Two experiments on how symmetrical difficulty factors (word familiarity and concreteness) affect stages of associative learning are reported. Learning parameters reacted in a qualitatively similar manner to stimulus and response manipulations. Paired associate items are represented in memory as unitary traces rather than as separate stimulus and…

College students learned English vocabulary words using a keyword or no-strategy control technique. The keyword technique did not enhance recall of the actual vocabulary word when the definition was given unless the vocabulary word per se was integrated in memory before presentation of vocabulary word-definition pairings. (Author/RD)

The extent to which an orienting activity exerts control over the encoding process was studied. Two experiments were reported in which associative meaningfulness was varied under conditions of semantic and nonsemantic processing. Both experiments showed effects of meaningfulness following both semantic and nonsemantic tasks. (Author/MH)

Experiments were performed to determine the contribution of imagery and semantic factors to the hypermnesia effect (increases in retention over successive recall attempts). Results showed that hypermnesia accompanies meaningful processing regardless of whether verbal or imagery encoding is emphasized. Semantic elaboration increases reminiscence…

Three experiments examined the incidental associations between list-learning material and the environmental context of that list's presentation. The environmental reinstatement effect is that subjects remember more when tested in their original learning environment relative to those tested in a new environmental context. (Author/GDC)

Undergraduates were induced to expect a recall or recognition test and then to remember a critical list consisting of both high-frequency and low-frequency words. Groups received either an expected or unexpected recall or recognition test. People expecting recall did better, especially with high-frequency words. (Author/RD)

It was hypothesized that freedom to choose words to be learned, but not the actual choice of words per se, improves performance in paired-associate tasks. Subjects offered an attractive or meaningful choice performed significantly better than subjects offered an unattractive choice, which was equivalent to no choice at all. (Author/CP)

Synonyms within languages were compared with exact repetition of words as aids to recall. Interlingual synonyms had effects identical to those of exact repetition, whereas intralingual synonyms were less effective than exact repetition. Bilingual equivalence of words does not appear to be due to common underlying semantic structures. (Author/RD)

The effects of semantic (S), orthographic (O), and unrelated (U) verbal stimuli on word retrieval were examined. S stimuli inhibited locating items within categories, whereas U stimuli inhibited locating the appropriate category. The discrepancy between the present outcome and the previous finding of S prime retrieval facilitation is discussed.…