Imagery and verbal symbolic processes in paired-associate learning tasks among young children

Conway, Trudy Georgene Anne (1974) Imagery and verbal symbolic processes in paired-associate learning tasks among young children. Masters thesis, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

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Abstract

The present experiments attempted to assess the possible differential role played by visual versus verbal materials in children's learning of paired-associate items. -- Experiment I was essentially a replication of the Dilley and Paivio (1968) study. The sample included 48 Ss from each of nursery school, kindergarten, and grade two, with equal numbers of boys and girls at each level. Picture and word presentation methods were varied factorially on both the stimulus and response sides of item pairs to give four experimental conditions. Ss were randomly assigned to one of these four conditions and to one of two paired-associate lists with instructions to learn a ten pair list using a learning - test - feedback method. A nonverbal recognition test method was used. -- The major findings indicated that picture and word presentation methods were equally effective on the stimulus side of item pairs, but pictures significantly increased performance over words on the response side of item pairs. This latter finding may be seen to give indirect support to Paivio's hypothesis that children experience difficulty in decoding imaginally-stored information into verbal terms for response requirements. However, in the present experiment children experienced difficulty in decoding verbally stored information into nonverbal terms for response requirements. Thus, by comparing findings from this experiment with those of Dilley and Paivio (1968) it would appear that for retrieval of information Ss use that mode which is congruent with response requirements. -- The Ss for Experiment II included 48 children from each of pre-school, kindergarten, and grade two, with equal numbers of boys and girls at each level. Verbalization (no sentences versus sentences) was varied factorially with depiction (side-by-side line drawings versus interacting line drawings) to give four experimental conditions. Ss were randomly assigned to one of these four conditions and to one of two paired-associate lists with instructions to learn a 24-pair list according to a two-trial study-test method. This experiment also used a nonverbal recognition test method. -- Significant main effects were found for verbalization, depiction, grade level, and trials. Overall performance increased as a function of grade increase. A significant interaction between verbalization and depiction demonstrated that whereas action significantly increased performance when added to still pictures, when action depiction was combined with still pictures linked in sentences, no increment was found. -- Together these two experiments served to demonstrate that children within the 4 to 8 year age range are equally capable of utilizing pictorial and verbal or combined pictorial and verbal elaborations.

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