Comparison of associative learning strategies

Ss learned paired-associate lists of nouns using one of four learning strategies: repetition of the pair, reading the pair as subject and object nouns in a meaningful sentence, generation of a meaningful sentence linking the two nouns, or visualization of a mental image in which the word referents were in vivid interaction. Half of the pairs were tested for recall of the response member given the stimulus and half were tested for multiple-choice recognition of the response. Significant differences in recall and recognition occurred with conditions ranking in the order: imagery (best), sentence generation, sentence reading, and rote repetition (worst). The results are interpreted in terms of associative consequences of relational organization: S’s memory benefits from his actively searching out, discovering, and generating (or depicting) predicative or “actor-action-object” relations between the words or referents of a pair.