Brainerd, C. J., Howe, M. L., & Desrochers, A. (1980). Interpreting associative-learning stages. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Learning and Memory, 6(6), 754-765.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0278-7393.6.6.754
Two experiments examined how symmetrical difficulty factors affect stages of associative learning. Although it has been known for some time that 3-state Markov processes give a good account of paired-associate acquisition data, previous experiments have failed to provide a clear picture of how the learning parameters of such models react to changes in the stimulus and response terms of paired-associate items. Two symmetrical stimulus–response manipulations were studied—familiarity (Exp I) and concreteness (Exp II). In both experiments, learning parameters reacted in a qualitatively similar manner to the stimulus and response manipulations. This finding is consistent with the Gestalt hypothesis that paired-associate items are represented in memory as unitary traces rather than as separate stimulus and response traces. (26 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)