two, and four) during a single extended study trial. The test phase required frequency of exposure judgments of individual items (i.e., prior right and wrong items). In agreement with frequency analyses of multiple-item recognition learning, frequency judgments of right items were greater than judgments of wrong items at each exposure level. Judgments of both item types increased as the number of pretest exposures increased, and the disparity between item types also increased with increases in exposure. Individual differences in frequency judgments were greater for wrong items than for right items.Implicit in frequency analyses of multiple-item recognition, or verbal discrimination, learning (Ekstrand, Wallace, & Underwood, 1966; Kausler, Pavur, & Yadrick, 1975) are the assumptions that variation in pretest exposure produces variation in frequency values for both right and wrong items and that magnitude of these frequency values for right items is greater than the magnitude for wrong items at each level of pretest exposure. In addition, the disparity favoring right items is assumed to increase progressively as the number of pretest exposures increases. Nevertheless, evidence regarding the nature of the covariations between frequency of exposure and frequency values in multipleitem recognition learning is quite limited. Wallace, Murphy, and Sawyer (1973) obtained subjective frequency ratings for right and wrong items after three successive study trials on a verbal discrimination list, and both Rowe (1975) and Wallace, Sawyer, Murphy, and Robertson (1976) recorded overt rehearsals of items during study trials that alternated with pairwise test trials on a verbal discrimination list. However, none of these studies attempted to determine the covariation between item exposure and the frequency values of right vs. wrong items. When a study list is composed of individual items that vary in frequency of exposure, an effective means of determining the nature of the covariation between frequency of occurrence and frequency value is to require subjects to make absolute frequency judgments of estimates (e.g., Begg, 1974; Rose & Rowe, 1976). Such frequency judgments presumably reflect the underlying frequency values of items at each level of pretest exposure. A procedure employed in a recent study by Kausler, Dalezman, and Yadrick (in press) is readily adaptable for use in a frequency judgment task This study was supported in part by National Science Foundation Grant BMS75-05007 awarded to the nISt author. 487in which both right and wrong items vary in their frequency of occurrence. This adaptation was employed in the present experiment as a means of detennining the covariation between frequency of exposure and frequency values for right vs. wrong items.The procedure calls for an extended study trial in which pairs are varied in their number of pretest exposures (one, two, or four). That is, subjects receive a heteroge...

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