The Stimulus in Serial Verbal Learning

The functional stimulus in serial verbal learning has not been identified specifically and it is difficult to determine whether the functional stimulus giving rise to Item D is C, all preceding items, the serial position of the item, all of these factors, or some other aspect of the situation.

Abstract

The functional stimulus in serial verbal learning has not been identified specifically. Thus, when a series of items, A-B-C-D-E, etc., is learned as a serial list, it is difficult to determine whether the functional stimulus giving rise to Item D is C, all preceding items, the serial position of the item, all of these factors, or some other aspect of the situation. In a previous study, a list of paired associates (PA-list) was presented S following learning of a serial (Sr) list.1 Relatively little positive transfer occurred in learning the PA-list although it was constructed from the items of the Sr-list, in a manner which can be symbolized as A-B, B-C, C-D, D-E, etc. Thus, just as in the Sr-list, each item except the first and the last served as both a stimulus and as a response, and the pairings were consistent with the ordering of the items in the Sr-list in which A is considered a stimulus for B, B for C, C for D, etc. (Of course, during learning by paired associates, the pairs were never presented in a consistent order but always in different random orders.) It would appear that if A is the specific and exclusive stimulus for B in the Sr-list, and if B is the stimulus for C, and so on, high positive transfer should obtain in the PA-learning since the A-B, B-C, C-D, etc., associations would have been learned in the Sr-list. As noted above, this is not the case. Furthermore, it is known that if this procedure is so reversed that S first learns a PA-list of the nature A-B, B-C, C-D, etc. (again randomly presented), and then learns an Sr-list in which the items are ordered A-B-C-D-E, etc., high positive transfer will occur.2 In learning by PA it would appear that the particular verbal unit used as the nominal stimulus must inevitably serve also as the functional stimulus; there seems to be no other cue which S can use.