Verbal learning

Professor Jung provides an overview of the problems, methods, theoretical formulations, and experimental evidence in contemporary verbal learning research. He presents selected material that is representative of the different central issues in the field rather than providing reviews of the research literature available on various topics. The author employs the transfer of training approach with emphasis on the interrelationships among the three main aspects of verbal learning: acquisition, retention, and transfer. Both learning and forgetting, states Professor Jung, occur in the context of previous learning. He describes both associationistic and cognitive approaches and cites evidence for each point of view. His position is that each approach can account for some phenomena better than the other so that both theories are tenable. A careful description of concepts and discussion of methodological considerations is provided in all sections. The topics included range from rote learning tasks, such as serial and paired-associate learning, to situations involving mediational mechanisms such as verbal concept tasks.