Franklin M. Berry

Transfer Test Methodology in Investigations of Stimulus Selection in Paired-Associate Learning

An empirical test was made of an earlier argument that the Postman and Greenbloom “double-criterion technique” for measuring stimulus selection leads to an underestimation of single-cue selection when the technique is employed in a within-Ss transfer design situation. The present findings confirmed the earlier argument.

Stimulus Encoding in Paired-Associate Learning by Illiterate Children: A Methodological Demonstration of a Picture-Redundancy Paradigm.

Summary A picture-redundancy task was introduced for measuring stimulus encoding strategies used by illiterate subjects during redundant-stimulus PA learning. A prototype experiment was executed with black preschool children serving as the illiterate subject population. The results of the prototypic experiment suggested that the young illiterate children employed both two-cue and single-cue processing strategies. It was concluded that the picture-redundancy task should prove useful for further investigations of stimulus encoding among illiterate subject populations.

Picture recognition by preschool children.

Summary Seventy-one Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test pictures were scaled for consistency of recognition among three-, four-, and five-year-old, middle-class, Caucasian preschool children. The variables of age and sex proved to be significant predictors of the number of pictures recognized correctly by each child. In a further attempt to obtain useful picture recognition norms for this sample of children, recognition scores were examined as a function of age and sex for only highly recognizable pictures (i. e., pictures recognized at least 78 percent of the time by the entire sample). With this sample of pictures the Age × Sex interaction proved to be significant. As the three-year-old males were the source of the interaction, they were eliminated from consideration in the computation of picture recognition values. This procedure resulted in recognition scale values being calculated for 43 pictures found to be recognized and labeled in a consistent manner by three-year-old females and four- and five-year-o...

Stimulus selection and the redundant-trigram model of paired-associate learning

College Ss acquired paired associates (PAs) consisting of redundant trigrams (trigrams with no repeated letters) paired with single-digit responses, whereupon they were tested for single-letter selection and quizzed as to how they had learned each PA. The purpose of the study was to determine whether or not college Ss process redundant trigrams on the basis of their initial characteristics to any significant extent. The results showed that a significant number of the trigrams were indeed processed on the basis of the initials they spelled out. It was argued that the occurrence of initial selection makes the redundant-trigram model a less useful research model than was heretofore supposed.

Stimulus selection and meaningfulness following a single opportunity to rehearse each paired associate

Stimulus selection was investigated as a function of stimulus meaningfulness (M) and list input position following a single study trial of paired-associate (PA) learning. Large individual differences were observed in Ss’ cue processing strategies: only 16 of 30 Ss appeared to have developed the strategy of selecting higher M words from word-trigram compound stimuli following a single exposure of each PA. There also was no systematic relationship between list input position and the occurrence of word selection for these 16 SSe But, on the average, less than 10 sec were required for most of the word-selecting Ss to develop the strategy of encoding the more meaningful cues for PA learning.