Paired-associate acquistion: Some effects of inter- and intrapair similarity.

Abstract

A substantial increase or decrease, relative to a control condition, in rate of acquisition of a paired-associate list was demonstrated when formal similarity between stimulus and response items was located within and between pairs, respectively. In addition, the results show that the effect of formal intrapair similarity can be modified by the predictability of the repeated letter. The location of the within-pair repeated letter does not affect the total number of errors but it does affect the distribution of the types of errors made by S.

Amount and locus of stimulus-response overlap in paired-associate acquisition.

“…Thus, in terms of increasing ease of acquisition, the order of overlap conditions should be zero, middle, last, first, middle-andlast, first-and-middle, and first-and-last. The only other available evidence on the variable of location of overlap has been reported by Thompson and Fritzler (1968). Ease of acquisition for nonsense syllable pairs increased in the order zero, last, and first, although only the difference between zero and first was statistically reliable.…”