Influence of Prior Level of Meaningfulness on Acquisition of New Meaning

Abstract

Previous research has demonstrated that, when a word which has a neutral evaluative meaning is paired in a learning task with a word that has either positive or negative evaluative meaning, the neutral word acquires a new component of meaning. Research in verbal learning has shown that initial level of associative meaning influences the rate of learning of new materials. The objective of the present investigation was to select CVC syllables at two levels of associative meaning and pair them with words of positive and negative evaluative meaning to determine the influence of associative meaning on the acquisition of evaluative meaning. One group of college students received CVCs low in meaningfulness and one high in meaningfulness. After a conditioning period, change in evaluative meaning of the CVCs was assessed with a semantic differential. Data supported the hypothesis that conditioning would be related to initial level of meaningfulness. Change was significantly greater for the low meaningfulness CVCs than for the high, but both groups showed conditioning.