Effect of Response Set on a Test of Unlearning

Abstract

Relearning of only the responses of a list of paired-associates followed acquisition of a second list in order to determine whether the “unlearning” of the first list associations in an A-B, A-D transfer paradigm was due chiefly to a change in response set. A modified free recall test indicated that response relearning did not facilitate recall when performance was scored stringently, but improved recall significantly when leniently scored. This finding is inconsistent with recent evidence that first-list forgetting results from a loss of response set.