1. THE INCIDENTAL LEARNING OF ACCESSIBLE NAMES AND DEFINITIONS.
- Author
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Doob, Leonard W.
- Subjects
- *
NAMES , *VOCABULARY , *ETYMOLOGY , *LEARNING , *DEFINITIONS , *MEANING (Psychology) , *CONNOTATION (Linguistics) , *INFORMATION theory , *SEMANTICS , *LINGUISTICS - Abstract
The article studies the incidental learning of accessible names and definitions. An experiment was conducted to test and improve three hypotheses concerning the effects of exposing adults to varying combinations of names, definitions, and referents when the motivation to learn was at a minimum and when instructions could be easily executed. The results indicate that denotative definitions could be accurately remembered or utilized under most conditions. Responding with a connotative definition to a name was the least efficient method of learning but only in the absence of a denotative definition.
- Published
- 1958
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