Verbal pretraining aided both single-problem discrimination and learning-set performance, while single-problem mastery manipulations had no significant effect. These results support the theory of acquired distinctiveness of cues. (MH)

Information theory was used to qualify the difficulty of verbal discrimination (VD) learning tasks and to measure VD performance. Words for VD items were selected with high background frequency and equal a priori probabilities of being selected as a first response. Three VD lists containing only 2-, 3-, or 4-word items were created and equated for…

An experiment was performed to test predictions based on a combination of the frequency theory of verbal discrimination learning and Taylor-Spence drive theory, the latter of which postulates a Drive Level x Task Complexity interaction. (Editor)

Experiment was concerned with the validity of the assumptions involved in the proposal of some minor modifications in the frequency theory of verbal-discrimination learning. (Author/CB)

Results of the three experiments provided little evidence that the scores on associative matching were adversely affected by prior performance on any of the three modified free-recall tasks. (Authors)

Interpair acoustic and formal similarity are detrimental to verbal discrimination learning when manipulated individually; even larger performance decrements result when they are allowed to covary. (Authors)

The frequency theory of verbal discrimination learning makes no distinction between silent and spoken rehearsal. Further, the frequency theory predicts that the study-test method of list presentation is superior to the anticipation method. College students, performing under silent and spoken rehearsal conditions, learned 16 low-frequency…