Retrieving studied materials often enhances subsequent learning of new materials (Pastötter & Bäuml, 2014). However, retrieval has also been shown to impair new learning (Finn & Roediger, 2013). In this article, we attempted to determine when retrieval enhances and when it impairs new learning. We argue that testing impairs new learning…

Despite the clear long-term benefits of spaced practice, students and teachers often choose massed practice. Whether learners actually fail to appreciate the benefits of spacing is, however, open to question. Early studies (e.g., Zechmeister & Shaughnessy, 1980) found that participants' judgments of learning were higher after massed than after…

A study was conducted to determine the optimal presentation methods for teaching the phonetic alphabet which is characteristic of much of the symbolic material which forms part of the SAGE L-system operator task. This discrete-item, paired-associate material was prepared in six different formats: (1) long continuous-discourse program, overt…

Three paired-associate learning studies were designed to test the hypothesis that individual differences in learning speed are determined by the types of elaborative strategies used by learners during acquisition. Slow learners generate fewer elaborators and produce less effective elaborators, even when using the same strategy as fast learners.…

To test a deduction from Carroll's Model of School Learning (i.e., increasing a learner's perserverance will not alter degree of learning or learning rate), time needed to learn a task under an encouragement condition designed to increase perserverance was compared to learning time under a discouragement condition. As predicted, no significant…

This study evaluated eye-blink conditioning in 11 persons with autism (ages 11 to 22). Compared to matched controls, persons with autism learned the task faster but performed short-latency, high-amplitude conditioned responses. Results suggest this population has the ability to rapidly associate paired stimuli but may have impairments in…

In simultaneous learning two verbal lists are interlaced for study, with each tested separately. In the present experiments simultaneous learning was used as a means of determining the conditions under which study time or learning resources might be reallocated between lists. One of the lists was called the standard list and remained constant…

Seven paired-associates were constructed using words (for which scales values on arousal were derived by paired-comparison technique) as stimulus terms and digits (two through eight) as response terms. Forty subjects were randomly assigned to one of four conditions-cued or free recall and short or long-term tests following a single learning trial.…

Contrasts a fixed-rate presentation list with one in which half the items in a single list were presented at a fast rate and half at a slow rate during paired associative learning with 24 children (aged 8 to 22 years) who were diagnosed with having an attention deficit disorder. (HOD)

Investigated were the effects of type of strategy training, intersession interval, and a posttraining reminder cue on paired associates learning for 57 educable mentally retarded elementary school children. Ss were assigned to one of four training conditions (sentence mediation, visual imagery mediation, combined sentence and imagery training, or…

The paired-associate learning of 52 fourth graders was related to measures of cognitive ability obtained the previous year. Subjects were administered the paired-associate task under one of three variations: at a comfortable rate with standard instructions; at a comfortable rate with a potentially effective learning strategy (visual imagery); and…

Two methodological issues involved in determining the relationship between learning and general intelligence were examined: (1) the use of learning strategies in a paired-associate task and (2) the importance of time (rather than errors) in the measurement of learning efficiency. (Author/RD)

Highly skilled and less skilled readers read words and numbers aloud as rapidly as possible. Less skilled readers were slower and less accurate on both tasks showing that the need to encode and process order information may be related to reading disabilities. This hypothesis was tested by using paired-associate learning. (Author/RD)

Two aspects of allocation of study time were examined among 48 third- and 48 fifth-grade children. Aspects examined were: (1) allocation of more time to more difficult material; and (2) allocation of sufficient time to meet a recall goal. Under a self-terminated procedure, children studied two booklets, one of which consisted of easy or highly…

Arima's Discrimination Learning Test (DLT) was reconfigured, made into a self-paced mode, and administered to potential recruits in order to determine if: (1) a previous study indicating a lack of difference in learning performance between white and nonwhites would hold up; and (2) the correlations between scores attained on the DLT and scores…