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Associative encoding of words in sentences by adults and children
Abstract
In Experiment I 72 adult Ss were presented a series of sentences followed by a recognition test consisting of single words. Natural language associates of critical words in the sentences were falsely recognized more frequently than were unrelated words. This effect occurred whether or not Ss had been informed as to which were the critical words in the sentences, and whether or not the associates fit sensibly into the sentences. In Experiment II children in grades 1, 3, and 5 also showed the above false recognition effect, with a consistent but nonsignificant increase in this respect with age.
... Toyota (2000) examined the effects of semantic constraints of sentence frames on memory. In this study, the semantic constraints were manipulated in terms of interchangeability (Hall & Crown, 1970, 1972: two types of sentence frames were provided, interchangeable (weaker constraint) and non-interchangeable (stronger constraint). The interchangeable sentences were constructed so that the meaningfulness would be preserved if associates were substituted for the corresponding target words. ...
Numerous studies of memory development have been conducted on memory capacity, memory strategy, and metamemory. Recently, DeMarie and Ferron (2003) revealed a model for explaining memory performance across two groups of children, ages 5 to 8 years and 8 to 11 years. This model proposed that the most important factor for recall is memory strategy. Many studies have indicated that children do not use an optimal strategy for all types of memory tasks, but often apply several strategies to different types of memory task (Coyle & Bjorklund, 1997). The report of DeMarie, Miller, Ferron, and Cunningham (2004) has noted the variability in strategies used by children and that using multiple strategies led to better memory performance. Other research (Toyota & Morimoto, 2000, 2001) has also noted that children with high academic performance (good achievers) used many more memory strategies than poor achievers. In addition, a good achiever could assign an optimal strategy to each learning situation, e.g., reading, summarizing, or memorizing. These results suggested the importance of flexibility in selecting and using different strategies for different tasks. Unfort-unately, it is difficult to facilitate flexibility in selection of memory strategies; first, it is necessary to teach strategy variation, and to teach about the effectiveness of each strategy for remembering different types of information. According to the model of DeMarie and Ferron (2003), it seems that an effective way to improve the memory performance of children is to teach them a single effective memory strategy. Generally, a memory task requires two responses: choice of a memory strategy and memorization of the target. Both compo-nents require learning resources or capacity (Kee & Davies, 1988). Because young children have fewer resources, they may not be able to allocate sufficient resources or capacity to both components of the task. If they are taught a strategy that requires more resources, they may allocate all their resources to the strategy, leaving too few resources for memorizing the target. Memory performance would then be poor, despite possible use of an effective type of strategy. This dual requirement of resources for the two components of a Abstract The purpose of the present study was to review the recent research on memory development for applications to educational situations. Recent studies of memory during childhood have indicated that the quantity, the quality, and especially the flexibility of memory strategies are critical for memory performance. Some research has stressed that the most critical factor is the use of a memory strategy which takes into account the resources or stage of development of an individual. Because effective memory strategies use more mental resources, there are fewer residual mental resources for remembering information about a target and therefore the memory of the target may be poorer. Memory strategies may be unsuitable for children, who have limited resources, but it may be possible to teach effective alternative strategies. It is critical to examine how to teach effective memory strategies taking into consideration of resources available to children.
28 undergraduate, 34 sixth-grade, and 36 second-grade students studied target words embedded in interchangeable or noninterchangeable sentences, and then performed free recall tests. In an interchangeable sentence the word which was to be remembered and its associated word fitted sensibly, whereas in a noninterchangeable sentence the target word fitted sensibly but its word associate did not. Undergraduates recalled the target words in noninterchangeable sentences better than sixth or second graders for whom a difference was not observed (undergraduates > sixth graders = second graders). In interchangeable sentences undergraduates recalled more targets than sixth or second graders, and sixth graders recalled more than second graders (undergraduates > sixth graders > second graders). The results were interpreted as indicating changes across age groups in the semantic constraint of spreading activation of target words in memory.
