Backward associations in paired-associate learning of retardates and normal children.

2 investigations were conducted to examine bidirectional learning of normal children and retardates in a paired-associate task. The original learning list, in both studies, consisted of 6 pairs of pictures of common objects. In Experiment I, following mastery of the original list, Ss were assigned to 3 groups. 1 group was asked to relearn the original items in a "backward" direction (B-A). A second group learned a new list of items (C-D). The third group was exposed to the items as originally presented (A-B). In Experiment II, all Ss learned a second list containing B-A, C-D, and A-B items. This procedure is commonly referred to as a mixed-list design. Controls were included to assess stimulus and response availability and intrinsic difficulty of pairing direction. Considerable backward association was observed for both retardates and normal children. In the mixed-list study, the retardates were found to be relatively inferior in backward recall. This deficit is probably related to contextual factors inherent in mixed-list designs.