The Effects of List Similarity upon the Buildup of Proactive Inhibition with Chinese Letter, Kanji

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of list similarity on buildup of proactive inhibition by manipulating both within list similarity and between list similarity on acoustic property (Exp.1) and on figurative property (Exp.2) of Kanji. In Exp.1, 96 students were assigned to one of the four list conditions (see Table 1). Each list consisted of three Kanji letters. Under the S-S condition, all list in three trials consisted of Kanji letters from the same acoustic articulation. Under the S-D condition, two lists in adjacent trials consisted of Kanji letters from different acoustic articulation. Under the D-S condition, each list consisted of three letters each of which were selected from different acoustic articulation. Under the D-D condition, each consisted of three letters from unrelated acoustic articulations throughout the trials. Three items were presented simultaneously by the slide projector at a 2.5 sec. rate, which was followed by the distractor task (20 sec.). Then written recall test was given for 15 sec. After the third trial was over, final free recall test was required to write all items presented from 1st through 3rd trials. The main results were as follows: PI was not built up as a function of trials under the S-D condition, but PI was built up as a function of trials under the S-S, D-S and D-D conditions. The amount of PI was larger the S-S than the D-D and D-S conditions (see Fig. 1). The performance of final free recall test under the S-S, D-S and D-D conditions did not decrease as a function of trials (see Fig.2). In Exp.2, Ss were 96 students who did not participate at Exp.1. They were assigned of one of the same four list conditions as Exp.1. The lists of Exp.2 consisted of both within-list similarity and between list similarity by manipulated on the same radical of Kanji. The procedures were almost identical to Exp.1. The main results were as follows: In all list conditions, PI was built up as a function of trials at about the same level (see Fig.3). The finding that PI was built up under the S-D condition did not support our prediction. The performance of final free recall test under the all conditions did not decrease as a function of trials (see Fig.4). Our hypothesis that the build up of PI was due to both effectiveness of retrieval cue and discriminability of list items in the phase of retrieval was supported strongly for the acoustic similarity, but weakly for the figurative similarity of Kanji