20 college undergraduates, 25 sixth-grade, and 31 second-grade students studied targets embedded in three types of sentence contexts and then performed free recall and cued recall tests. Although there were no differences in performance of free recall among sentence types within each age group, the differences in cued recall among sentence types were observed. For sixth graders and undergraduates, both semantically congruous/syntactically congruous sentences and semantically incongruous/syntactically congruous sentences led to a better cued recall of targets than semantically incongruous/syntactically incongruous sentences. Second graders performed better in a cued recall of targets in semantically congruous/syntactically congruous sentences than for the other two sentence types. The results were interpreted as indicating changes across age groups in constraints of semantic and syntactic congruity on the spreading activation of targets in memory.
In two experiments, 5-, 7-, 9-, and 11-year-old children and college students were presented on each trial with a sentence followed by a probe word. Their task was to indicate whether the probe was in the sentence or not. Of primary interest were the false recognitions and the correct latencies that occurred when the probe word was a synonym or antonym of one of the words in the sentence (Experiment I) or when the probe was a subordinate, superordinate, part, or whole (Experiment II). The younger children were more affected by synonymy than antonymy, although the older children and adults were not. At all ages, the categorical relationships caused more recognition confusion than the partwhole relationships. Subjects were more affected when the probe was a superordinate than when it was a subordinate, and somewhat more affected when the probe was the whole than when it was the part. These results suggest that children as young as 5 years of age have well-organized conceptual systems based on shared meaning components.
The purpose of this study was to determine if implicit associational responses (IARs) occur to individual words presented as pairs for associative learning. The occurrence of IARs was determined by a YES-NO recognition test, and IARs for words presented singly for study provided a base line. For all conditions, false recognitions to assumed IARs occurred; the magnitude was equivalent for words presented for study as pairs as for the same words presented singly. No evidence was found that IARs occurred during the testing phase.
28 undergraduate, 34 sixth-grade, and 36 second-grade students studied target words embedded in interchangeable or noninterchangeable sentences, and then performed free recall tests. In an interchangeable sentence the word which was to be remembered and its associated word fitted sensibly, whereas in a noninterchangeable sentence the target word fitted sensibly but its word associate did not. Undergraduates recalled the target words in noninterchangeable sentences better than sixth or second graders for whom a difference was not observed (undergraduates > sixth graders = second graders). In interchangeable sentences undergraduates recalled more targets than sixth or second graders, and sixth graders recalled more than second graders (undergraduates > sixth graders > second graders). The results were interpreted as indicating changes across age groups in the semantic constraint of spreading activation of target words in memory.
20 college undergraduates, 25 sixth-grade, and 31 second-grade students studied targets embedded in three types of sentence contexts and then performed free recall and cued recall tests. Although there were no differences in performance of free recall among sentence types within each age group, the differences in cued recall among sentence types were observed. For sixth graders and undergraduates, both semantically congruous/syntactically congruous sentences and semantically incongruous/syntactically congruous sentences led to a better cued recall of targets than semantically incongruous/syntactically incongruous sentences. Second graders performed better in a cued recall of targets in semantically congruous/syntactically congruous sentences than for the other two sentence types. The results were interpreted as indicating changes across age groups in constraints of semantic and syntactic congruity on the spreading activation of targets in memory.
2 experiments investigated attribute dominance in memory for words of 2nd and 6th graders (total N = 228). The attributes studied were the acoustic and the associative; dominance was inferred from the nature of errors on a recognition task. Both experiments showed dominance of the acoustic attribute for 2nd graders and dominance of the associative attribute for 6th graders. Evidence indicates that the acoustic attribute was forgotten more rapidly than the associative attribute. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
40 3rd and 40 6th graders listened to a list of words, and for each word had to indicate, by saying "old" or "new," whether or not it had appeared before on the list. Ss gave more erroneous old responses to words which were semantically or phonetically related to previously heard words than to control words. They took longer to respond correctly (new) to the experimental words than to the controls. Experimental words which were highly associated to the preceding words did not produce more errors than words with little association to the preceding words. The semantic relations were relatively less effective in producing errors for 3rd than 6th graders. Findings are interpreted in a framework of a feature analysis of words. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
IN 2 EXPERIMENTS, LISTS OF 324 WORDS WERE READ TO OVER 500 SS WHO WERE INSTRUCTED TO INDICATE WHETHER THEY THOUGHT EACH WORD HAD PREVIOUSLY APPEARED IN THE LIST. EACH LIST CONTAINED SOME NEW WORDS THAT WERE KNOWN ASSOCIATES OF WORDS THAT HAD APPEARED EARLIER IN THE LIST. SS IN BOTH EXPERIMENTS SHOWED A HIGHLY SIGNIFICANT (T > 15) BUT FALSE TENDENCY TO REPORT THESE ASSOCIATES AS OLD. IN EXP. I THE ASSOCIATIONS WERE PRIMARILY COORDINATE ASSOCIATIONS. IN EXP II THEY REPRESENTED SENSE IMPRESSIONS. RESULTS CONFIRM THE EXISTENCE OF A PHENOMENON REPORTED BY UNDERWOOD. HIS MEDIATIONAL INTERPRETATION OF THE EFFECT ALSO SEEMS APPROPRIATE BUT QUESTIONS REMAIN AS TO THE NATURE OF THE MEDIATING RESPONSE.
