Can the Superior Learnability of Meaningful and Pleasant Words Be Transferred to Nonsense Syllables?*

Authors

Albert Silverstein, University of Rhode Island
Richard A. Dienstbier, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow

Document Type

Article

Date of this Version

April 1968

Comments

Published in Journal of Experimental Psychology 78:2 (1968), pp. 292-298. Copyright © 1968 American Psychological Association. Used by permission. “This article may not exactly replicate the final version published in the APA journal. It is not the copy of record.” http://www.apa.org/journals/xge/

Abstract

The Ss in 2 experiments first learned a PA list of words as responses to nonsense syllables. In 1 condition the words differed in meaningfulness (M) and in the other condition the words differed in pleasantness (PL). Next, Ss learned a 2nd PA list of the same syllables as responses to numbers. High-M words were learned faster than low-M words, but did not transfer either this difference in learning or the difference in rated M to the syllables. Pleasant words were learned faster than indifferent words in one experiment (men’s) but not in the other (women’s). In neither experiment did the words transfer their difference in learning to the syllables, but in the men’s experiment they did transfer the difference in rated PL.