EFFECTS OF FREQUENCY AND NOVELTY IN TRANSFER

Frequency (matching) and novelty principles have been shown previously to operate in transfer tests following paired-associate learning, but not under the same stimulus and response conditions. These principles were tested under identical experimental conditions, and were paired against each other so that they produced opposite response tendencies. 64 undergraduates served as Ss. Thus, if the response A1 were learned to the compound ab and A2 to ac, and ab-A1 occurred more often than ac-A2 during training, a test consisting of a alone would be expected to follow the frequency principle and of bc the novelty principle. Exact matching of responses to reinforcements was obtained only to pooled data, but the opposing effects of frequency and novelty were clearly and consistently found. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved). © 1969 American Psychological Association.