Sébastien Pacton | PubMed Health

PubMed2006

Do distractors interfere with memory for study pairs in associative recognition?

In an associative recognition task, distractors generally consist of a rearrangement of the items composing the study pairs. This makes it possible that processing the distractors generates retroactive interference on memory for the study pairs. In Experiment 1, we explored this possibility in a yes/no recognition test concerning previously learned arbitrary associations between visual symbols and auditory syllables. Rearranged pairs had a deleterious impact on the accuracy and the speed of responses to related correct pairs. This effect did not vary as a function of the number of training blocks, and furthermore, in Experiment 2, the same effect was observed for overlearned small multiplication facts. These results suggest that exposure to potentially confounding information generates interference even if this information is known to be incorrect. Some implications are outlined, especially with regard to the widespread use of multiple-choice tests in knowledge evaluation.

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Children's implicit learning of graphotactic and morphological regularities.

In French, the transcription of the same sound can be guided by both probabilistic graphotactic constraints (e.g., /epsilon t/ is more often transcribed ette after -v than after -f) and morphological constraints (e.g., /epsilon t/ is always transcribed ette when used as a diminutive suffix). Three experiments showed that pseudo-word spellings of 8-to 11-year-old children and adults were influenced by both types of constraints. The influence of graphotactic regularities persisted when reliance on morphological rules was possible, without any falling off as a function of age. This suggests that rules are not abstracted, even after massive amounts of exposure to a rule-based material. These results can be accounted for by a statistical model of implicit learning.

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