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At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

Sex, verbal ability, and pacing differences in serial learning.

Serial rote learning was examined as a function of sex, verbal ability (average and high), and stimulus presentation rate (4 and 10 sec.) among 64 individuals aged 60-79 years. At the fast pacing speed, the men with average skills produced fewer responses and performed less well than their female counterparts whose performance was similar to that of the high verbal men and women. The average men benefited the most from the slower pacing speed. No sex difference was found at the 10-sec presentation speed.

Adult

Utilization of position cues by retarded children in serial learning.

The ordinal position hypothesis of serial learning was tested using a population of mentally retarded subjects (IQ=46 to 86). The subjects learned two serial lists by either the serial-recall of serial-anticipation procedures. One-half of the items from the first list retained their same serial positions in the second list (experimental items); the other half were switched to new positions (control items). Support for the ordinal-position hypothesis (faster learning of experimental than control items) was obtained only when the first serial list was learned by the serial-anticipation procedure. The results were consistent with earlier findings using nonretarded subjects.

Adolescent

Sex differences in serial learning for aged persons with high verbal ability.

Serial rote learning was examined in men and women with high verbal ability aged 60-74 years. No sex differences were found in total errors, commission errors, or omissions errors. The results are in accord with the findings reported in a study by Wilkie and Eisdorfer (1977) and suggest that high verval ability may, in part, mediate sex differences in serial learning.

Aged

Serial learning in the pigeon.

Three pigeons learned to peck four colors in a particular sequence, regardless of how these colors were positioned on four response keys and without feedback following each response. This demonstrates that serial learning is possible in subprimate animals.

Animals

Human serial learning: enhancement with arecholine and choline impairment with scopolamine.

Arecholine (4 milligrams), a cholinergic agonist, and choline (10 grams), a precursor of acetylcholine, significantly enhanced serial learning in normal human subjects. The subjects received methscopolamine prior to both arecholine and placebo injections. Conversely, scopolamine (0.5 milligram), a cholinergic antagonist, impaired learning and this impairment was reversed by arecholine and choline and the impairment after scopolamine were inversely proportional to the subject's performance on placebo; that is, "poor" performers were more vulnerable to both the enhancing effect of cholinergic agonist and precursor and the impairment after cholinergic antagonist than "good" performers.

Acetylcholine

Adult age differences in the rate of learning serial patterns: evidence from direct and indirect tests.

Subjects performed a serial reaction time task (adopted from Nissen & Bullemer, 1987) that contained a repeating pattern of spatial locations. In Experiment 1, following 20 repetitions of a 10- or 16-element pattern, reaction time was equally disrupted for both younger and older people when the sequence became random. In Experiment 2, the response times for subjects encountering the 10-element pattern were compared with those of subjects encountering a random sequence. These response time functions diverged at the same point in training for the 2 age groups. Thus, on this indirect measure of response time facilitation, both experiments revealed age similarity in the rate of pattern learning. In contrast, on a subsequent direct test of pattern learning that required prediction, the younger people earned a higher percentage correct score than the older in both experiments. Age-related dissociations between direct and indirect measures of learning and comparisons with memory-impaired populations are discussed.

Adolescent

Serial learning by rhesus monkeys: I. Acquisition and retention of multiple four-item lists.

Two rhesus monkeys were trained to learn eight 4-item lists, each composed of 4 different photographs. Lists were trained in successive phases: A, A----B, A----B----C, and A----B----C----D. After List 4, retention, as measured by the method of savings, was, on average, 66% (range: 44-84%). Indeed, all 4 lists could be recalled reliably during a single session with neither a decrement in accuracy nor an increase in the latency of responding to each item. Response latencies on a subset test employing all possible 2- and 3-item subsets of each 4-item list support the hypothesis that monkeys form linear representations of a list. Latencies to Item 1 of a subset varied directly with the position of that item in the original list. On List 1, latencies to Item 2 varied directly with the number of intervening items between Item 1 and Item 2 in the original list. During the acquisition of Lists 5-8, both Ss mastered the A----B and A----B----C phases of training in the minimum number of trials possible.

Animals

Serial pattern learning by event observation.

Serial pattern learning was investigated in a variation of the task introduced by Nissen and Bullemer (1987). We presented an asterisk at 1 of 4 spatial locations on each trial, and Ss either responded with a keypress or observed the event. The first 4 blocks contained 10 repetitions of a 10- or 16-element pattern, and the 5th block contained a random sequence. The difference in response time on the 5th random block and the previous patterned block served as an indirect measure of pattern learning. A direct measure was obtained in a final test block in which Ss predicted the next asterisk position. Equivalent learning occurred for responding and observing with indirect measures, but observation was superior with direct measures. These findings indicate that knowledge of serial order can develop through simple perceptual experience, and this is more available to deliberate recall than is knowledge acquired while responding.

Adult

[Effect of interrun interval on serial pattern learning in rats].

