Staats Chapter 16: Mediated Verbal Similarity

Question 1

Overview

Answer 1

Purpose of experiment was to demonstrate associative learning while controlling for previous knowledge and associations of words

Used Turkish words with students that have no knowledge of the Turkish language

Study investigates the generalization of a CR along a dimension of verbal similarity

Brightness was used as the sensory dimension to associate the nonsense words with Turkish words

Employed a galvanic skin response after association was learned to test for generalization

Question 2

Procedure

Answer 2

Training session – subjects formed associations between five words in different brightness is the color gray

Conditioning session:

CS –one of the words
[Other words were used to test generalization]

UCS –tone that elicited a GSR

CS-UCS paired repeatedly, then CS alone, then other words to test generalization

Association test:
Given to establish an independent similarity scale by instructing the subject respond to each word with any other word from training that the given word suggested

*The easiest words to learn were those paired with either end of the brightness scale

Question 3

Results

Answer 3

A scale of verbal similarity was established

Generalization decreased as a function of the distance of the test stimulus from the CS

GSR decreased with further distance from the dark extreme of the grayscale