Mnemonic Retrieval Strategies in Serial to Paired-Associate Transfer

Abstract

42 subjects were assigned to either of three rates of paired-associate presentation after having learned a nine-item serial list. Group I received a 4:4-sec. rate of presentation and Groups II and III 6:6 sec. and 8:8 sec., respectively. Half of the 16 paired associates were words previously learned in the serial list; half were control pairs. Contrary to previous studies, positive transfer was found for the serial-list-derived word pairs. This difference is attributed to the slower rates of presentation which allow the subjects to use a serial search strategy in retrieving contiguous pairs from the serial list. Serial search is viewed as a more parsimonious explanation than the associative one and the present results seem to add some support to the serial search hypothesis. It is also recognized that the subjects' serial search strategy is effective only under certain conditions.