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THE PURPOSE OF THIS RESEARCH WAS TO EXAMINE THE EFFECTS OF SEVERAL MEASURES OF WORD-RELATEDNESS ON SEVERAL VERBAL LEARNING TASKS--PRIMARILY PAIRED-ASSOCIATES LEARNING AND VERBAL DISCRIMINATION LEARNING, WITH INCIDENTAL ATTENTION GIVEN TO FREE RECALL AND SEMANTIC GENERALIZATION. THE STRATEGY WAS TO SELECT A SAMPLE OF WORD PAIRS (240 COMMON NOUNS ARRANGED INTO 120 PAIRS TO REPRESENT A VARIETY OF JUDGED RELATIONSHIPS) AND THEN TO STUDY THESE PAIRS EXTENSIVELY IN A VARIETY OF EXPERIMENTAL TASK SITUATIONS. PAIRED-ASSOCIATES LEARNING AND VERBAL DISCRIMINATION LEARNING SCORES WERE DETERMINED IN TWO EXPERIMENTS. THE INTEREST WAS IN ACHIEVING A STABLE SCORE FOR EACH PAIR. TO DO THIS A GROUP STUDY-TEST PROCEDURE WAS DEVELOPED AND USED WITH APPROPRIATE MINOR CHANGES IN BOTH EXPERIMENTS. EACH PAIR APPEARED IN FIVE DIFFERENT 60-ITEM LISTS. EACH LIST WAS PRESENTED TO AN INDEPENDENT GROUP OF SUBJECTS FOR THREE TRIALS. THE LEARNING TASK SCORES WERE CORRELATED WITH ALL OF THE VARIABLES DESCRIBING ASPECTS OF THE STIMULUS MATERIAL. THE MAJOR INTEREST WAS IN COMPARING THE PATTERNS OF CORRELATION FOR THE TWO EXPERIMENTS. SEVERAL MAJOR DIFFERENCES WERE FOUND. PAIRED-ASSOCIATE PERFORMANCE CORRELATES SUBSTANTIALLY WITH THE MEASURES OF DIRECT ASSOCIATION WHILE VERBAL DISCRIMINATION PERFORMANCE CORRELATES NEAR ZERO. THE GENERAL CONCLUSION IS THAT PROPERTIES OF THE STIMULUS MATERIAL PLAY VERY DIFFERENT PARTS IN THE TWO TASKS. (AMM)

The eight articles in this volume reflect the increased tendency in recent years to consider problems of language acquisition and language pathology in the context of basic research and theory. They also reflect the two major approaches to language development: the transformational-linguistic approach which puts its emphasis on an innate biological component in language development, and the learning theory of approach which stresses the role of experience in language development. An introductory chapter by James H. Koplin outlines the aims and current status of applied psycholinguistics and is followed by a section on normal language processes which contains two articles: "Children's Development of Syntactic Control" by William J. Griffin, and "Research on Second-Language Learning" by Harlan L. Lane. The second section, devoted to language pathology, includes four papers: "Language Learning and Performance in the Deaf" by Richard L. Blanton; "Studies on the Grammar of Aphasics," Harold Goodglass; "Schizophrenic Language: A Disattention Interpretation," Rue L. Cromwell and Paul R. Dokecki; and "Environmental Factors and the Language Development of Retarded Children," Joseph E. Spradlin. The concluding chapter, by Sheldon Rosenberg, relates the articles to the major trends of theory and research in contemporary psycholinguistics. (DO)