Title of the Experiment: Isolation Effect in Serial Learning

(Von-Restorff Effect)

Statement of the problem: To study isolation effect in serial learning

Introduction Points

 What is Learning - Definition and Nature?

 Learning is defined as a relatively permanent change in behavior or knowledge that
occurs as a result of experience. It involves acquiring new information, skills, attitudes, or
preferences and can be influenced by various factors such as environment, motivation,
and reinforcement.

 What are the Types of Learning?

Classical Conditioning: Learning through association, where a neutral stimulus becomes

associated with a meaningful stimulus, eliciting a similar response.

Operant Conditioning: Learning through consequences, where behaviors are strengthened or

weakened by rewards or punishments.

Observational Learning: Learning by observing and imitating the behavior of others.

Cognitive Learning: Involves mental processes such as attention, memory, and problem-
solving.

 What are the Methods of Learning?

Serial Learning: Learning items in a specific order, such as memorizing a list of words in
sequence.

Paired-Associate Learning: Learning pairs of items, such as a word and its meaning, where
the recall of one item triggers the recall of its pair.

Anticipation Learning: Involves predicting the next item in a sequence based on prior items.
This method requires the learner to anticipate the next response in a series of stimuli.

Method of Anticipation

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Anticipation learning involves the learner predicting or anticipating the next stimulus or
response in a sequence. This method is used to reinforce memory and learning by engaging
the learner in active recall. For example, in language learning, a learner might anticipate the
next word in a sentence, reinforcing their understanding and memory of vocabulary and
grammar.

 What is the Serial Position Curve? Its Nature

The serial position curve represents the tendency of a person to recall the first and last items
in a series best, and the middle items worst. This curve typically shows a U-shaped pattern,
with high recall for items at the beginning (primacy effect) and end (recency effect) of the
list, and lower recall for items in the middle.

 What is the Primacy-Recency Effect?

The primacy-recency effect, also known as the serial position effect, refers to the
phenomenon where individuals tend to remember the first (primacy) and last (recency) items
in a series more effectively than those in the middle. The primacy effect occurs because the
first items are often more easily encoded into long-term memory, while the recency effect
occurs because the last items are still in short-term memory during recall.What is Isolation?

 Isolation effect.

Verbal learning started becoming respectable in fifties. The early literature on verbal learning
was reviewed by McGeoch (1942) in his classic book “The Psychology of Human Learning”.
There are four major methods or procedures that are used in the experimental laboratory to
study the phenomena - Serial learning, Paired associate learning, extended serial learning
and free recall. Herman Ebbinghaus (1885) initiated his experiments on serial learning. He
and the later researchers advanced “bowness and skewness are the salient features of serial
position curve but however as FAIGENBAUM and SIMON (1962) have pointed out taht
there are ways of distorting the shape of serial position curve. If one item is made clearly
distinct from other it will be learned much faster. If half the list is coloured and other half
black, the curve shows a large decrease in error on the last items of the red half of the list and
the first item of the black half. This had long being recognized by Von-Restorff (1933) and
this effect is known as Von-Restorff effect.

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Von-Restorff (1933) conducted a series of experiments that isolating an item against a
crowded or homogeneous background facilitates the learning of that isolated item. In her
experiment she used a list of 10 items, 9 numbers and one syllable or 9 syllables and one
number, the isolated members showed higher recall scores.

Even though before Von-Restorff many attempted this phenomena. But it was Von-Restorff
who attempted to give the explanation of this phenomena within Gestalts theoretical
framework using a concept of neural trace. Each item in a list sets a neural trace. The neural
trace of the isolated item stands as a figure against aggregated homogeneous neural traces,
the ground because of its distinctness and therefore is better retained.

PROPERTIES AND CHARACTERISTICS OF ISOLATION EFFECT

Most studies have demonstrated that the isolated list when compared with the control list
doesnot enjoy any superiority in overall learning. It seems that advantage occurring to an
isolated item is obtained at the experience of other items in the list.

INTERPRETATION OF VON-RESTORFF PHENOMENA

Common sense theory states that the isolation effect occurs because the subject noticed that
one item in the list is different from the rest.