The effect of interrun interval (IRI) on serial pattern learning was investigated in a runway. One of two serial sequences, a monotonic decreasing sequence (14-7-3-1-0 food pellets) or a nonmonotonic sequence (14-1-3-7-0), was combined factorially with a short (30 s) or a long (30 min) IRI. Following 28 acquisition trials, a short (or long) IRI was transferred to the same sequence with a long (or short) IRI. It was found that anticipation of the O-pellet developed more rapidly in the group receiving a monotonic sequence with a 30 s IRI than that with a 30 min IRI in acquisition phase. The O-pellet was not anticipated by either of the two nonmonotonic groups. Anticipation was eliminated by the increase in IRI, whereas it was developed by the decrease in IRI in the monotonic sequence. These results suggest that time-related factors such as the decay of the memory of numbers of pellets are needed for Capaldi's memory discrimination theory.

Animals

[Neuropsychologic evaluation in Parkinson disease].

For decades Parkinson's disease has been considered to be limited to disturbed motor functions and its association with a cognitive deterioration is very recent. The frequency of cognitive decline varies according to the authors between 3% and 93% depending on the different criteria of evaluation. Owing to the discrepancy among the previous studies our object has been to determine the existence of cognitive changes of statistical significance, since even nowadays the relation between neuropsychology and physiopathology has been misunderstood. A total of 50 patients between 52 and 85 years old with Parkinson's disease have been neurological and neuropsychologically evaluated and the results correlated with 50 healthy controls. Patients, who presented clinical signs of demence according to the criteria of DSM III or any other neurological or general disease were excluded because of possible side effects on the motor cognitive phase. For the neuropsychological study Signoret's Battery of Cognitive Efficiency test (BEC 96) was used, it evaluates: the attention, orientation, thinking, memory, recognition, serial learning, fluency, naming and constructional functions. It was observed that all the patients with Parkinson's disease performed these tests worse than the controls, except for attention. From the statistical point of view the differences are highly significant (p < 0.001) for serial learning and constructional tests and significant (p < 0.05) for orientation, thinking fluency and naming. In the area of mnesic functions the patients with Parkinson's disease show an alteration that predominates significantly on serial learning, however, it is less important for logical memory. All the alterations correspond to the long term memory.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Aged

Testing organization preferences in serial pattern learning.

Subjects studied a series of colored dots for 6 s and then performed a memory reproduction task for which they chose alternative puzzle pieces from a set. Series were presented repeatedly until subjects made a completely correct reproduction. The puzzle pieces contained parts of the series that were expected to interact with the groups identified by spontaneous perceptual organization. By assuming that same grouping in series and puzzle pieces would be preferred, the preferences could be predicted on the basis of an economy principle. The preferences obtained were in accordance with the predictions.

Attention

Forgetting curves in long-term memory: evidence for a multistage model of retention.

An experimental study with 20 normal healthy young adult subjects was performed to evaluate the interaction of type of memory tasks, type of learning modalities, and length of acquisition/recall interval. Four different tasks were employed (serial learning, paired learning, rote learning, and visuolinguistic transfer), some requiring a single trial learning modality others a multitrial learning modality. Acquisition/recall intervals were immediate, intermediate (3 min), and delayed. The experimental design allowed for the comparison of effects from five different delayed recall intervals (2, 8, 12, 24, and 48 hr). Results demonstrated a specific interaction on learning rates due to different ceiling effects for the different types of memory tasks. Forgetting rates, on the other hand, demonstrated a specific effect due to type of memory tasks and learning modalities only for differences between immediate and intermediate recall. These differences remained stable during the longer intervals and were not affected by length of interval. A multistage composition of long-term retention was suggested to explain these results, and a practical indication to build experimental procedures to study memory in the clinical field was evidenced.

Adult

Cautiousness and verbal learning in adulthood.

Twenty-two young (age 17-21)and 22 old (age 60-74) men and women participated in an investigation designed to determine the extent to which age differences in omission errors and performance in a serial learning task are accounted for by cautiousness. Age differences were found on the measures of cautiousness, and verbal learning, with young adults making more correct responses and proportionately fewer omission errors on the learning task and taking greater risks on the risk-taking tasks. The results indicated that cautiousness measures accounted for age differences in omission errors but not in performance.

Adolescent

An auditory von Restorff effect.

In this experiment 60 undergraduates were given a serial learning task to assess the possibility of an auditory von Restorff effect. Fifteen males and 15 females learned a list of nine words presented aurally (recorded) with the same male voice (control groups). Fifteen males and 15 females (experimental groups) learned the same list as the control groups except that the sixth word was spoken by a female voice: i.e., it was isolated. The results of this study parallel the results of studies using visual stimuli. The von Restorff effect was demonstrated with auditory stimuli in that one of the experimental groups (female) learned the list with significantly fewer errors than the comparable control group. No difference was found between the male groups.

Female

Effects of visual and tactual stimulus presentation on learning two-choice patterned and semirandom sequences.

Three experiments compared the effects of visual and tactual stimulus presentation in two-choice sequential learning situations requiring a predictive response. In Experiments 1 and 2, subjects received a five- or six-unit repeating pattern; in Experiment 3, they received a semirandom sequence. Tactual as compared to visual stimulus presentation resulted in less trials to criterion in predicting a repearing pattern and in earlier frequency matching in predicting a semirandom sequence. These results suggest an unusual tactual adeptness in binary serial learning. Additionally, a new method of analyzing conditional responding in th brobability learning paradigm is described and applied to the data in Experiment 3.

Adolescent