200 words were read to 100 Ss at a 10-sec. rate. For each word S decided whether it had or had not been read earlier. Critical stimulus words were inserted in the list, these words being presumed to elicit specified implicit responses. Later in the list the assumed implicit response words were presented. For these latter words for 3 of 5 classes of words, false recognition was much higher than for control words. The greater the prior frequency of elicitation of the implicit response the greater the likelihood of false recognition.
In Experiment I, 35 words were presented either singly or in one of two sentence conditions. In one sentence condition either the to-be-remembered word or its most common associate (according to word association norms) fit sensibly within the sentence. In the other condition the to-be-remembered words fit sensibly but the associates did not. Subsequent false recognitions of these associates were less frequent in the latter condition than in the words-alone or in the first sentence condition. This difference between the two sentence conditions did not occur when, as in Experiment II, each to-be-remembered word was presented alone immediately prior to its presentation in the sentence. The results were interpreted in terms of the modification of associative encoding processes as a result of particular variations in the semantic context of a to-be-remembered word.
Two experiments concerned with implicit verbal behavior in young children are reported. In Exp. I, 86 elementary school children were presented a word list containing several critical stimulus words (e.g., SCISSORS) that possess strong natural-language associates (e.g., CUT). Next, a recognition list was presented that included (a) the associates of the critical stimulus words, and (b) control words (i.e., words not associated with any words on the learning list). It was assumed that if the experimental words had been elicited as implicit responses by the critical stimulus words, then these experimental words frequently would be falsely recognized as having appeared on the learning list. False recognitions did occur more frequently to experimental than to control words, confirming results obtained with adults by other investigators.Experiment II employed 24 kindergarten and 24 third-grade children. Prior to presentation of the learning list certain of the critical stimulus words from that list were used as stimulus words in PA learning, with nonassociated words used as response terms (e.g., SCISSORS-BATH). Then the learning and recognition lists were presented. No false recognition effect was obtained either for the associates developed during PA learning or for the natural-language associates of the critical stimulus words that had been used in PA learning. However, a reliable false recognition effect was obtained for natural language associates of critical stimulus words that had not been used in PA learning. These results suggest that the PA learning functioned to temporarily extinguish the natural-language associates but did not raise the strength of the “new” responses to the point that they were produced as IARs.Experiment II also examined false recognition as a function of CA, and found this effect reliably greater for the younger than for the older Ss. This finding is discussed with respect to the development of verbally mediated behavior.
Imphc~t assocmtwe re-sponses and false recogmtion by young children
- J W Hall
- Ware
HALL, J. W, & WARE, W B. Imphc~t assocmtwe re-sponses and false recogmtion by young children. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 1968, 6, 52-60.
Word association norms Mmneapolis: Universtty of Minnesota Press False recogmtion produced by imphcit verbal responses
- D S Palermo
- J J Jenkins
- B J Underwood
PALERMO, D. S., t~ JENKINS, J J. Word association norms Mmneapolis: Universtty of Minnesota Press, 1964. UNDERWOOD, B. J. False recogmtion produced by imphcit verbal responses. Journal of Expertmental Psychology, 1965, 70, 122-129. (Received August 31, 1971)