Mere Exposure to Stimulus and Response Terms and Paired-Associate Learning

Abstract

Subjects learned four-item paired-associate lists by the method of anticipation. Items were composed from Turkish-like words which the subject had either never seen previously or which had been exposed 16 times in a previous familiarization process designed to minimize the induction of verbal satiation. Analysis of the data indicated significant facilitation of learning due to familiarization with the stimulus term and a significant interaction of stimulus and response terms. The experiment demonstrates the likely importance of the encoding of stimulus terms in the learning of paired-associate lists and shows that mere exposure to materials can modify later response to those materials.