Effect of Simultaneous List Presentation on Paired-Associate Learning

Abstract

Sammdsy.-Difficulry of learning a list of 12 CVC pairs increased monotonically as a function of number of list items ( 1 , 3, 6, and 1 2 ) grouped together for simultaneous exposure. Contrary to expectation, the difficulty was not affected by locus of grouping, i.e., whether grouping occurred on the study part, test part, or on both puts of each trial. Subsequent free recall also failed to show significant differences between conditions. The over-all grouping decrement was interpreted in terms of a strengthening of multiple associations among list members.Previous research by Brown and Brown (1965) showed the commonly employed single or successive method of pair presentation to be vastly superior to a simzdtaneous method, whe~ein subsets of two or four pairs are presented together for learning. The superiozity was invariant with respect to size of subset, formal intralist similarity, and whether the pairs appeared always in the same or in different subsets on each trial.As suggested in the previous study, the inferiority of the simultaneous method may have derived from 3 . procedural difference on the study (St) and test (T) parts of each learning trial. Specifically, grouping (of pairs) for simultaneous exposure occurred only on the St part of the trial: the sr~mulus (S) terms were presented individually on &e T part of the trial. Such a procedural change, by eliminating the pair-grouping context of St, also may reduce the number of available S cues on T and thereby lead to slower learning (McGeoch & Irion, 1952, pp. 448-45 1 ) .T o obtain more general information on the, effects of locus and size of grouping, the present study grouped varying numbers of list items together on St, T, and on both St and T. It was hypothesized that use of the same pair context during St and T woulc reduce interference from pairs contained in different subsets and perhaps from ?airs contained within the same subset. Thus a relative facilitation of learning was predicted for grouping on both St and T as compared to either locils alone. METHODThe 160 paid college students learned an identical 12-pair list of CVCs of 75 to 85% Archer (1960) association value to a criterion of one errorless trial.The list was exactly the low formal similarity list used in the earlier sn~dy and described in detail elsewhere (Battig & Brackett, 1963).

Rate and frequency as determinants of learning with complete and discrete list presentation

“…In this group would be studies by Foote and Pollio (1970), who studied free recall using common words, Hall, Grossman, and Elwood (1976), who also used common words in free recall and recognition, and Moursund and Chape (1966), who used paired associates consisting of nonsense syllables. Unfortunately, this latter finding was directly contradicted by the results reported by Brown and Read (1966). Brown and Read found that the complete method was markedly inferior to the discrete method when paired associate learning of nonsense syllables was involved.…”

Intralist categorization in paired-associate learning

“…Thus the results point to the use of labels by Ss to categorize pairs in the list even though overall learning is thereby retarded. Similar categorization effects have been reported for pairs presented simultaneously for learning (Brown & Brown, 1965;Brown & Read, 1966) and for pairs sharing conceptually similar S terms (Underwood, Ekstrand, & Keppel, 1965, Exp 5). In addition, the present findings suggest an increase in 346 the utilization of labels with an increase in list difficulty, as indicated by the relatively greater decrement from labels in the high-than low-similarity list.…”

Effect of simultaneous presentation of conceptually similar and dissimilar items on paired associate learning1

“…However, as hypothesized, the decrement was eliminated when pairs within blocks were conceptually similar to one another. As suggested previously (Brown & Brown, 1965;Brown & Read, 1966), simultaneous presentation of groups of pairs may serve to strengthen interpair associations among items within the subset, thereby increasing response confusion during testing. The occurrence of more within-subset errors under the simultaneous than under the successive method, both with organized and unorganized lists, is consistent with such an interpretation, as well as with previous findings (Brown & Brown, 1965;Brown & Read, 1966;Rotberg & Woolman, 1963).…”

“…The purpose of the present research was to determine the effect on paired-associate (PA) learning of (a) blocking similar and dissimilar subsets of pairs within the list for sequential presentation, and (b) presenting pairs within each block either successively (one at a time) or simultaneously (all together) for learning. Previous research (Brown & Brown, 1965;Brown & Read, 1966) showed that simultaneous presentation of more than one pair enabled Ss to categorize the pairs into subsets, but that such categorization retarded PA learning significantly when compared with the standard, successive method of pair presentation. In the earlier research, conceptually unrelated items were blocked together for simultaneous presentation.…”