 Surprise-novelty and attentions theory –

Green (1956) suggested that it was not the perceptual conditions which produced better
recall but rather it was the surprise aroused by being unexpectedly present with different
type of item. Green revised this thinking on Von-Restorff phenomena in 1958 and offered
the possibility that the ‘attention getting’ value of the structural change within a list was
responsible for the better recall of the isolation item.
Whereas Bertyna’s view about Von-Restorff phenomena was that by introducing novelty
into the stimulus situation the arousal level of the subject will be increased resulting in a
generally more efficient performance.
 Organization influence of isolation: organization processes exerts an important
influence on learning process. GLEITMAN (1957) claimed that Von-Restorff effect is
due to subject’s deliberate attempt to organize the material. GENSEN (1962) learning
item in serial list is not affected by isolation but order of learning of these items is
affected. The proponents do not elaborate on why such failure would lead to more rapid
learning.

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 Selective rehearsal of isolated items: learning explanation of isolation effect is that the
subject selectively rehearse the isolated item more and rehearses the other item in the list
less. The degree of rehearsal of an item depending upon both serial position and isolation
of items. The probability of an item will also depend on its serial position and isolation
more specifically (1) isolated item which appear in the beginning of each list should be
recalled with higher probability than the corresponding control items this because
selective rehearsal will lead to higher probability of being coded into long term store. (2)
isolated items in the middle of the list also be recalled in with higher probability than
corresponding control items. Again this is because of selective rehearsal will lead to
higher probability of being coded into long term store.
 Gestalt Explanation: Von-Restorff (1933) interpreted her results by the Gestalt
theoretical framework. The neural trace was the construct used to explain the isolation.
The neural trace of isolated item stand ad figure against aggregated homogeneous neural
traces the ground because of its distinctness.
 Mediation theory: ERICKSON (1903) hypothesized that the differentiation occurred at
the level of mediating responses without specifying the exact nature of these responses.
Increasing isolating by adding colour may have made mediating response more
discriminate or have increase the probability of its occurrence of both.
 Two stage theory of verbal learning: HOROULTZ in 1960 suggested that the isolation
effect appear chiefly as a result of its influence on the association stage. SAULTZ and
NEWMAN (1959) suggested that the facilitative effect of isolation occurs mainly during
response learning.
 Information processing theory of serial learning:the fundamental premises that
learning consists of establishing elementary process for manipulating symbols. One of the
postulate of the postulate of this theory is that the subject employs orderly and systematic
method of organizing the learning task using item with feature of uniqueness as anchor
point. The subject’s learning the syllables at the serial list will reduce demand on memory
by treating the ends of the list as anchor points and working towards the middle. This
explains primacy finality effect and the isolation effect making an item unique by
colouring against all the homogeneous item in the list gives us a status of an anchor to
coloured item and thereby facilitate its learning. It also explains the spread of isolation in
the adjacent items.
Hypothesis:
Isolated items are learned faster in Serial learning

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Design of the Experiment
Single Subject repeated measure design

Variables:

1. Independent Variables: Isolation – Present/Absent

2. Dependent Variables: Average number of correct responses for items
3. Control Variables:
 Association Value of NSS- 27%
 Number of NSS in each list-12
 Exposure time- 2sec/NSS

Operational Definition:

Isolation of items: The fifth and eighth item in the second list is coloured in different ink

Average number of correct responses: Average of total number of correct number of

responses first two, middle two isolated items and last two items

Apparatus & Material:

1. Memory Drum
2. Two lists of Non Sense Syllables (NSS) with equal association value (Preferably
27%) consisting 12 NSS each
3. Wooden Screen
4. Paper Pencil

Procedure:

Preparation :

The apparatus and material was checked, record tables were prepared.

Plan of the Experiment:

 Part I- Control Condition: Presentation of list A (Exposure time 2 Sec. for each
NSS) with method of anticipation till two consecutive errorless trials
 Part II- Experimental Condition: Presentation of list B (Exposure time 2 Sec. for
each NSS) with method of anticipation till two consecutive errorless trials

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Instructions and Precautions:

Subject was called inside the laboratory and rapport was established. As the experiment is
divided into two parts, fallowing instructions were given for each part.

“This is a learning experiment. A series of Non-sense syllables will be shown to you

through the window of this apparatus. A non-sense syllable is a combination of three letters
without any dictionary meaning. I want you to look at these syllables carefully and spell them
out loudly. After the list has been presented once, the syllables will be shown again, but this
time it will be your task to anticipate each syllable i.e. to spell it out before it appears in the
window. When the title of the list i.e. list A appears in the window, you are to spell out the
first syllable. If at all you fail to anticipate it correctly, then again when the syllable appears,
try to learn it.It will be followed by a dotted line, where you have to anticipate the second
syllable. In this way you have to anticipate each non-sense syllable sequentially through the
entire list. We will continue this procedure, till you can anticipate all the non-sense syllables
correctly on two consecutive trials.” The Experimenter takes care that the list of NSS should
not be shown to the S before the experiment starts.

