If a series of verbal units is presented for study, and if a unit occurs two or more times in the series, the practice schedule for these multiple occurrences may be massed or distributed. In massed practice (MP) the item occupies adjacent positions; in distributed practice (DP) successive occurences are separated by at least one other unit. The…

Subjects in an independent groups free learning experiment recalled list of low- or high-arousal words, matched for imagery and frequency and exposed randomly for 3 seconds and 9 seconds. Extrapolating neural consolidation theory to previous work on serial position effects led to the predictions that (1) arousal facilitates primacy; (2) arousal…

Previous research has found that spoken rehearsal is superior to silent rehearsal during verbal discrimination learning. The frequency theory posits that verbal discrimination (VD) learning improves as the frequency differential between the correct and incorrect member of each pair increases. Erlebacher, Hill, and Wallace (1967) tested this…

The purpose of these studies was to test a theory of associative context (defined as the association between two words in a pair) on recognition memory. The theory states that culturally associated words in a pair and nonassociated words in a pair differ after a single study trial in terms of their frequency representation in memory. Two…

The purpose of this study was to determine if being next-in-line to perform would render strong effects on the student's storage and retrieval of information. The subjects were 45 undergraduate students enrolled in an introductory educational psychology course. Fifteen subjects were arranged in a large circle and were told that they were going to…

Children in kindergarten, third grade, and fifth grade were presented a list of either pictures or words (with items presented varying numbers of times on the study trail). In both picture and word conditions, half of the subjects estimated how many times each item had been presented (absolute judgments) and the other half judged which of two…

Four presentations in two recall conditions (immediate and one-week delay) were used to investigate the combined effects of imagery and semantic organizational strategies on the free recall of 80 college undergraduates. Both imaginal and semantic organization were comparably manipulated presenting each response noun simultaneously with an imagery…

Retroactive interference (RI) in prose learning was investigated in an experiment where passages were constructed on the basis of a predetermined logical structure. This structure made it possible to operationally define similarity and assess the effects of RI for inferential information as well as that stated directly in the original passage.…

The verbal discrimination learning of elementary school children was assessed in two experiments. In both experiments, Ss were given either regular discrimination learning instructions (control), instructions to pronounce the correct pair member aloud three times during study trials (vocalization), or instructions to generate a visual image of the…

The purpose of this study was threefold: to determine whether adding a mnemonic to systematically designed instruction would improve verbal retention, to establish whether retention is better for concrete or abstract information, and to determine whether mental imagery or verbal elaboration is more effective for learning concrete or abstract…

A research project involving 16 experiments investigated the nature of the encoding process for verbal materials, particularly differences arising from mode of presentation. The results showed that a change in mode of presentation of items produced a recovery from interference in short term retention. Since intermodal interference was lower than…