A clarification of frequency effects in children’s discrimination learning

Abstract

Three experiments were conducted to assess the effects of certain stimulus variables on children's discrimination learning. In general, it was found that word frequency was negatively related to discrimination learning as long as the words were meaningful to Ss. Moreover, the relationship between word frequency and performance reversed in free-recall learning, as was expected. Equivalent relationships between frequency and learning were obtained with both verbal and pictorial materials. The implications of these results were discussed in the context of popular accounts of memorial representation.

Imagery and Children’s Learning: Putting the Picture in Developmental Perspective

“…There are a large number of studies which showed that verbal discrimination learning is easier when stimulus materials are pictorial rather than verbal Ghatala, Levin, & Makoid, 1975;Rowe, 1972;). Ghatala and Levin and their associates have attempted to discover why pictures are better stimulus materials than words in verbal discrimination learning tasks.…”

Pronunciation and the frequency-meaningfulness effect in children's frequency discrimination.

“…Finally, the finding that meaningfulness seems to moderate the effect of background frequency in both frequency judgment and verbal discrimination tasks (Ghatala & Levin, 1974;Ghatala, Levin, & Makoid, 1975) suggests that the stability of situational frequency inputs to an item is positively related to the depth of processing of that item, in the Craik and Lockhart (1972) sense. Moreover, the present finding of an interaction between the frequency-meaningfulness pattern and pronunciation reinforces this view inasmuch as pronunciation may be thought of as inducing a deeper level of processing of Lo-F/Hi-M materials (though not of Lo-F/Lo-M materials) compared with when they are not pronounced.…”

“…In contrast, low-frequency words of low meaningfulness were judged no more accurately than high-frequency words (in fact, descriptively less accurately), a result not in accord with Weber's law, given the same assumption. 1 In a follow-up study, Ghatala, Levin, and Makoid (1975, Experiment 1) contrasted these same materials-high-frequency words (Hi-F), low-frequency/highmeaningfulness words (Lo-F/Hi-M), and low-frequency/low-meaningfulness words (Lo-F/Lo-M)-in a verbal discrimination task with sixth-grade children. The results corroborated the earlier interpretation inasmuch as [onlylthosey subjects in the Lo-F/Hi-M condition who could actually give semantic responses to the words (as determined from a subsequent definitions test) performed better on the discrimination task than comparable subjects in the Hi-F condition.…”

The imagery effect and phenomenal background frequency in verbal discrimination learning

“…It should perhaps be noted, however, that although the Weber's law postulate has received considerable support when item frequency is experimentally manipulated (situational frequency), the evidence suggesting an assimilation of background and situational frequency, and therefore, the operation of this postulate with respect to preexperirnental or background frequency, has been rather weak and limited as given in extensive reviews by Eckert and Kanak (1974) and Wallace (1972). Nevertheless, recent evidence by Ghatala, Levin, and Makoid (1975) provides support for the Weber's law prediction with preexperimental item frequency and thus makes reasonable an interpretation of the imagery effect in terms of the postulate. Ghatala and Levin (1976) demonstrated that when only objective frequency of concrete and abstract words is controlled, allowing abstract items to have higher phenomenal background frequency, the imagery effect in VDL is obtained.…”