Proactive inhibition as an artefact of the method of paced anticipation

Abstract

Sixty-one subjects partly learned serial lists of 12 two-syllable adjectives presented for a set number of learning trials on two successive days. Recall was obtained 24 hr. later. One group of 30 subjects learned by the method of paced anticipation, the remaining 31 learned by silently watching the items. Free recall within a period of 1 min. was used both as a criterion for original learning and for subsequent retention. On three independent criteria for the existence of proactive inhibition (PI) the paced anticipation group showed significant PI and the silent group did not. I is suggested that PI was due to the identity of learning method, probably unique in a näive subject's experience, rather than similarity of verbal material. It is also hypothesized that difficulty in interpreting conflicting data from existing PI studies may be due to the fact that learning of verbal material is confounded with learning the S-R skill or paced anticipation.