William F. Battig

Effects of different kinds of semantic processing on memory for words.

In an incidental learning paradigm, recall and recognition memory were shown to be significantly better for words rated on pleasantness than on any of the other six semantic dimensions (concreteness, imagery, categorizability, meaningfulness, familiarity, and number of attributes) recently used for scaling of 2,854 words by Toglia and Battig (1978). Pleasantness ratings are also relatively uncorrelated with ratings on these other six dimensions, and the pattern of memory differences between these seven dimensions corresponds closely to differences in dimensional distinctiveness, as indexed by the average correlation of each dimension with the other six dimensions as reported by Toglia and Battig (1978). Word subsets with high and low mean ratings on all seven dimensions showed comparable dimensional differences in memory, but high words were both recalled and recognized better than were low words.

Are the Important "Individual Differences" between or within Individuals?.

Abstract Within-individual differences have been a common finding in a variety of research areas. Such inconsistencies with individuals are argued to represent an important consideration for researchers concerned with between-individual differences. Cognitive Flexibility (availability in the individuals repertoire of several alternative types of strategies or processes, and ability to select the one(s) of the alternatives that are most effective for the required task) is suggested to be an important individual-difference variable. Some methodological problems in the assessment of cognitive flexibility as related to human memory are discussed, along with possible ways of overcoming these methodological difficulties, and some limited evidence for the importance of cognitive flexibility in research on personality as well as ability differences.

Free recall of taxonomically and alphabetically organized word lists as a function of storage and retrieval cues

After a grouping pretest, 128 S s each learned a 40-word free-recall (FR) list containing 5 words representing each of 8 taxonomic categories and beginning with each of 8 first letters, followed by additional recall and transfer tests. Taxonomic cues and blocking both facilitated FR performance and categorical clustering, whereas both first-letter cues and blocking impaired FR performance but produced less alphabetical than categorical clustering. Taxonomic cues on a final cued test trial produced enhanced FR performance, but letter cues thereupon produced substantial FR losses. Besides demonstrating a marked superiority of categorical over alphabetical bases for FR organization, these results also indicate the necessity of appropriate storage for effective coding and FR retrieval, and argue against independent storage of individual items.

Evidence that priority of free recall of newly learned items is not a recency artefact

Contrary to recent claims ( Baddeley, 1968 ; Postman & Keppel, 1968 ; Shuell & Keppel, 1968 ) that priority of free recall of newly learned items (PRNI) reflects merely a recency effect due to the disproportionate presentation of such items in terminal serial positions; the present study demonstrated the PRNI effect under conditions where the first two and last two items had always been correct on the previous trial. In addition to showing the PRNI effect where it could not be accounted for by recency, its belated appearance during later stages of learning implicates a strategy whereby S s increasingly attend to new or previously incorrect items and recall these first before they can be forgotten.

Evidence that broader processing facilitates delayed retention

After rating words on one to three of either three highly-correlated dimensions (concreteness, imagery, and categorizability) or three relatively uncorrelated dimensions (concreteness, pleasantness, and number of word features), 48 college students were tested without warning for 48-h delayed recall and recognition of the 36 words. The latter broad-processing group showed significantly better recognition than the former narrow-processing group. Group differences in recall, however, were nonsignificant, and the narrow group was slightly superior on words rated for all three dimensions. The results indicate delayed recognition, if not recall, to be better for words which have been processed more broadly or elaborately. Memory is further suggested to be more closely dependent upon breadth or elaboration than depth of semantic processing.

Advantages of recall over anticipation methods in verbal learning

The standard paired-associate anticipation procedure previously has been argued to be inferior to recall (Battig, 1965). Anticipation performance measures provide contaminated and inaccurate estimates of Ss’ current learning level, reflecting the unnecessary confusion produced by requiring S to do too many things at once. The present paper shows these arguments against anticipation procedures to apply equally to other types of verbal-learning tasks. Even stronger advantages of recall over anticipation procedures are demonstrated for serial learning, wherein recall additionally displays a markedly greater sensitivity to the effects of relevant manipulated variables, and does not result in the classical bowed serial-position curve that has proved so difficult to understand under serial anticipation.

Imaginal and verbal mnemonics as related to paired-associate learning and directionality of associations

Using a paradigm where unmixed paired-associate lists of concrete and abstract pairs were first learned followed by a mixed list of both pair types, concrete pairs were markedly superior to abstract pairs, but showed less improvement from unmixed to mixed lists. Subsequent recall tests showed superior forward over backward recall and more unidirectional recall (forward or backward but not both) for abstract than concrete pairs (which showed associative symmetry). Abstract-pair performance was better for subjects reporting more sentence mnemonics, but use of images was uncorrelated with concrete-pair performance. Recall also improved significantly with increased number of prior recall tests, which also produced more sentence mnemonics for abstract pairs but did not change mnemonic strategies for concrete pairs.

Effects of semantic list structure differences in free recall

Free recall learning of a mixed list of 20 related and 20 unrelated words was enhanced more if the related words belonged to common taxonomie categories than if they were hierarchically ordered as a single branch of a “semantic tree” (e.g., animal, mammal, dog, terrier). The same difference obtained in 1-week delayed recall. No significant taxonomic-hierarchic differences were found in clustering. More detailed analyses indicated the hierarchical recall decrement to reflect fewer recalled items per set during learning, but fewer sets represented in delayed recall. These results were interpreted on the basis of a two-stage retrieval process, distinguishing access to a semantic set from subsequent access to items within the set.

Simultaneous serial-recall learning of two serial orders of the same list

Two different serial orders of the same 11 words were presented on alternate trials under a serial-recall procedure. There were nine different types of relationships between the two serial orders. Each was run both with and without familiarization pretraining for three words from the middle of the list (which did not affect serial performance). Significant differences between serial-order conditions appeared to reflect magnitude and complexity of variations between the two serial orders, rather than maintenance of specific item-item or position-item associations. Effective learning occurred, however, even when each response was “reinforced” only following both a different interpolated set of responses and “reinforcements.”

Recognition of pictorial as compared with verbal descriptions

After being presented with either photographs and/or sentential descriptions thereof, Ss were tested both for pictorial and verbal recognition both immediately and after 48 h. Superior recognition was found for the type of material presented during study, primarily due to very poor pictorial recognition by Ss who had studied sentences. No decrement was found over the delay interval, which actually produced facilitation for the nonpresented modality.