The availability and effectiveness of reported mediators in associative learning: A historical review and an experimental investigation

Abstract

This paper provides a historical review and empirical investigation of the availability and the effectiveness of different types of mediator in associative learning, as inferred from subjects' retrospective reports. Mental imagery is a preferred mediational strategy in the learning of pairs of common concrete nouns, and its use is associated with a high level of recall performance. Its availability and its effectiveness are both enhanced if subjects are given interactive imagery instructions. It is argued that retrospective mediator reports provide valid accounts of the cognitive processes that occur at the time of learning and that playa causal role in determining the subsequent level of retention.A fundamental notion in memory research over the last 40 years is the idea that people engage in cognitive processing that determines how well the information in question is remembered. These cognitive activities are generally thought to be under strategic control and available to conscious awareness. It follows that they can be manipulated by giving instructions to experimental subjects to set about learning in different ways, and that they can be studied by asking people to describe how they have in fact set about particular learning tasks. These latter accounts are of interest in their own right and also provide a means of checking whether subjects have actually complied with instructions to use different learning strategies.One of the earliest studies to collect such accounts was described by Reed (1918aReed ( , 1918b. He asked 27 subjects to learn four sets of paired associates: two sets consisted of unrelated pairs of English words, the third set consisted of German words paired with their English translations, and the fourth set contained pairs of consonant-vowelconsonant (CYe) nonsense syllables. (The subjects were apparently not familiar with German.) When the subjects were asked how they had tried to remember the pairs of words, they tended to report associative aids based on shared semantic features or on linking images or phrases; however, in the case of the other sets, they were more likely to report the use oflinking English words that were phonemically similar to the pair as a whole.

Why does working memory span predict complex cognition? Testing the strategy affordance hypothesis

“…We used a modified version of the RSPAN task from . The participants saw either a logical or a Individual differences in strategy use should, therefore, mediate a span-cognition relationship when the cognitive task also affords the use of these effective strategies, such as paired-associate learning (Richardson, 1998) or learning lists of words for free recall (Hertzog, McGuire, & Lineweaver, 1998).…”

“…For the criterion tasks, we selected free-recall and paired-associate recall tasks, because they afford the same effective strategies as those afforded by these span tasks (e.g., Hertzog et al, 1998;Richardson, 1998). On the freerecall task, effective strategy production was measured through global strategy reports, in which participants described any strategy that they used to remember the words.…”

Electrophysiological evidence for the effect of interactive imagery on episodic memory: Encouraging familiarity for non-unitized stimuli during associative recognition

“…Bower, 1970;Paivio, 1969;Richardson, 1998) and there is evidence to suggest that the memory advantage of engaging in imagery arises from the formation of relationships between stimuli.…”

Using prior knowledge to minimize interference when learning large amounts of information

“…Although these two mnemonics have traditionally been used to improve memory for serial recall (see, e.g., Ross & Lawrence, 1968), they may also improve memory for free recall (Roediger, 1980). The two mnemonic techniques described are instances of mediated learning, a multistep process in which an intervening item is used to cue the recall of the target concept (Adams & McIntyre, 1967;Bellezza, 1986;Bellezza & Poplawsky, 1974;Richardson, 1998). In general, mediated learning has been shown to confer memorial benefits.…”