Analysis of haptic, visual, and verbal presentation mode effects in children’s paired associate learning

Abstract

The experiment was conducted to assess the relative effectiveness of three different presentation modes on children's paired associate learning. Thirty-six second-grade children served as subjects. A study-test paired associate recognition procedure was used. The study trial consisted of the presentation of a 20-pair list of common objects in one of three different presentation conditions: haptic object vs. visual object vs. aural label. On the test trial, the children were presented with both original and repaired items in the same mode as study for an old vs. new recognition response. The results indicated that visual-object presentation was superior to both haptic-object and aural-label presentations, which did not differ from each other.An important issue in children's paired associate learning is the identification of effective modes for presenting to-be-remembered (TBR) stimuli (e.g., Pressley, 1977;Reese, 1977 ;Rohwer, 1973). A frequent comparison in the literature has been between the verbal presentation of object labels vs. the visual presentation of object drawings. In such comparisons, the usual finding is that visual presentation is associated with a higher level of paired associate performance than verbal presentation (e.g., Rohwer , Kee, & Guy, 1975). Research also suggests that the haptic-object mode of presentation can influence children 's paired associate performance. For example, Irwin (1971) demonst rated that paired associate performance is enhanced when children are allowed to handle and look at TBR toy objects relative to merely looking at the objects side by side. A complementary finding has been reported by Wolff and Levin (e.g., Wolff & Levin, 1972;Wolff, Levin, & Longobardi, 1972). In the Wolff and Levin research, children given an opportunity to act out an interaction between the TBR toy objects under interactive imagery instructions are typically associated with a higher level of paired associate performance than children who are only allowed to look at the TBR objects side by side under the imagery instructional prompt.The studies concerning the influence of haptic-object presentation on children's paired associate learning clearly indicate that this type of presentation can augment the performance associated with visual-object presentation. However, the effectiveness of the hapticobject mode relative to the verbal or pictorial modes is -unknown . Thus, the present study was designed to provide an evaluation of the relative effectiveness of the three different presentation modes in children's paired associate learning. METHOD Subjects and DesignThirty-six second-grade children with a mean age of 7.85 years (SD =4.31 months, range =7.25-8.83) from the high socioeconomic status community of Beverly Hills, California, participated as subjects in the experiment. The children were randomly assigned to one of the three presentation conditions in the study : haptic object vs. visual object vs. aural label.Materialsand Procedure A 2Q-pair list of common toy objects (e.g., balloon, car, sho...