The effects of five elaboration conditions on the paired associate learning of 50 educable mentally retarded children (mean age 9 years) were investigated. Four of the conditions were included in a two factor design (type of relation x familiarity); the fifth (nonsense condition) was included as an outside control. Ten children were tested in each…

Compared were the performances of 45 normal and 45 slow learners (all in junior high school) on a task of original and relearning of paired associate responses as a result of induced success or failure following each response. Ss were asked to pair stick figures with consonant trigrams and then told their performance was either correct or wrong…

Based, in part, on a PhD Dissertation at the University of Oregon under Melton C. Martinson. (RJ)

Two studies investigated characteristics of verbal elaborations (length and number of relations provided by the syntactic construction) to determine what makes them effective mediators for young children. Study I treated the role of an elaboration's length in facilitating paired associate learning in 22 nursery school children. Data indicated that…

Twenty-four educable mentally retarded children (10 to 15 years old) were randomly assigned to one of three treatment conditions (repetition-control, verbal context, and imagery) to determine the effects of elaboration on paired associate (PA) learning. Data from performances on two lists supported the hypothesis that elaboration in the form of…