THE FREQUENCY THEORY OF VERBAL-DISCRIMINATION (VD) LEARNING POSTULATES THAT THE CUE FOR DISCRIMINATION IS THE DIFFERENCE IN FREQUENCY OF OCCURRENCE BETWEEN THE CORRECT (C) AND INCORRECT (I) ALTERNATIVES OF A VD PAIR. IT IS POSTULATED THAT, AS VD LEARNING PROCEEDS, AT LEAST A 2:1 FREQUENCY DIFFERENCE IN FAVOR OF THE C ITEM IS BUILT UP, AND SS USE THIS DIFFERENCE AS THEIR CUE. BY ALWAYS SELECTING THE ITEM WITH THE GREATER PERCEIVED FREQUENCY OF OCCURRENCE, SS CAN PERFORM EFFICIENTLY. THE EXPERIMENT PRESENTED PRODUCED RESULTS IN SUPPORT OF THE FREQUENCY THEORY. THE DISCUSSION CENTERS ON ADDITIONAL PREDICTIONS OF THE THEORY AND THE EVIDENCE AVAILABLE IN SUPPORT OF THESE PREDICTIONS. (17 REF.)

The major purpose of the review was to examine theoretical and empirical properties of the von Restorff phenomenon. A selection of studies that preceded the von Restorff article demonstrated that isolating an item by making it more vivid than the rest of the list yielded a positive influence on learning that item. Subsequent studies in a variety of contexts have been quite consistent in confirming that isolation facilitates learning of the isolated item. The present review attempts to indicate some of the specific features aiid influences of the von Restorff effect. The final section of the article presents theoretical discussions and suggested attempts to explain the isolation effect.

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Three experiments are reported introducing variations in testing mode and cuing context into the general procedures used to demonstrate recognition failure of recallable words. Recognition failure of recognizable words can be demonstrated when a cued recognition test replaces the cued recall test in these general procedures. Also, recall failure of recallable words can be demonstrated if an uncued recall test replaces the initial uncued recognition test. If the initial recognition test involves cued recognition, then both the recognition failure of recallable words and the recognition failure of recognizable words are attenuated. Recognition failure of recognizable words was also present when distractors were not used in recognition testing. It was concluded that recognition-failure phenomena represent a special class of context effects; that is, they simply result from removing original study cues from one testing context and restoring them in a second testing context. It was suggested that theories of memory that recognize that memory performance may be sensitive to testing context are not contraindicated by the demonstration of recognition failure of recallable words.

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