Verbal facilitation of paired-associate learning: A limited generalization?

Abstract

Two experiments were conducted in order to compare the sentence facilitation of paired associates under varying contexts. In Experiment I, 64 fifth graders were shown a 12-item list of printed noun pairs in one of four conditions, differing with respect to the kind of connective read aloud by the experimenter in relating the nouns (verb versus conjunction phrases), as well as the way in which the materials were visually presented to the subject (nouns only versus complete sentences or phrases). In Experiment II, an additional 16 fifth graders received all four utterance-presentation manipulations in a mixed list design. For both experiments, sentence facilitation of learning was obtained only when the sentences were heard, but not seen.

Elaboration instruction and verbalization as factors facilitating retarded children's recall.

“…Thus, generalizations about the effectiveness of elaboration instruction for educable mentally retarded children (e.g., should be tempered by the strong possibility that overt verbalization, and other factors, may have contributed substantially to the effectiveness of elaboration instruction. These findings are interpreted as further confirmation of the conclusion of others (cf., Anderson et al, 1971;Bower & Winzenz, 1970;Levin et al, 1971) that the effectiveness of elaboration is directly related to the degree to which the learner actively produces or processes his elaborations. Two sets of explanations are herein offered in an attempt to determine the critical activities fostered by overtly verbalizing elaborations.…”