Oppositional Serial Structures and Paired-Associate Learning

Abstract

Ss were required to learn 15 paired-associates; the response terms were the words Beautiful, Pretty, Fair, Homely, and Ugly. Each of these response terms was paired with a different nonsense syllable, such that the same word was correct for 3 different nonsense stimuli. Results indicated that rate of learning and error-characteristics produced by these pairs were similar to those of other serial word orders, such as Freshman-through-Senior and One-through-Five. These data were taken to mean that despite the fact that Beautiful and Ugly are high probability word-associates, on the basis of the present procedure they must be considered to have disparate locations in psychological space. These results imply that words are organized on the basis of a number of different principles and the organizational principle which is manifested in any particular situation strongly depends upon task requirements.

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