After a break of five minutes similar instructions were given for the second part.

Conclusion

Design of the experiment was fallowed. Introspective report of the subject was taken and
after debriefing the S was allowed to go.

Questions for Introspective Report

1. General Reaction about the experiment

2. Which items were easier and why?
3. Which items were difficult to learning? Why?
Summary of tables
Table I –Shows subject’s responses in Control condition
Table II-Shows subject’s responses in Experimental condition
Table III- Shows Number of Correct Responses per nonsense syllable
Table IV- Shows Average number of Correct Responses

Analysis of Results

Record Table I- Control Condition

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 No. NSS Trials No. of
CR
1 2 3 4 5 n...
1
2
3
.
.
12

Record Table II- Experimental Condition

Similar table as above

Table III: Number of Correct Responses per nonsense syllable

Sr.no. Control Condition Experimental Condition

NSS Number of CR NSS Number of
CR
1
2
3
.
12

Table no. IV : Mean Correct Responses for first, middle and last two NSS

SEQUENCE Mean CR Mean CR

(Control Condition) (Experimental Condition)
1st+2nd NSS
5th +8th NSS
11th +12th NSS

Discussion

1. Purpose of the experiment

2. What is serial position curve?
3. What are the findings regarding list A i.e. control condition? What is the nature of
serial position curve under this condition, discuss with the help of graph no.1
4. What are the findings regarding list B i.e. Experimental condition? What is the nature
of serial position curve under this condition, discuss with the help of graph no.1
5. Compare both the serial position curves as well as bar graph and find out whether the
isolation effect was found or not.

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 Where ever necessary support the discussion with introspective report as well as
previous researches.

Conclusion

Whether the current results supporting the hypothesis?

Application Value: This experiment gives us a tangible view to recall and encode
stimuli. Hence, it is applicable in educational field as well as in day to day life.

References

 Deshpande, S.W. (1982). Isolation Effect in Verbal Learning. Indian Education

Review
 Egan, L. & Postman, J. (1992). Experimental Psychology : An Introduction. N.D.
Kalyani Publishers
 Kothurkar, V. &Vanarase, S. (1986). Experimental Psychology. N.D. : Eastern
 Morgan, King, Weisz & Scholper ( ). Introduction to Psychology. N.D. Tata
McGraw Hill
 Osgood, E.C. (1953). Methods and theory in Experimental Psychology
 Steven’s Handbook of Experimental Psychology (1988) Vol-2
 Experimental Psychology : D’Amato (for use of rational of NSS)

Graphs

1. Line Graph showing serial position curve for Control and Experimental Condition
(NSS on X axis against number of CR on Y axis)
14

12

10

8
Control
6 Experimental
4

0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

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2. Bar Graph with six bars for Control and Experimental Condition
Graph II Showing Mean CR in Control and Experimental Condition

14
12
10
8
Control
6 Experimental
4
2
0
Average 1 Average2 Average 3

List of Non-sense syllables with 27% association value

List A List B
QED PEH
GOK XOL
ZEC YAG
VUM ZAL
SHI YUL
WUT NAQ
XAF ZOD
BEH LOJ
CIH KIY
GOH GOX
KAZ FIW
LEB DUH

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 Title: Bilateral Transfer
Statement of the Problem: To measure the transfer from practicing a novel task with
preferred hand to performance of the same task with the non-preferred hand.
Introduction Points:
1. Define learning
2. What it transfer and its types
3. Cross education
4. Bilateral Transfer
5. Experimental Studies on bilateral transfer
Bilateral transfer has been demonstrated with the activities such as mirror tracing,
mirror aiming, ball tossing, etc.
In typical experiment on mirror tracing the subject’s task was to trace a star
pattern which was hidden from direct view. The tracing is done with the help of
the stylus by looking at the reflection of the pattern in the mirror. The beginner
has surprising difficulty with this task but improves rapidly.
This experiment was first introduced by Starch in 1910. A positive transfer effect
from right hand to left hand is usually observed in this experiment.
Ewert (1926) introduced a control group in his experiment which shown a net
grain from transfer.
Cook (1933) attached the tracing stylus to a sandal and found considerable
transfer from hand to foot.
Bray (1928) tried mirror aiming instead of mirror tracing in a transfer experiment.
Subject had to hit at a target with a pencil held in their hand. There was substantial
transfer effect from hand to foot and from foot to hand.
Hypothesis: Positive transfer will take place from a preferred hand to non-preferred
hand in terms of time and error.
Design of the Experiment:
Single subject pre-test post-test Design
Variables:
Independent Variable: Training given to preferred hand

