The effect of familiarization upon serial verbal learning.

Abstract

From previous research it was deduced that performance in serial verbal learning should be some positive, curvilinear function of frequency of experience with items to be learned. This hypothesis was tested by presenting visually to 240 Ss a set of six relatively unfamiliar and meaningless verbal stimuli in the following frequencies: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 10, 20. Each item was pronounced as it occurred, thus insuring stimulus reception and exercise of the response. By appropriate use of filler words, all Ss had the same total number of exposures. Two minutes later the six experimental items were encountered in serial lists to be learned by the anticipation method to a criterion of two successive correct trials. Each of the eight independent treatment groups contained 30 Ss. The effect of familiarization was a significant reduction in the number of trials required for mastery. A similar finding was true of the percentage of correct responses on the initial trial, the degree of facilitation increasing curvilinearly with amount of prior experience. The results were discussed in terms of a reinterpretation of Robinson''s "law of acquaintance." Several explanations were considered, the most promising being concerned with differential practice in pronunciation.