Direct and indirect interference in the recall of paired associates.

Abstract

A series of three experiments was reported in which attention was directed towards an assessment of the interference operating upon forward and backward associations. Evidence was found for direct and indirect interference in four transfer paradigms (A-B, A-D; A-B, C-B; A-B, D-A; and A-B, B-C). Failures of others to find indirect interference were attributed to their use of a high degree of original learning. The difficulty of the principle of associative symmetry to accommodate certain outcomes of the three experiments is also discussed.

Interference between cues of the same outcome depends on the causal interpretation of the events

“…Interference between cues, recently observed in predictive learning studies, had been found much earlier in the verbal learning tradition (Abra, 1967;Cheung & Goulet, 1968;Keppel, Bonge, Strand, & Parker, 1971;Schwartz, 1968). In predictive learning, the evidence for interference between cues comes mainly from human studies (see, for example, Escobar, Pineño, & Matute, 2002;Matute & Pineño, 1998;Pineño, Ortega, & Matute, 2000), though there is also evidence for interference between cues from animal experiments (Escobar, Arcediano, & Miller, 2001;Escobar, Matute, & Miller, 2001;Escobar & Miller, 2003).…”

Previously acquired cue–outcome structural knowledge guides new learning: Evidence from the retroactive-interference-between-cues effect

“…It should be noted that this is not the case in the experiments published in the paired-associate learning literature (e.g., Keppel et al, 1971). In these experiments, participants learn many different cue-outcome relationships (e.g., 12 per learning phase in Keppel et al, 1971). Thus, it seems unlikely that inferential reasoning has significantly contributed to these instances of RIBC.…”

“…At the bottom (the diamond), the results of the random-effects meta-analysis are shown be particularly favored in experiments in which only a few deterministic relationships are to be learned and participants are under time pressure to respond during the test (e.g., Escobar et al, 2002;Luque et al, 2008;Luque et al, 2010;Luque et al, 2011;Matute & Pineno, 1998a). It should be noted that this is not the case in the experiments published in the paired-associate learning literature (e.g., Keppel et al, 1971). In these experiments, participants learn many different cue-outcome relationships (e.g., 12 per learning phase in Keppel et al, 1971).…”

“…This idea is consistent with the fact that, to the best of our knowledge, all previous studies reporting null RIBC effects (Cobos et al, 2007;Lipp & Dal Santo, 2002;Luque et al, 2008) are based on the use of one response option. Conversely, experiments using multiple response options have always reported RIBC effects (e.g., Keppel et al, 1971;Luque et al, 2009;Vadillo et al, 2008).…”

“…RIBC occurs when the behavioral expression of an association between a cue and an outcome (e.g., cue A→ Outcome 1, O1) is reduced by later acquisition of an association between a different cue and the same outcome (B→O1; see Table 1). Interestingly, although there has been recent interest in this phenomenon within the HCL field, this effect was first studied in the paired-associate learning literature several decades ago (e.g., Keppel, Bonge, Strand, & Parker, 1971).…”