The conditions and characteristics of the recovery of first-list associations following the end of interpolated learning (IL) were examined in five experiments on retroactive inhibition. In Exp. I-IV, recovery was studied as a function of the paradigm of transfer and the temporal arrangement of original learning (OL), IL, and the test of recall (MMFR). In the experimental treatments, -S"s learned three successive paired-associate lists conforming to either the A-B, A-C, A-D or the A-B, C-D, E-F paradigm. In one experimental arrangement the IL-test interval was varied, and in the other the temporal point of interpolation (TPI) was varied. Both manipulations yielded evidence of first-list recovery: first-list recall increased as a function of the IL-test interval and was greater when IL occurred early in the retention interval than when it immediately preceded the retention test. Recovery was found to depend critically on an adequate degree of OL. The increases in first-list recall were comparable for the two paradigms. Greater changes in performance were produced by manipulation of the TPI than of the IL-test interval. In Exp. V, recovery of backward associations was investigated under the A-B, C-B and A-B, B-C paradigms, and a trend toward recovery was found only for the latter. The results are viewed as consistent with the hypothesis that recovery reflects primarily the dissipation of response set interference, i.e., of the tendency established during IL to suppress the responses from earlier lists.The question of whether unlearning is a as the interval between the end of IL and reversible process has critical implications for the test of first-list retention is lengthened, current analyses of the mechanisms of in-Experimental tests of this hypothesis have terference in forgetting.The reduced focused on temporal changes in retention availability of first-list associations after in-under the A-B, A-C paradigm as measured terpolated learning (IL), which is taken as by the method of modified free recall evidence of unlearning, has been widely (MMFR). The MMFR test has been attributed to the operation of a process hav-viewed as providing a relatively pure meaing the functional properties of experimental sure of unlearning on the assumption that extinction (cf. Keppel, 1968; Postman, performance under this procedure is immune 1961). It follows that unlearned associa-to the effects of response competition and tions, like extinguished conditioned re-cannot be influenced by failures of list difsponses, should show spontaneous recovery ferentiation.
A series of studies assessing the influence of nonspecific interference upon response recall was performed. The general finding of Exp. I was that impressive amounts of retroactive inhibition (RI) may be produced when the interpolated learning consists of unrelated materials; this was true for responses in pairedassociate lists as well as responses learned by the method of free recall. In order to understand better the large amount of RI obtained with unrelated sets of paired associates (A-B, C-D transfer paradigm), this condition was compared with the A-B, A-D paradigm at three degrees of first-list learning in Exp. II. The second experiment revealed relatively small differences between the two paradigms at all degrees of learning. The final experiment indicated that the absence of first-list stimuli at recall was responsible for the failure to observe reliable differences between the two paradigms in Exp. II. The results are discussed in terms of two different interpretations of RI, viz., unlearning and response suppression.
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