Methods used in Studying Verbal Learning

To study verbal learning under controlled conditions, psychologists typically use lists made up of nonsense syllables (meaningless consonant-vowel-consonant combinations such as YOL or RUV), unfamiliar words, familiar words, sentences, or paragraphs, and they use three main experimental methods.

In paired-associates learning, the method closest to ordinary S–S and S–R learning, a list of paired items is prepared — such as pairs used in learning a foreign language's equivalents for one's own words — in which the first word of each pair serves as the stimulus and the second as the response to be given. Learners are first shown the complete stimulus-response pairs together and asked to remember them; then, in each learning trial, the stimulus terms are presented one by one, and the learner tries to produce the correct response term for each, being shown the response word whenever they fail. The number of trials taken to reach the criterion of giving all response words without a single error becomes the measure of paired-associates learning.

In serial learning, a list of verbal items (nonsense syllables, or words of varying familiarity) is presented, and the participant must reproduce the items in the exact same order as in the list. The standard procedure, called the serial anticipation method, presents the first item and requires the participant to anticipate (produce) the second; if the participant fails, the experimenter presents the correct item, which then itself becomes the stimulus for anticipating the next item in the sequence, and so on, with the whole cycle of trials continuing until the participant correctly anticipates all the items in the given order. …