A frequency theory of verbal-discrimination learning.

Abstract

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.)

Associative recall in verbal-discrimination learning as related to pronunciation and degree of practice

“…The nonsignificant effect for direction of recall in the MFR analysis indicates that W-R and R-W recall are perhaps equal and that W-R and R-W associative learning may be symmetrical. A frequency theory of VD learning as proposed by Ekstrand, Wallace, & Underwood (1966) suggests that recall availability of R items should be superior to that of W items in that R items are responded to more frequently than are W items as VD learning progresses, as was found to be true with free recall of W and R items in the Kausler & Sardello (1967) study. In MFR, however, the presence of the W or R item seemingly increases the availability of the response required of S to the extent that the effect of prior differential frequency of responding is no longer apparent.…”

Composition of episodic memory.

“…Yet , it would seem quite inappropriate to ignore the differences in the magni- Within the discriminative attributes , some of the finding s appear to be very troublesome for extant theory , particularly frequency theory . This theory was originated to account for verbaldiscrimination learning (Ekstrand , Wallace , & Underwood , 1966), and was subsequently extended to classical recognition memory (Underwood , 1971). Now , we find that the scores on two verbal-discrimination tasks form one factor , while the scores on the recognition tasks form another .…”

The imagery effect and frequency discrimination

“…Differential performance on word pairs homogeneous with respect to concreteness (i.e., image-arousal capacity) is typically found with faster learning when both members of a pair are concrete rather than abstract in mixed as well as unmixed list designs (Paivio & Rowe, 1970Ullrich & Balogh, 1972). An attempt was initially made (paivio & Rowe, 1970) to integrate this phenomenon within the general theoretical framework of frequency theory (Ekstrand, Wallace, & Underwood, 1966;Wallace, 1972) which has thus far served well to explain VOL. This attempt took the form of assuming implicit imaginal response evocation to correct high-imagery items more than to incorrect high-imagery items and differential frequency accrual analogous to that postulated by frequency theory for implicit associative responses (lARs).…”

“…An attempt was initially made (paivio & Rowe, 1970) to integrate this phenomenon within the general theoretical framework of frequency theory (Ekstrand, Wallace, & Underwood, 1966;Wallace, 1972) which has thus far served well to explain VOL. This attempt took the form of assuming implicit imaginal response evocation to correct high-imagery items more than to incorrect high-imagery items and differential frequency accrual analogous to that postulated by frequency theory for implicit associative responses (lARs).…”