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Dependent Variables: Time and error while performing the novel task with non-
preferred hand
Apparatus and Material:
Mirror tracing apparatus with error counter, stylus, paper pencil, stopwatch

Procedure
Preparation
The E connected the mirror tracing board, battery, error counter and stylus in such
as way that the counter clicks and records the errors when the stylus contacts the
edges of the star pattern. The E fixed the screen in such a way that the subject can
see the star pattern in the mirror but not directly.
Plan of the Experiment
Type of Test No. of Trials Hand Used Direction
Pre-test 01 Non-preferred Clock-wise
Training 08 Preferred Clock-wise
Post-test 01 Non-preferred Clock-wise

Instructions:
The subject was seated in front of the apparatus, stylus was placed at the starting
point of the starting point of the star pattern with subject’s non-preferred hand and
following instructions were given, “This is an interesting experiment. In this you
will have to trace grooved star pattern with the help of this stylus. The star pattern
is reflected in the mirror behind it. (E. pointed out). You have to trace the star
pattern by looking at the reflection in the mirror. Do not look at the star pattern
directly. In the first trial I will keep the point of the stylus at the starting point on
the star pattern and with your non-preferred hand you will have to trace the star
pattern. As soon as I say ‘start’, start tracing the pattern with the stylus without
touching the edges, as fast as possible until you come back at the starting point.
Then you will be given eight trials to trace the star pattern with your preferred
hand. Again in the last trial you will have to trace the star pattern with your non-
preferred hand.”
With these instructions the experimenter gives the ‘start’ signal to the subject.
Records time and errors per trial of the subject. Subject’s introspective report was

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 taken at the end of the experiment. Debriefing was done and the subject was
allowed to go.

Summary of tables:
Table I- Subjects responses in terms of time and errors with non-preferred and
preferred hand
Table II-Subject’s Saving score in terms of time and error from pre-test to post-
test
Record Table:
Table I
Type of test No. of trials Hand used Errors Time
(M.Sec)
Pre-Test 01 Non-preferred
Training 01 Preferred
Training 02 Preferred
Training 03 Preferred
Training .. Preferred
Training 08 Preferred
Post-Test 01 Non-preferred

Table II Shows subject’s saving in time and errors from pre-test to post-test
Type of test Errors Time
Pre-test
Post-test
Amount of saving
Percentage of saving

Amount of saving = Errors/ time of pre-test- Errors/ time of post-test

% of saving=Amount of saving/score of pre-test X 100
Graphs
1. Line graph showing errors per trial with Non–preferred & preferred hand.
(x=trials, y=errors)

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 180
160
140
120
100
non pref
80
preferred
60
40
20
0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
(One line for subject’s performance with preferred hand from trial no.2 to 9 and
one line (blue) with non-preferred hand from trial 1 to 10)
2. Line graph showing time per trial with non-preferred and preferred hand.
(x=trials, y=Time)

As above

3. Bar graph showing percentage of saving in terms of errors and time. (X axis Error
and Time bars as against percentage of saving on Y axis.)

Saving %
60
50
40 Saving %
30
20
10
0
Time Errors

Points for discussion

a. Purpose of the experiment
b. Type of transfer
c. How do the changes in time compared with the changes in error
scores?
d. Are there individual differences?
e. Discuss the subject’s results with the help of graph and treatment of
result. Support the discussion with introspective report.

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 Application Value:
The findings of this experiment have immense value for ‘formal discipline’.
The studies in this line have high application value in the field of education to develop
educational pattern and methods of teaching. This is also valuable in industries where
workers are required to work on latest machines.
References:
 Egan, L. & Postman, J. (1992). Experimental Psychology : An Introduction. N.D.
Kalyani Publishers
 Tinker & Russel. Journal of Experimental Psychology
 Woodworth, R.S.(1947) Experimental Psychology. N.Y. Holt

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