Cue effectiveness and abstraction in paired-associate learning.

Abstract

Stimulus selection in paired-associate learning is assumed to be the result of an active organized process. From this standpoint, a methodological analysis and review of the studies of stimulus selection are presented. Some suggestions are made for further studies of stimulus selection. Underwood (1963) called attention to the fact that subjects often select part of the nominal stimulus as the functional stimulus. He discussed some of the implications of stimulus selection and suggested that selection occurs in rote paired-associate learning as well as in concept formation. Shepard (1963), in his comments on Underwood's paper, maintained that some stimuli (e.g., nonsense trigrams and geometrical figures) are almost inevitably analyzed into components or dimensions, while others (e.g., colors and olfactory stimuli) are almost invariably reacted to as unitary, unanalyzable wholes. He distinguished between selective attention or abstraction which applies to the former type of stimuli and pure stimulus generalization which applies to the latter. Shepard also suggested that functional stimuli, in some cases, are not merely constructed from the individual nominal stimuli but, in addition, are organized into an array or "cognitive map."These discussions emphasized the fact that, even during paired-associate learning, human subjects are not passive receivers of stimuli, but are active selectors and organizers. When presented with a complex stimulus, subjects abstract part of it for use as the functional 1 The author is grateful to Benton J. Underwood for his comments on an earlier draft.2 Request for reprints should be sent to Jack

The widespread influence of the Rescorla-Wagner model

“…Other verbal learning researchers have described pairedassociate phenomena that are very similar to the overshadowing and blocking effects seen in animal learning (e.g., Underwood, Ham, &Ekstrand, 1962, andStanton, 1972, respectively). These and similar findings have traditionally been attributed to selectiveattention processes (see, e.g., James & Greeno, 1967;Richardson, 1971). Shortly after the Rescorla-Wagner model was published, Jerry Rudy (1974) described how such paired-associate learning phenomena were similar to conditioning phenomena, and, like the conditioning phenomena, were better explained by the RescorlaWagner model than by a selective-attention process.…”

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

“…This is probably ~specially true when the more analytical measures of stimulus selection, cue selection efficiency and cue selection consistency (Richardson, 1971) are involved. This is not to say that is it impossible to make good use of the redundant-trigram model, but rather it is to say that such application may make for less experimental precision.…”

“…In the sole investigation in which 'the redundant trigram and its "redundant-word-triad" analogue have been compared directly (Berry & Cole, 1973), only one difference was found in the manner in which college Ss processed these different types of triads: the word-triad model yielded higher (p < .10) estimates of cue selection consistency (see Richardson, 1971) The present experinlent was designed to follow up Berry & Cole's (1973) conjecture that college Ss are likely to process redundant trigrams on the basis of their initial characteristics. The a •• swer to this question seemed important because such "mitial processing" would be likely to obscure other less idiosyn.…”

Children's Acquisition of Stimulus Selection Strategies in Paired-Associate Learning

“…The rationale for the current investigation was to map the development of letter-processing strategies by elementary-school children during the course of PA learning. Comparisons were also planned for assessing cue selection eficiency and cue selection consistency (see Richardson, 1971) in this population as a function of the number of PA exposures.…”