The Heuristic Power of Oppositionality within and Between Paired-Associate Units

• Published in: The Journal of general psychology Vol. 121; no. 3; pp. 267 - 281
• Main Authors: Ulasevich, Alec, Rychlak, Joseph F.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Provincetown, Mass., etc Taylor & Francis Group 01.07.1994; Journal Press, etc; Taylor & Francis Inc
• Subjects: Aided Recall; Antonyms; Associative Processes; Cognition & reasoning; English language; Experiments; Hypotheses; Learning; Paired Associate Learning; Psychology; Semantics; Social research; Synonyms
• ISSN: 0022-1309; 1940-0888
• DOI: 10.1080/00221309.1994.9921201

Two experiments are presented in which the role of oppositionality as a heuristic aid to paired-associate (PA) learning was examined. In the first experiment, subjects initially formed PA units by proffering antonyms, synonyms, and same-first-letter words to a cue word. Subsequently, both antonyms and synonyms were freely recalled more readily than were same-first-letter words (p < .001). Cued recall favored synonyms over both other conditions (p < .05). In the second experiment, subjects learned related PA units in which the stimulus terms bore either an antonymous or a synonymous relationship. Fifty percent fewer association errors occurred when the PA stimuli were antonyms than when they were synonyms (p < .05). Thus, oppositionality reflected heuristic properties both within and between PA units. Results are discussed in terms of network, feature-matching, and predicational modeling.