I M Begg | Search PubMed

PubMed1994

Semantic and episodic relations are experimentally dissociable and stochastically independent.

Subjects who studied DOG-BEER and WINE-SWEATER were more likely to recall BEER cued by DOG if they used interactive imagery rather than separate imagery, but the two groups showed no difference in recall of BEER cued by WINE. Recall of BEER cued by WINE was enhanced if BEER and "alcoholic beverages" had been presented before the list was studied, but recall of BEER cued by DOG was unaffected. We conclude that there are two independent types of relation: An episodic relation records the joint occurrence of previously unrelated words; a semantic relation reflects events in one's prior life. The value of a semantic relation is enhanced if the target item is primed in its family; the value of an episodic cue is enhanced by processes that directly encode the occurrence of the two items as a unique event in the life of the subject.

Humans↗

PubMed1991

Problem-oriented training promotes spontaneous analogical transfer: memory-oriented training promotes memory for training.

Spontaneous analogical transfer is the use of information from one problem to solve another problem, without an explicit hint to use the previous information. The results of five experiments were that if subjects tried to solve a training problem before hearing its solution, or tried to explain a training story's solution before hearing the correct explanation, spontaneous transfer was more likely than it was if subjects had studied the same training passage for memory before hearing its solution or explanation. The advantage of problem-oriented processing over memory-oriented processing occurred even though solution attempts nearly always failed, and the advantage was not reduced if the target problem was tested 15 min later rather than immediately after training. We propose that problem-oriented processes performed at study are appropriate processes to use at test. Further support for the account comes from subjects' memory for the training passages; the advantage for problem-oriented processing on solution tasks was mirrored by an equally substantial advantage for the memory-oriented subjects on a recall task.

Adult↗