Early verbal-memory researchers assumed participants represent memory of a pair of unrelated items with 2 independent, separately modifiable, directional associations. However, memory for pairs of unrelated words (A-B) exhibits associative symmetry: a near-perfect correlation between accuracy on forward (A??) and backward (??B) cued recall. This…

Examines the familiar serial to derived paired-associates transfer task in the light of expectations about the amount of positive transfer it should produce. Suggests, contrary to long-standing assumptions, that this paradigm cannot be expected to yield more than relatively moderate degrees of transfer because the utilization of response-produced…

Five experiments were conducted to address the question of whether source information could be accessed in the absence of being able to recall an item. The authors used a paired-associate learning paradigm in which cue-target word pairs were studied, and target recall was requested in the presence of the cue. When target recall failed,…

Two experiments compared concrete nouns and numbers as retrieval cues for paired associates across three recall tests with Ss given instructions to form unbiased mnemonics, mnemonics biased toward the noun, mnemonics biased toward the number, or control instructions. (Editor)

An assessment of selective search as an explanation for intentional forgetting was investigated by measuring reaction time (RT) in paired-associate lists of varying length. (Editor)

Five experiments were conducted comparing performance on paired-associate lists of stimuli that rhymed with lists of stimuli that did not rhyme. Results are discussed in terms of the role of input position cues in aiding discrimination among items. (Editor/RK)