GENERALIZATION AND FREE RECALL OF SIMILAR AND OPPOSITE WORDS

24 PAIRS OF WORDS WHICH VARIED IN ASSOCIATION STRENGTH (HIGH VS. LOW) AND IN SEMANTIC RELATIONSHIP (SIMILAR VS. OPPOSITE) WERE STUDIED IN 2 EXPERIMENTS EMPLOYING DIFFERENT DEPENDENT MEASURES. IN EXP. I (N = 60) THE AMOUNT OF GENERALIZATION OF A MOTOR RESPONSE WAS OBTAINED FOR EACH PAIR. OPPOSITE PAIRS PRODUCED SIGNIFICANT GENERALIZATION AT BOTH LEVELS OF ASSOCIATION STRENGTH, WHILE SIMILAR PAIRS DID NOT. EXP. II (N = 80) USED THE SAME STIMULUS MATERIALS IN A FREE-RECALL TASK. AN INDEX OF CLUSTERING IN RECALL WAS COMPUTED FOR EACH TYPE OF PAIR. AT THE HIGH LEVEL OF ASSOCIATION STRENGTH, OPPOSITE PAIRS SHOWED MORE CLUSTERING THAN SIMILAR PAIRS, WHILE THE REVERSE WAS TRUE WITH LOW ASSOCIATION STRENGTH PAIRS. THE EFFECTS OF AN IMPLICIT MEANING RESPONSE WERE DEMONSTRATED IN BOTH TASKS, BUT THESE EFFECTS WERE NOT CONSISTENT ACROSS TASKS. 1 EXPLANATION INVOLVES THE COMPLEX NATURE OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE MEMBERS OF A PAIR OF WORDS. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved). © 1968 American Psychological Association.